Welcome to the Funhouse

When a house advertises as being "child-friendly," it could mean a variety of things: one, its occupants are baby-crazy, and will do everything in their power to ensure maximum exposure to little ones (interacting with parents only in cases of extreme pooping or crying); two, said occupants are living in a state of arrested development, drink out of plastic Hanna-Barbara cups, and are gigantic children themselves; or three, occupants have disproportionate affection for anything falling into the category of 'cute,' and believe a house full of children to be the perfect compliment to their shelves of collectible beanie babies and Hello Kitty sheets. Or, in our case, the house probably advertised as being "child-friendly" because there weren't knives sticking out of the couches. At least, none that we could see.

I arrived in Portland on Sunday, and with little more than a 10-minute car ride as buffer, was ushered into the world of velcro shoes and ergonomic baby carriers. It's what I signed up for, and I entered willingly. Even so, it was a tough first week: the thing about parenting, especially when you're not the actual parent but instead a surrogate spit-up shoulder, playmate, and guardian when the 'real thing' isn't available, is that it is 100% on-the-job learning. Sure, plenty of literature exists on how to speak to children in their own language; studies on reverse psychology, for instance. The entire Montessori library. However, after one week taking care of Benji and Johnny--2 1/2 years and 5 months old, respectively--I am a firm believer in learning as you go. There was no way of knowing, for example, what a two-year-old tantrum looks like; or how I would feel the first time Benji stripped off all his clothes in the bathroom at Sound Grounds, screaming that he "HAD TO MAKE A POO POO!" for a solid half hour while I begged for mercy on the grimy floor. Neither would I have suspected him to be strong enough to pick up the toilet brush and whack me in the face with it; but lo and behold, he is, and he did. I left the coffee shop with my tail between my legs, the recipient of at least a dozen looks of, "Oh, that poor teenage mother," and spent the next twenty minutes on the bus trying not to cry. It's hard not to take it personally, you know. And nothing could have prepared me for that. However, nothing but the sheer joy in Benji's voice when we sing "Wheels on the Bus"--or the look on Johnny's face when he stares up at me in awe, fascinated at the simple fact of beholding another human being--could have prepared me for the satisfaction I feel in taking care of them. They lift my soul. It's been a tough week, sure, but everyone knows beginnings are the worst; it's the week you eat your lunch in the bathroom, unsure of who to talk to, and go to sleep wondering why the hell you signed up in the first place. Then the sun crowns on the second Monday, you know how to work the copier--or in my case, the diaper bag--and all is right with the world.

That is, unless you are living in a total madhouse.

Ladies and Gentlemen, boys and girls, gather round as we tell the tale of the CRAZY PEOPLE WHO DON'T KNOW HOW TO SHARE SPACE! Watch as they hover over their 'tenants,' leaving passive-aggressive notes in lieu of actual conversation, and expect a two-year-old to be able to function at the mental capacity of an obsessive-compulsive robot!

Up until this point, I've had nothing but good luck with AirBnB. There are bound to be more than a few stinkers in the bunch, but I dunno: I guess I like supposing that the type of people who open their homes to a worldwide search engine would not go on to form emotional attachments to their forks and knives. Then again, I've been wrong before. In a drawer with dozens of forks, knives, and spoons of every imaginable variety--for a 2-person household--was a teeny-tiny pocket of utensils, most of which appeared to have been pulled from a high school cafeteria, labeled "Air BnB." If this was the first indication of a problem, it was lost on me. Who cares if we have to use the crappy silverware? I'm dealing with a two-year-old. It's a good day when he doesn't rub his face in his food before eating it. So, I was willing to let the silverware thing go--as well as the segregated mugs, singular knife, and tiny refrigerator shelf allotted for our use--in the name of embracing the unknown; after all, the boys' mother had handled our summer housing all the way from Thailand. She searched AirBnB for long-term rentals, and came across a home that looked perfect; spacious, reasonably priced, and child-friendly. I kept this in mind as I went into the bathroom on the first night, where a note behind the toilet gave step-by-step instructions on how to use the shower curtain. Past that, in my bedroom, I noticed a laminated copy of House Rules: No partying (duh), loud music of any kind (does "Wheels on the Bus" count?), or food--including tea--allowed in the rooms. However, "quiet solo-dancing" is okay. Mistaking this to be tongue-in-cheek, I approached one of the house's owners and laughed. "I like that solo-dancing is allowed!" I said, picturing him bopping good-naturedly along with the boys as we frolicked around the house. I figured no person would be uptight enough to specify "quiet solo-dancing" as the only permitted form of self-expression. But like I said, I've been wrong before.

