Being a Super Nanny

     Nannying has taught me a lot about myself. Some things I've learned are just sad and won't benefit my life at all, they definitely won't benefit yours but I'm going to tell you anyway. I've seen a lot of Nick Jr., PBS Kids, and Disney Junior lately. Here's the run down: Nick Jr. has the best shows- my favorite is the Bubble Guppies, there's just something about child mermaids going into space with their goldfish teacher that i really love. Nick Jr. also has Team Umizoomi, I hate this show because I get into it way too easily. "Hey Umi Friend! You're good at shapes, will you help us find the key that opens the treasure box?" You know what, I am pretty good at shapes. I could probably help them find the right key. We are Umi Friends after all. "Use the circle!" Disney Junior is only good for the Little Einstein's, you have to turn it off before the Imagination Movers get ahold of you-you can't recover from that. As for PBS Kids, I try to avoid that channel all together.
     Coloring has become one of my favorite activities. I get really into it, sometimes too much. Edie will get out a coloring book and tell me which side to color and she'll do the other side, but halfway through she decides that mine looks better then hers and she'll start to color my side. I've got to say, it gets real frustrating to see Aladdin become a blue skinned Blonde. I'm getting better though. I bought myself a coloring book of my own so when I get home I can color freely. I also discovered Moon Dough, which is like Play Doughs cool older cousin. It's awesome-i could play with it all day long...sometimes I do.
     I've developed a passive-aggressive parenting style that may or may not (probably not) be helpful. "Whoa, this is a little bit awkward. I feel like I told you guys to put your shoes on, but then I went to get you juice and now im back and i still don't see your shoes on...so??" I also find myself using a lot of Mom phrases. "What did I say about..." "These lego's aren't going to put themselves away." "Everyone go potty now, we aren't stopping again." "Three more big girl bites." and my favorite, "guys, what am i going to say about this?"
     I've also learned that i'm really terrible at video games. I always kind of knew it but now its very apparent. Josh gets really frustrated with me because we lose whenever im on his team. The other day we were playing Wii Ski and he made me go through ski school because "its not fun to play with you when you don't know whats going on." Im getting a little better though-i still don't get to be first controller but i think we'll get there. They're just generally smart kids, today Edie explained Lucky Charms to me. "See these marshmallows, they are the charms. And that other stuff is the luckys." Who knew?
     I have a lot of fun with these kids, even when they decided they "aren't my friend anymore."or ask "when are you leaving?" but especially when we're snuggling on the couch watching Tangled or reading books in their beds. And every once in a while I get a "Nicole, I hope you're staying for dinner because i really like you." from Josh and it makes me smile- The other day he told me we were friends because we both like to talk. he said it was "right down our alley."-there really is nothing like being accepted by a seven year old.

     They make me very happy and I love 'em!