My little girl....

Well, after 8 years, the time has finally come that I had to say good-bye to being the Kerr Kid's nanny. Over the last two years, I was able to gradually let go of the boys since they were getting older and in school full time, but I have had Kaelah since day one. I was the first person that her mom got ahold of at their house (dad was busy getting the boys to school) and told me with absolute shock (and maybe a little fear) that "it" was a GIRL! After 4 boys, she just didn't think it was possible that she would have a girl. I saw her two hours later and pretty much fell in love right on the spot. She was born on a Friday and Monday I was back to work as usual. Of course her mom was home on maternity leave, but I took care of her while her mom caught back up on some badly needed sleep. Then six weeks later she was off to work and Kaelah was my responsibility. I remember being frustrated many times that this baby had interrupted my easy going job....suddenly, my time wasn't my own any more and I had a TON more work to do, but when it came right down to it, I was in love with a very FAT, short, baby girl with one long strand of hair at the tippy top of her head.

She stayed pretty fat till she was a year old. (Look at those rolls!) She looked like the Michelin Man! :-) The older she got the more fun I had with her. It didn't hurt that she turned into a beautiful little toddler.

Everywhere we went people would stop me and tell me how beautiful she was. It was almost ridiculous. Rhoda and I would just laugh, because we heard it so often. Her one strand of hair grew into a headfull of adorable curls, which was a lot of fun for me, since I have always wanted to have curly hair myself.

Her hair was long enough to braid at 14 months. And the miracle is that she would sit still and watch the wiggles long enough for me to do it. As she got older and her brothers went to school full time, it became just the two of us, and we had a lot of fun together. I remember she asked to do something with me one night and I told her I couldn't because I had to work, she looked at me and with astonishment in her voice said, "You WORK?!!" I laughed and explained to her that she was my work. She was like, "Nuh uh!" She thought we just hung out for the fun of it every day! (which to be truthful, we did even though I got paid to do it) That is just how life was, she woke up and Holly was there five days a week and we hung out. :-) Gotta love it.

So as you can tell, I became very attached. At this point in my life she is the closest thing to having a child of my own. It is hard to believe that I will love my own kids more than I love this little girl. For me, she has been that one source of unconditional love in the human world that every one wants. She is always my biggest fan. She loves me no matter how grumpy I get, she's seen me in my best of times and in my worst of times and she just keeps on loving me. She watched me deal with a broken heart and just hugged me tight and told me she loved me. Some people might think that is bad, that I let her see some of that emotion, but I couldn't really stop it, and she learned that relationships aren't always as they appear to be on Hannah Montana, and that it is ok to be sad, but that you can survive it and be a better person when it is all said and done. And then I was there as her parents got divorced and she moved into a new house. She handled it like a pro.

In a nanny's world, it can get pretty lonely, since all you have to talk to day after day are kids, but with KK, it was like having another little adult there. She caught on to so many things that I had no idea she would understand. If she heard me talking about things on the phone, she would think about it and ask questions, everything from politics to death. When my Grandpa had a heart attack, she went to school and requested prayer for him, and told me about it later. I was so amazed at her ability to understand and empathize with such things. As I go on without her there every day, I am going to miss her a lot, but we will still see each other a lot. As her mom says, I am about the only "family" she has close. So as time marches on, we learn to let go of how things were and accept how they are now. As her mom said, this isn't really good-bye, it is just a different schedule. A schedule that will take some getting used to, but I know that we will stay connected always, and that makes me happy.