Nanny Saga - the conclusion (hopefully)

Hopefully this will be my last entry about our "nanny" - term used loosely to describe individual that was retained by us to keep watch over g. Yesterday was a fairly average day. I came home from work. G got the job that he has been applying for, so we had planned a little post-birthday/new job celebration. He had called ahead to the nanny telling her that she would need to make any dinner preparations for us. The evening was proceeding as usual with a festive undertow. I was thinking of going to one of our favorite restaurants in Manhattan for dinner and maybe pick up some groceries in Chinatown. It was g's bedtime. We started the sleep sequence and as G took g in for her stories and Barney sons, I went to turn off recording for the day.

Since I figured that I had at least a few minutes before G was done and g was asleep, I decided to review the nanny cam video. The day was pretty uneventful. So I decided to look through Friday's video.

Again the first few clips didn't seem any different from the general indifference that g gets daily until I got to IT. The lady was sitting on the floor. g was clutching onto her puppy, trying to get her attention. g tried to snuggle up to her, but the lady seems to be more engrossed with her singing than bothering with a kid. g continued trying to get close to her. She eventually fell over with a little "nudging". The lady then patted her on the butt. It was a pat but not a very affectionate one. g was annoyed and tried to hit her back. The lady did it again. g tried to hit her again but the lady deflected the swats. The lady then started "flicking" g in the face. She kept doing it even when g started to cry. It upset g so much that aside from crying, she went to the door and started calling for her daddy and then her mommy. The lady did NOTHING to soothe g. She continued singing,laughed then went to the kitchen to get a drink. This went on for more than 20 minutes until g just got tired of crying. I guess she must have realized that no one cared at that point.

I can't really put into words what I felt as I was watching all this unfold. I still can't. I have gone through cycles of emotion. I went from extreme anger to extreme sadness. I calmed down enough to go and get G. He saw the video. I needed a moment to think. I also needed a moment to suppress the desire to come at her with a baseball bat. So we decided to go to dinner, somewhere local. I lost my appetite. I really couldn't focus. I felt bad that as G was excitedly recounting his new internship and the prospect of his new job, all that I could do was replay the scene again and again in my head.