After some troubles getting a preschool space in time, we have hired a part-time nanny for three to five weeks a couple of days a week, until the new baby is born and DH goes on pat. leave.
I can't get her to talk to DS. She cuts him off, won't give him time to finish answering (she very clearly thinks she's helping, and that he's babbling). I think her English may be less developed than his, it's not her first language, and I think, for eg, that when he said "locomotive" as a way of clarifying his earlier "engine," she actually did not know the word. Since he actually said "lomoCOtife" it really did sound like babble if you don't recognize the word. Not hearing engine was just not expecting it, I think. Anyway, she tried to make it very easy for him to talk about the "choo-choo." Then he made up a song about trains, and she got a bit stressed because she didn't know it. Arg. Well, yeah, he made it up (it was transparent, becasue it was to the tune of london bridge & re-used a big chunk of the original lyrics).
He brought her a book on trains (albeit a book DH later pointed out is probably aimed at 8-10 yr olds), and asked her to read it. No matter how many times he asked her to read it, to read specific sections, etc, she just kept turning the pages really fast, and simplifying down to 3 word sentances. She finally managed to read the name of one of the very early Canadian railroads, and he got all excited, giggling and wiggling and she decided that meant he was done with the book. She's clearly a reader, but again, I'm not sure her English is actually up to fluent reading of books he's interested in. He brought her a book on hockey today, and although she was very enthusiastic, she wouldn't read it, just kept quizzing him on what was in the pictures (cat, hockey stick, goalie, etc). She clearly loves hockey (her husband plays in a provincial league, apparently), she just wasn't getting it that he WANTED HER TO READ THE BOOK.
She caused a bit of a tantrum today becasue she was trying to make him put on his sweater to go outside. He wanted to finish drawing a copy of the map I made her showing the local park, subway, and family resource center. He couldn't make himself understood (partly because when I helped him, he declaired that those weren't roads, they were rails, and now I needed to draw a train on them, but anyway). I had trouble getting either of them to understand what was going on becasue she was trying to assure me that he'd be ok once they were outside, and I was trying to understand his "babble," and address his concerns over her reassurances. She just didn't know he was talking.
She's also having trouble realizing he can feed himself with a knife and fork, and that he can mostly dress himself ("except he needs help with the shoes and socks" I told her). When I tell her, I think she doesn't believe me, and becasue she just orders him around rather than giving him real sentances "put your sweater on" rather than "when we get outside, you'll be cold, so I think you should put on a sweater," he digs in his heals, which makes it look like he doesn't understand. TOTALLY looks like he doesn't understand. If I didn't know him, I might have made all the same mistakes. He doesn't really have a lot of tools for punching though, since he doesn't like to perform, and his articulation is poor. I suggested he show her what he can do, and to ask her for things ("enunciate!" I said... and he did, to ME...)
We don't need to make this work for long, but we need to make it work. The agency offered to try to find us someone with better english and more interest in reading to him, so we could go that route. But DH pointed out that a nanny agency that does 0-5 yr olds might not have a good read on who can read 8-10yr old nonfiction fluently, they may have people with English as a first language, but almost certainly not our dialect of English. I don't want to be changing people up a whole lot when it's only a few weeks, especially since this woman seems actually to be very good (appart from expecting him to behave like a 2 yr old) and I'm not convinced we'll get anyone better in the end.
I'm torn between trying at least one other person from the agency, or just trying to explain better to this one. If we do try a second person, then I think I may need some serious advice on how to explain DS to that person so we don't get into this mess again.
Been there done that advice especially appreciated, but I'll try whatever suggestions I can get!
-Mich
