A good friend of mine (Court from the Mpls) grew up with what she called "Summer Girls" nannying for her. Her parents lined up said summer girl to take care of her and explore and seek new adventures. She became very close with her summer girl over the years and is still friends with her to this day. In fact, they are the best of friends. This is how I envision my girls growing up with their Summer Girl, Nanny Natalie (as they call her, Natty).
When my VP at work referred me to her friends' daughter as a summer nanny I called her within minutes of receiving her phone number. I heard this young lady was responsible, hard working and fun loving. I was able to meet and interview Natalie this past Spring and knew she immediately had the qualities we were looking for in a nanny; adventurous, enthusiastic (she was a cheerleader, girl after my own heart) and extremely responsible. I hired her within days. And then we waited for the summer to roll around.
The girls left school and began their summer with Natty. As the days and weeks went on, the activities and explorations were new and fun and the threesome we left at home each day fell into an amazing summer routine. Pools, parks, museum, zoo, fairs, feeding ducks, tie dying, the list goes on and on. Early on Natalie introduced the girls to her parents and the girls would rave about how much they loved Natty's mom and dad (Granny Panties and Mr. Dave respectfully). I was more than thrilled that Natalie had parents that loved my girls and welcomed them into their lives (office visits, lunch dates, garage saling, playing with Natty's childhood toys at their house). Felt like the girls had a new set of grandparents to love on them.
Over the course of the summer we could see new "Natty-isms" in our girls; they learned how to say "IU" with the coordinating arm movements, whenever they smell a dirty diaper they now say "PU Purdue!", they have many new facial expressions including the "attitude" face and they also can sing almost every song on the pop / top 40 radio stations. The three girls spent so much time together and fell so much in love that it seemed as if Natalie had been a part of our lives for much longer than 3 months. And we knew saying goodbye to her would be difficult.
Attitude face (this is now as popular in our house as the excited face used to be):
Another lunch date with Granny Panties (Miss Kay) & Mr. Dave. Love.
Picking blueberries
Natalie's last week went out with a bang: a huge trip to the Fair with her mom, the girls' first manicure among all their normal shenanigans. Natty's last day she shared with us a 30 minute video of the 400-ish photos and many home videos she captured over the summer. I was laughing and crying...and so was Natalie. The video meant so much to me...and was so touching that she took the time every day to capture their moments. And then to turn those moments into an amazing montage for Mike and I to watch (and the girls to relive). The goodbye was bittersweet; we had an amazing time with her all summer but we know we'll see her again. Real soon. We plan to visit Natalie down at IU and we know she'll be back often to visit her parents. The goodbye was just a "see you later" in my opinion. We will miss her dearly, but the girls are excited to get back to their buddies at school and this is a big year for Natalie at school too (she turns 21 this year!!!). Good times ahead.
Thank you, Natalie, for a summer better than we all could have imagined. Thank you for loving our girls and welcoming them into your own family. You far surpassed our expectations and we were so fortunate to have found you! Best of luck at IU and we'll see you sooooon! xoxo
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