Statues Run Really Fast

An addendum to the previous post: children have very little difficulty suspending their disbelief in the illogical or impossible. I should concede: L's mommy and li'l girl game has morphed somewhat into a new theme- that of monsters and heroes, good guys and bad guys. However, L is a liberal-minded girl, so monsters are not necessarily bad guys. Hence, one of her favourite games to play outside is the statue game. The statue game is quite simple: when L is tired of walking, she pretends to be a statue, symbolized classically by the British royal guard posture. Then she looks at me and prompts, "You say, 'Look mom, a statue!' Okay?!" Something in me cries out against this potential loss of my independence so I have never yet obliged her by saying those exact words, though what difference it makes I have no idea. "Oh my goodness," I respond with amazement, "It's a talking statue! Weird!" By this time, L is re-energized and ready to move again, so she grins and proposes, "Let's have a race!" "A race with a statue?" "Yep, cuz statues run really fast," L informs me seriously. "Yeah, statues run really fast," I agree. Did I just say that? Oblivious to my psychological dissonance, Lauren happily continues prodding me, "And then you go, 'Hey mom, the statue is following us.'" "AAUUUGGGHHHHH! That statue is following me! I can't get away! What does it want??!" I cry in angst, to L's delight. And when eventually the talking, grinning, fast-running statue catches her terrified prey (me), she invites me over to her house for a cup of tea. What the?!...Where am I??? Well obviously I'm in the middle of a Get Fuzzy comic strip. I kind of enjoy the surrealism, though. I imagine Jesus' disciples must have had similar feelings when he'd do things like cook them breakfast on the beach after they had watched him get tortured to death and buried. Come along, Faye, and embrace the weirdness. Yes, God.

