I'm Fired

We hired a housekeeper/nanny type lady last week. As you may or may not recall, I made an attempt at home organization and cleanliness sometime ago. I bought a book entitled, "The Sidetracked Home Executives: From Pigpen to Paradise." Let me tell ya, my pigpen was in paradise and so it stayed a pigpen. Really, who wants to play games with to do lists and dusting ceiling fans while there is a beach just walking distance from your house?

Anyway, I'm a miserable housekeeper. So there, I said it. I most likely will never improve and I am absolutely done trying. I've found that my 30s are my stage of self discovery. Every day I'm learning things about myself and happily accepting them. I now readily admit that I suck at cleaning or keeping things clean or organizing. I couldn't organize two green jelly beans in white paper bag, if ever there were the need to do such a thing.

And so, with some reluctance (as I am as frugal as I am slovenly), we hired Almin (say "all meen"). She's a beautiful little Filipina with a soft voice and a mean scrub. She sings gospel hymns as she works and responds to my requests with "Yes, ma'am" which sounds like she's saying, "Yes, Mom." She cleans the whole house, top to bottom -- dusting, vacuuming, laundry, toilets, she even takes out the garbage.

But wait! There's more!! She also organizes and unpacks. On her very first day, after she had finished ridding the kitchen of the weekend's fossilized scrambled eggs and petrified bacon, I showed her into my room where there were about six suitcases filled with clothes. Clothes of every sort, both mine and Mike's mixed in with Reilly Kate's and Roman's, summer, winter, outgrown and worn out. It was my nightmare and it had been sitting on my bedroom floor since we had arrived.

"If you could maybe... like... sort it... uhhhh... and maybe fold it and... ummmm... put it away... well... that would be great," I stammered quite uncomfortably.

"Yes, ma’am."

The next thing I know, I'm walking on the hardwood floor -- the freshly mopped hardwood floor -- of my bedroom. The kids drawers are organized and filled to the tops. The clothes are all neatly folded -- even the underwear (I have never folded a pair of underwear in my life, opting instead for the jumble drawer style of storing the undergarments). It is as if all my household thoughts and home improvement plans, all of my domestic ambitions, had somehow come to fruition. It would have taken me weeks to do all that. But Almin, she can whip it out in hours.

And that's not all! There's still more!! She also baby sits. The children absolutely adore her, running around after her as she sings to them while doing my chores. They unfold the laundry she is trying to put away and she just smiles at them. She stops what she is doing to read them books and play Candyland and tell them bible stories. You see, she too is a mother. Her children, a daughter Reilly Kate's age and a son Roman's, are in the Philippines with her parents. I am sure she misses them terribly and my children benefit from that directly with her doting. It is really quite amazing to watch.

In fact, on Almin's first day with us, Reilly Kate was flatly refusing to get dressed for school. "I don't want to go to school," she would yell. "I don't need to go to school. I don't want to be anything when I grow up!" (this, by the way, is repeated every damn school day since we got here, a topic for another post) She was screaming at me so loudly that Mike sent her to her room, where Almin was sorting out and unpacking the children's clothes. In a few minutes, a much calmer, happier, nicely dressed and perfectly coifed Reilly Kate emerged.

"I'm going to go to school. Miss Almin says I must so I can be a dolphin trainer and a mommy and a runner and a firefighter," she said.

That Almin also wrangles rebellious four year olds with nasty mouths and foul dispositions. That right there is worth whatever we're paying her. If only I could get her here every morning before school. And then again after school. At dinner time. And bed time. Oh, and sometimes in the middle of the night, too.

So just to review all that I am getting with this Almin: she cleans, scrubs, scours, washes and dries, folds, organizes, puts away, mops, dusts, starches and presses, hangs, darns and sews, combs, braids, soothes and cajoles, sings, plays, rocks, and teaches bible stories. She's all that and a bag of chips... er... sayookong... or balut.

At dinner that first day, Mike took a look around at our sparkling, unpacked apartment and then gazed upon our happy, contented children. You could just tell he was beyond pleased. And then he looked at me, and doing his best Donald, he said, "You're fired."

And so there it is, folks. I've been replaced. I'll be flying out sometime soon, heading for the Philippines where I hope to open a titty bar on the beach somewhere. It'll be called "Udderly Heather's," of course, and our house specialty will be a White Russian served up by yours truly. Look me up.