Nana

Nana to me is my sweet grandma who lived 2 minutes away from me when I was growing up.  She is the one whose recipe I'll be using to make my own Spaghetti sauce down here, because the stuff we had tonight made me nauseous.  I think I'm turning into some crazy pioneer lady because I'm realizing they don't have a lot of "convenience" foods.  Everyone just makes things from scratch.  Better for us, right?  Maybe I'll even lose a few pounds while I'm at it, because it'll take so long to make everything, I won't be eating round the clock!  I can dream...

Anyway, as soon as we got here, people started talking about "Nana's."  I quickly learned that they aren't grandma's-- they are maids.  Some people have Nanas that live with them, some have one that comes 5 days a week, some Chileans even have 3!  One to do the cooking, one to take care of cleaning the house, and one to take care of the kids.  Wow.  I thought it was silly...I don't need one of those-- Kate will be going to school, which just leaves me to teach Jake--that'll give me a TON more time than I ever had before.  But we quickly found out that Joe would be working PLENTY and if I ever needed anyone to watch the kids for me, so I could go help at school or go to appointments or if I needed someone to help me when maintenance people came to the house, it would be nice. (Service people NEVER come when they say they are going to.  So if they happen to show up while I'm off to pick Kate up from school, I'm out of luck until they feel like showing up again.)  

We decided to try and find a Nana for 2 days a week.  I figured that was plenty.  We found a WONDERFUL woman named Sandra and she comes on Mondays and Thursdays.  She helps me with my cleaning and ironing (YEAH!!!!!!!!  Joe's shirts have never looked better) and I can run errands with Jake when Luke is down for his 3 hour nap because I know someone is there.  DOUBLE YEAH!!!!!!!!!  I hate waking up the babe.  

I also get to practice my Spanish all day when she's here because she doesn't speak any English.  

We had a classic moment this week.  I was getting ready for my Spanish tutor to come over (doing some last minute homework), Luke was sleeping and Jake was showing Sandra one of his famous "pwojects."  He was going on and on in English about what it was and what it could do.  

Sandra said something back to him in Spanish.  He looked at her and just laughed and exclaimed, "I have no idea what you're saying."  

Almost peed my pants.  Wish I would say that once in a while.