Finding help

I've lived in Plainfield for almost 6 years when we moved from the Northside of Chicago.  In the city it was easy to find a nanny, you just hung out at the corner park and you could score at least 10 qualified candidates by eavesdropping on the other nannies conversations.  Since being in Plainfield we have had at least 5 nannies.  I'm not sure why it is so hard to find good help in the burbs, but it is.  I pay well, my kids are well behaved, but for some reason it seems impossible to find someone that actually wants to follow the rules.  I've had nannies that showed up late constantly, nannies who watched other people's kids at the same time they watched mine without actually telling me.  The best nanny I had was a college student who unfortunately had to go back to school. So here I am again in search of someone that can spend 15 hours a week pretending to be me.

I travel for my job, yes I know some of the stay at home moms are probably thinking what a terrible mom I am right now.  I've endured the many looks at the school functions when they find out I spent the last week in California for work.  The thing is, even though I travel for my job, the rest of the time I work from home so I am here and present in my kids lives more than someone that works locally and never travels.  My own mother travelled for work and I happen to think I turned out pretty well!

So...finding a new nanny is my new challenge because since summer I have been trying to do it all by myself.  My husband works late every night so essentially I am a single mom.  I do the running to activities, the hours of homework every night, the doctors appointments, the teacher's conferences...like I said I do it all.  One thing I have learned is that doing it all by yourself when you happen to NOT be a single parent can cause quite the resentment.  So, I am admitting I need help which that confession in itself kind of disqualifies me for super herodom.  Maybe if I had a bigger cape....