Nanny&Me

I am sitting on my couch buzzing with emotion as ideas flood my mind about what the early days with our new nanny (Genette) will look like. The anticipation is huge! She will be moving her whole life, arriving in a new country, acclimating to a new culture, and way of life. We will be welcoming her into our home, and adjusting to life with a new person in our family unit. It is easy at a time like this to feel overwhelmed; there is so much to do, so much to plan for, and above everything, I hope that she is a wonderful fit with our family and will be happy with us for many years to come.

We thought long and hard about what we wanted the early days following her arrival to look like. How much time would she need to rest after the flight? How many activities should we plan? How do we encourage family bonding and closeness between her and our son? What sort of orientation should we do?

Arrival

We are T-minus 20 days until Genette's arrival in Canada! We so wanted to have her fly in during the day so that we (my husband, son, and I) could all greet her at the airport with a sign, but unfortunately there are not many flight options. We wanted to fly her with a familiar airline (Air Canada) because I had heard horror stories of people being turned away when they didn't have physical proof of payment (the actual transacted credit card etc) so I called Air Canada ahead of time and ensured that this wouldn't be an issue. I also knew that the safest bet was to have her do a 1-stop flight with layover in Vancouver as there are a number of restrictions with regards to what countries she would be permitted to stop in. In the end, the only flight that made sense was one that arrives at 1am (the other option was a 6am arrival with a 7-hour layover in Vancouver and this flight only has a 1-hour layover).

We have hired Logan's babysitter to come over the night that Genette arrives. We have prepared her that we may not be home until 3 or 4am depending on customs etc, but she was more than happy to oblige which is very sweet. We are so excited to be able to go and greet Genette with bells and whistles. We also feel that it will be good for Logan to meet her for the first time in his home where he is most comfortable.

Rest and Recuperation

Genette will arrive at 1am Wednesday (well technically Thursday but you get it), and we will give her  Thursday and Friday to just sleep, rest, relax, and be. I will work from home these two days and our babysitter (who is filling in, in the interim) will continue to watch Logan.

Weekend Fun and Family Activities

It is very important to our family that we take the time to get to know Genette and to demonstrate to her that we value her arrival and her place in our family. We will commence family fun on Saturday (separate post with itinerary to come), not that every day isn't family fun day in our lives ;-) and will continue this through until Tuesday. We will host my family here on Sunday evening for family dinner (which we do every week at my parent's house) so that everyone can meet Genette and get to know her. We haven't decided on our family fun activities yet but are considering: showing her around the city (cool cafes, neat neighbourhoods and the like), a nice meal or two out, Centre Island, and maybe a movie marathon (for some down time).

I have had some families ask me about the weekend, "but isn't that her time off?" people have asked. Certainly moving forward Genette will have weekends off, but in the early days of arrival, an "on/off" culture is not what we want to instil. While I definitely value the boundary between work and life for Genette (as I have worked as a live-in caregiver in the past too), I also think that in the beginning, there should be a commitment from us and from her to prioritize getting to know one another. Her whole first week with us will be paid and she won't be working because we'll be too busy having family fun! so I figure making the assumption (which I have also communicated) that she'll want to spend the weekend with us upon her arrival isn't far fetched, but I'd love to hear from you if you have a different take on things. :-)

Orientation

Fortunately when it comes to orientation, I have a lot of flexibility in my job. In her first two weeks of caring for our son, I will work mostly from home so that she can shadow me on and off, and I can be around to answer questions etc. I feel that it will allow for a very natural transition with regards to how much she takes on.

So far we've covered 1) arrival - Wednesday night, 2) rest/recoup - Thursday/Friday, 3) Family Fun - Saturday-Tuesday, and that brings us to Wednesday which is when Genette will begin caring for Logan. I will work from home on Wednesday and she will shadow me (I will work off hours when Logan is napping and after he goes down) to maximize the time that I spend with him and Genette. This work-from-home/shadowing will continue through to Friday. I will have a few meetings that I will attend out of the home which will give Genette the opportunity to be around Logan on her own and begin to develop her own rhythm. For the next week or two, I will continue to weight more work-from-home time than office time in order to be around for support as Genette gets comfortable.

When shadowing begins, I will also have some formalized orientation practices in place (post to come), and will be using our orientation binder. I will implement a two-week orientation phase that will begin and end with a review of the orientation binder. I call this 'wrap-around' training because it starts with information review (the binder), and ends in the same place after providing the context (I will delve deeper into this in the post that is to come).


We are so excited to embark on this next chapter of our lives. I hope all of the planning and preparations ensure a smooth transition!