The Nanny Club

Contrary to popular belief, this is not a long, blunt object I take with me to work to assist in child-wrangling. Nor is it something hard I feel the need to beat my head with repeatedly during the day. Actually, it refers to the fact that I have joined the ranks of nannies attending every family's children in the well-manicured blocks of Calgary. To my surprise, nannying is proving to be the highlight of my week. I care for two very cute, very energetic, very imaginative girls, ages 3 and 5, about 1-3 days per week...and I am sure this is God's recompense for all the days my mother got a phone call from my elementary wondering why I was an hour late to school after lunch again. Much of the time, I feel like I am losing my mind. Especially by 2:30 when L, the three year old, is prodding me to say my line in our mommy and li'l girl game for the 27th time that day. It doesn't matter that we are supposed to be colouring now, because "This is the mommy crayon, and this is the daddy crayon, and this is the baby crayon. You be the daddy crayon and the mommy crayon and I'll be the baby crayon. So the baby is hiding over here and the mommy crayon says, 'Where's the baby?' Okay?!!" She's not really asking if I want to do that; rather, L's graciously reminding the idiot nanny of what she's somehow forgotten to do even after three and a half months' practice and today's rehearsal at lunch in which, "This [piece of celery] is the mommy, and this [piece of cheese] is the daddy, and these [cherry tomatoes] are the babies. You be the mommy and this baby and I'll be the daddy and this baby. And the mommy celery says, 'Where's the baby?!' Okay?!!" "Yeah, sure, okay. Heeey, how about we take the dog for a walk?" I wheedle, as if changing the scenery will somehow distract her from her favourite schema. Unphased, she replies, "No thanks. Let's go play the restaurant game!" The restaurant game is a variant of the mommy and li'l girl game in which one of us is a restaurant chef and the other is the mommy, who has at least 2 baby doll girls with her who like donuts and fried chicken but not turnips. "No, your mom asked us to take the dog for a walk, so we're going to go for a walk," I insist with a voice that cleverly hides my desperation in grown-up firmness. Trumped by the mommy card, L acquiesces that we must go, but isn't above a little more bargaining; "Can I ride my bike?" "No, not today. It's too icy." "Can we go to the park?" "Sure, we can go to the park." "HOORAY! Then you be the mommy, and I'll be the little girl, and Rosie [their uber-friendly little dog] can be our baby puppy!...." GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!! So how did I get myself into this predicament? Well, per usual, it's God's fault. When I finished last semester's winter classes, I fully intended to go straight into hunting for a full-time job within walking distance of my house doing something directly related to family counselling. I applied to every teen group home agency in Calgary. Not even an e-mail of interest in response. I took my resume to my friend, who helped me edit it so it looked more professional and tried again. Nothing. I started applying for other things: relief child development workers, high school career counsellors, school-family liaison workers, psychologist assistant positions... I couldn't understand my lack of success. Everyone I knew already in those agencies insisted they were desperate for workers and would hire anyone breathing who applied and didn't have a record of pedophilia. Fellow class-mates informed me I was probably over-qualified for many of the positions I was applying for. What the deuce? So one day, more than two months into the summer when I was bemoaning my continued part-time employment as a glorified house-keeper to my friend Melanie, with whom I was hanging out while she nannied for her "second family," Melanie suggested I try becoming a nanny. "I make $18 an hour to make crafts, drink their expensive lattes, watch moto-cross and the Backyardigans, eat fresh fruit, put the kids to bed, then search the web for my ideal tattoo for hours. You should try it- with your education you could easily be making as much as me." So she set me up on www.canadiannannies.com. Two weeks later, I had found my ideal family- part-time work with two preschoolers, needed on the days I wasn't at school, the position conveniently to commence after Nolan & Sherry's wedding and Jen's move to Strathmore. The first meeting was with just the parents at a Starbucks. Uncharacteristically early, I sat out in my car and prayed, "God, I don't want to do something meaningless. If this is the family you want me to work with, then please make it abundantly clear to both me and them at this meeting." The meeting went well. Their descriptions of their girls were hauntingly similar to how Melanie and I have described ourselves and our relationship when we were much younger, the schedules looked like a match, and the family lived within 15 minutes drive of both my house-keeping job and my school. But, most intriguing, they were fascinated with my experience as a summer missionary at a bible camp. "I think that's great," A (the mom) told me earnestly, "One of the reasons we wanted a nanny was so that our girls would be exposed to another worldview other than our own. We're not Christians ourselves, but we have some good friends and family who are. I think it'd be neat if you'd tell the girls some bible stories, or pray with them at lunch. It's something they wouldn't get from us." You really can't get a more obviously open door than that. Okay, God, I guess I'm going to be a nanny. At times my job is surreal. I get paid $15 an hour to eat food made by one of the best chefs in Calgary, drink Starbucks coffee, jump on a trampoline, go swimming at the local leisure centre, visit Heritage Park, colour pictures, play at the park, make talking cookies out of playdough, run with two girls and a dog surrounded by woods, wild grasses, hills, a creek, and the mountains at sunset or sunrise, sing camp songs, read Robert Munsch tales, go tobogganing, make snow reindeer, and tell the girls stories about my childhood and God. Moments of pure joy, of absolute beauty. Admittedly, I have found it necessary for the sake of my sanity to limit the girls to telling each of my stories once per day, but I am not exaggerating when I tell you that I see and hear God every time I see or hear the girls. It all began when God started nudging me to at least thank Him for our food when I was making lunch for L. So I did. "That's a funny word you just said," L commented. "Which word?" I asked, puzzled. "That word that you said just now," L said, as if that made everything obvious. Oh wait. "You mean, 'Jesus'?" "Yeah, that one. That's a funny word." This lead to my first, somewhat clumsy explanation of who Jesus is. It was also the first time L ate her entire lunch within a decent amount of time with no prompts, bribes, threats, persuasion, or cajoling whatsoever. Our next lunch together, after I prayed, L asked, "Who's Jesus?" This time, I gave her the background of why Jesus came to earth- beginning with the story of Creation and The Fall. She was hooked. For weeks afterward, she would ask, "Who's Jesus?" every day I saw her. She even began asking her mother, who, being something of a religious pluralist, seemed a bit disconcerted, much to my fiendish delight. On one of the rare occasions when I was working in the evening and therefore looking after both girls, L innocently asked her favourite question. So I sucked it up and told her the story again. And, as God says, it was good. L's older sister, C had never heard it before. Now they are both hooked. They ask for the story when we drive in the car, when we eat snacks or meals, when we go for walks. To avoid either losing my mind or disobeying God's firm nudges to keep letting them come unto Me and hindering them not (Matt. 19:14; Mark 10:14; Luke 18:16), I slightly change the story each time, adding a bit more to pull the stories of Creation, the Fall, the Virgin Birth, the Crucifixion and Resurrection, and their immediate lives together. I have never been good at evangelism. This is probably both a personality thing (I'm not especially out-going) and a reaction against poorly conducted evangelism (though that's not a good excuse- the cure for bad theology and evangelism is not no theology or evangelism). Well, this time I have no excuse. I was given full permission to speak by the girls' parents. I have a warm relationship of trust built with the girls that lends credulity to my stories of faith. So I tell the story. Over and over and over again. And consequently, God is revealing to me what Jesus meant when he said, "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 18:3). Children like repetition. Lots and lots and lots of repetition. See above. Children like asking questions. Lots and lots and lots of questions. More tenacious than a news reporter, they want to know when, what, why, who, and how: "Are we there yet? Do you know...? What's that? How long is five minutes? Why? Where's the beetle's house? When can we eat? Where is your mommy and papa? How do I say that word? Does your mommy let you have candy? Why not? How do you make a three? Is God here having supper with us right now? Can you sit on God's head?" Children passionately and optimistically seek the time, attention, and affection of their parents and parent-like figures in their lives: "I made this picture for you, mommy! I'm helping, daddy! Will you please play with me? Can I help clean? Watch what I can do- I can hop on one foot. See?! Can you please read me a story? Look at the necklace I made for you. Will you carry me? Guess what?! I got all my spelling words right!" Children are incredibly trusting: "Catch me! I'm jumping down the stairs! Push me higher! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha- swerve the car again!" ...but only of people they know who have proved trustworthy: "You can't talk to a stranger." And the nanny club continues. Last week I set my room-mate, Jaz, up on canadiannannies.com- she's now enjoying the ego-boosting experience A terms "nanny-poaching" of having middle to upper class suburban moms run each other's white, black, or silver coloured Volvo, VW, or BMW off the road to attain Jaz' services for their li'l shining stars. And if the price is right, Jaz may soon join the club of getting paid $16 per hour to take a nap, go for a walk to the park, and drink other people's expensive teas and coffees. Amen.