This weekend some drama occurred that many of my twitter followers have dubbed “Nannygate”. Here’s the story….
We’ve had our current nanny for awhile and my husband and I had both recently decided she was our favorite nanny that we have had in a long time so wanted to go out of our way to make her happy. This included bringing her clothes, taking her on trips, etc. We both work long hours at the office and often have to immediately get on the computer when we get home and on the weekends. Several weeks ago she asked if I could cut her hours so I started looking for someone to fill in part-time for her. I finally found someone and she told me she changed her mind and enjoyed her job so much she didn’t mind the long hours.
When we booked this trip to Miami weeks ago, we asked her if she could go and she was very excited. We booked a suite because it had an extra room for her and got her a plane ticket. We flew down to Miami and the night we arrived she was amazed with our room, the hotel and miami in general. She said she had never been to Florida. After the baby was asleep, I came out of our room in a long gown and she loved it, asked where I got it, etc. I sat and talked with her for about a half hour until my husband was ready. She asked where we were going (Mr. Chow) and we taked about how great she is with Brody and she said she hopes she can be his nanny until he’s in college. I agreed; we never got along so well.
The next day she brought him down to the pool where I took him swimming and then later she took him up to the room for his nap. When my husband and I came up to the room, I asked her if she’d like to go over to Lincoln Road with us to the shops, but she said she wanted to go to the gym and she asked me where it was. While we were gone, we talked about how good everything was going and how happy she seemed to be here.
When we got back to the room I spotted a note laying on the dining table. I looked at it and said aloud OH.MY.GOD. My husband then came and looked at the note stunned and looked at me! We were both speechless for what seemed like a few minutes as Brody ran around the room dumping out goldfish crackers onto the white floor. She was gone (note below). She had packed up and left Miami one day after arriving and said, “Family emergency. Had to leave. Don’t contact me”. We immediately tried to call her and she wouldn’t answer. I sort of paced around the room for awhile, then called the concierge and asked if they had any trusted nannies that they referred to people staying in the hotel. They said they did, but it was short notice. They called back a half hour later and said the owner of the agency would come tonight to meet us and stay with Brody while he slept so we could go out to dinner. I bathed and fed Brody dinner and the nanny showed up. She was the same women who watched my niece, Bella, at The Setai in Miami 3 years earlier before I was even pregnant with Brody, while my brother was visiting me here. She was WONDERFUL with her. We came home to a table full of crafts and paintings they had done and a sleeping beauty Bella. I was so relieved. I knew we could trust her and that our vacation was saved. Don’t get me wrong I love to spend time away with my son on vacation, which is why we brought him, but with no sitter we would have had to be in at 7pm every night and spend three hours of prime beach time in the room while he napped.
That night at Mr. Chow and the next day I tweeted updates and my husband and I pondered all the scenarios that could have made our most reliable nanny ever disappear while were out in Miami. It was baffling. The next day after several texts and messages from us begging her to explain what happened, she emailed me. She claimed that the hours got to be too much, she didn’t appreciate having to clean up (we have a housekeeper who comes everyday for several hours) and didn’t like having to run our errands. We sent her to run errands during her work hours while we watched Brody so she could get out of the house. We thought this was a favor and she always seemed happy to do it. Anyway, while twittering the situation, one of my followers tweeted me guessing her correct last name and said she was her nanny for two years and the same scenerio happened! What a small world! Check out her note my tweets right after the disappearence of the nanny.

6:13 PM Nov 7th:
OMG! Arrived in Miami last night with my 2 yr old son and long time nanny. Took son to beach for an hour, came back and nanny is gone!
6:16 PM Nov 7th:
Just last night we talked about how shed be Brody’s nanny until he went to college. She left a note saying “Sorry. Please don’t contact me”?
8:16 PM Nov 7th:
This is the note she left. I keep wondering what happened. She won’t answer our calls.
8:17 PM Nov 7th:
Now her phone is off. Maybe she is on the plane?
9:29 PM Nov 7th:
Hotel found the same woman who watched my niece 3 years ago for me who was wonderful! She can help out for remainder of trip. Lucky.
9:31 PM Nov 7th:
Nanny who left texted me from airport. Said she will email me what happened. Can’t wait so I can stop wondering.
~2:30 PM Nov 8th:
Nanny update. She texted saying she will email me the reason she left. Still have no idea why she left.
~2:45 PM Nov 8th:
Runaway nanny has promised email explaining why she took off. Will keep you posted.
~8:30 PM Nov 8th:
Nanny emailed me. The just of it was she didn’t like long hours, didn’t have life of her own.
~8:45 PM Nov 8th:
Wish she would have spoke to me instead sneaking out of our hotel in Miami. Will post whole bizarre story on blog tomorrow.
Update:
- After posting this blog and reading the comments, I just wanted to state that I do not mean to vilify the nanny. She was really kind to my son, took excellent care of him and was totally reliable the whole time she worked for us. I just thought it was a crazy story and wanted to share it. I even told her she could come back and I’d cut her hours, but I have yet to hear anything from her.
- I also want to mention that the nanny did NOT leave Brody by himself. We took him to the pool so she could have some time for herself and that is when she left.