There’s good news in the Hamanneggs universe. Pam Hamann, Steve’s wife, is preggers. Great news. I can hear every Hamann wife across the country chanting, “Please be a girl, please be a girl, please be a girl…”
The only bummer is now that Pam is going to be lugging around her new little person, she won’t be able to be Elijah’s full time babysitter anymore. So that left us with the task of replacing someone who was bound by law to put up with our neurotic Elijah-isms. “Uh, we prefer that Elijah receive one spoonful of fruit for every three point five spoonfuls of vegetables. Oh, and he may listen to Wilco for ten minutes only after he’s listened to eight Beatles songs…”
After a short Craigslist search, we set up an interview with a Romanian woman named “Marianna.” I like to think of myself as a semi-enlightened person who rejects stereotypes. But all morning Saturday I had visions of a grey shawl wearing hunched woman, clutching a hunk of bread in one hand and a bag full of stolen babies in the other. She’d shuffle into our house and cry, “I sell baby for kerosene, yes?”
Well, surprise surprise, Marianna ended up being a lovely woman who speaks perfect English and was very sweet with Elijah. She knows CPR, has raised countless children, hers and other people’s. Her husband is a wealthy contractor (as evidenced by our googling her house) and she loves dogs. Especially big black spazzy ones named “Grover.”
The only hiccup was when she told us a story of how her last babysitee used to refer to her as “Mommy #1” and his real mother as “Mommy #2.” She saw Diana’s lip quiver and said that would never happen with Elijah.
So after trying every background check known to man (Homeland Security will no longer accept my calls), we decided to hire Marianna as Eli’s official nanny! So expect lots of Marianna stories involving spoonfuls of sugar making medicine do something.
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