The Help

About a month ago Maxime and I hired a helper who comes three days a week for half a day. She is a housekeeper and babysitter. Since having Henri I had stopped doing certain things for me – like yoga, haircuts, and so forth – so having her around means I have someone to watch Henri so I can duck out a couple of hours and take care of shopping and maybe do something just for me.

So through a friend we found Ana. Ana was born in the Philippines to Chinese parents, speaks five languages and assumes all Americans are fat.  On her first day she tells me that she is surprised I’m not heavier being from America. She often makes comments that I could find offensive but for now I find pretty humorous. When she saw me making a sandwich for lunch one day she looked confused and said “you don’t eat rice? You must do exercise then.”

The first two weeks I nearly let her go three or four times. This is not because of anything she did but because I suffered some major anxiety about letting her watch Henri. At first I thought she might kidnap him… Then I feared she might be rough with him... I really imagined her as a monster and it kept me up at night. One night I had resolved to call her the next morning and tell her not to come back – ever. Deep down I knew it was me – not her. So I pushed myself to keep her a little longer and just watch, wait and see.  I tortured myself by googling awful things and then stumbling upon even worse things. When my family visited after Henri was born I had anxiety over leaving him with them, and God knows they would never hurt him – so you can see this was a very difficult thing for me.

Now I can say that Ana does make my life easier. The floors are thoroughly cleaned three times a week, which is great since Henri occasionally lays on his belly and starts licking the floor before you can stop him... While she will never take care of Henri like I would, she does a good job and he smiles at her when she arrives which is a good sign.