Come one, come all, gather 'round and watch as the passive-aggressive notes begin to multiply exponentially, as if from nowhere! Observe the poor, hapless nanny as she attempts to control the uncontrollable, dancing around inflamed sensitivities while balancing a symphony of screaming infants atop her shoulders!

What began as mildly irritating--funny, even--deteriorated into madness as soon as the notes began to infiltrate our private belongings. Suddenly, the fact that shoes had been found in our third-floor suitcase--outside the designated SHOE AREA, which as any fool would know, is in the first floor hallway--was inspiration for a series of blaringly judgmental, invasive "tips" for following the House Rules. Overnight, our groceries had been arranged into a pyramid. Notes appeared on the sliding-glass door, deadbolt, dish soap, sponge holder, bathroom wall, and kitchen shelves. I began to function like one who is under surveillance, reading NPR articles about leaks of classified information and feeling as though I better not pick my nose. The boys, neither of whom are old enough to know what a shower curtain is, let alone wonder whether they're using it correctly, still responded to the anxious energy. Tensions ran high. I grabbed Benji by the wrist every time he went to town on the dishwasher buttons, but hated doing so; and rather than ride the storm of Johnny's afternoon cry, hushed him in the frantic hope that we'd remain as unobtrusive as possible. But as anyone who has ever lived with a toddler knows, "unobtrusive" does not exist. It's about as likely as getting said toddler to memorize a system for color-coding sponges; which, for the record, these people did. As I stood in front of the sink, trying to recall if the pink sponge was for oily dishes, Johnny unleashed a flurry of spit-up into my left ear and began to scream furiously. Meanwhile, I looked over the counter to see Benji--beside himself with glee at the newfound ability to control his penis--making perfect little crop circles of pee into the carpet. I yelled, "Benji, NO!" but he just looked up at me and giggled. And who could blame him? The only thing funnier than peeing on the carpet is knowing that, within the hour, we'd find a post-it note describing the best method for removing the stain.

And so it went. I'd try to let off steam at the end of the day, but never could. It is already the curse of the live-in nanny to feel as though we never have our own space; probably because, when it's said and done, we really don't. I can cloister myself in my room with its minimal sound barrier, pretending not to hear the babies cry when I'm "off-duty." I can leave the house as soon as their mom gets home, walking aimlessly down the street in search of any food that doesn't taste vaguely of peanut butter. But that doesn't change the fact that, even as I write this paragraph, one baby is draped across the chair behind me--kicking my neck with every ounce of strength his five months have given him--while his brother alternates between picking his nose and and eating his socks. I take time to myself because, if I don't, I end up feeling like another kid: like one more thing the mother has to deal with when she gets home at the end of the day. It's like that episode of Sex and the City ("what episode? I don't know what you're talking about, I have way too many intellectual hobbies to be able to reference that inane show") where Carrie discusses the way single people are treated by their married friends; with notable exceptions, in variations on a theme of Hopelessly Incapable. It's us versus them--as in, they could never possibly understand--and parents aren't much better. When it's time to get off the bus and I can't get the bike rack to return into its original position, the boys' mother adopts a stern tone and I can tell she is fighting the urge to parent me. When the bus driver waits for me to fold the stroller into its compact position--which I'm sorry, is FREAKING LABYRINTHINE--I can feel the weight of dozens of eyes upon me, judging me. And this is on public transportation, mind you. Where people either ignore you, or tilt back their heads and explain how they got each of their mouth sores.

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, watch on in wonder as the single mother collapses the 'foldable' stroller in ONE FELL SWOOP--using only the tip of her pinky finger! Behold, behold as the bumbling nanny follows from behind, grinning as she takes a cream pie to the face!

Needless to say, in a job that is both emotionally and physically exhausting; one that, like parenting, offers little to no privacy, the last thing you need is to worry if you're making noise while you pee. It's enough to have a two-year-old watch you while you do it, congratulating you on your lack of splatter.

The night before we left our crazy house for good, I lay on the ground in my room, shamelessly engaging in 'down time.' I had delusions of grandeur, of exploring neighborhoods and reading books; but when it came down to it, could do little more than lie comatose. It's not for the fainthearted, this nannying business. It really isn't. And as much as I might squirm as I settle into my place in this family--not quite a parent, but definitely not a kid--I have never, ever had so much appreciation for what it means to raise a child. For the sheer amount of work it takes to engage with another human being, to smile and cry simultaneously as they eat, poop, scream, and laugh their way through a world that they still believe is a good place. Pondering this, I heard elevated voices coming from the kitchen, and went to the foot of the stairs. The owners of the house were yelling about the way we had "blatantly" been ignoring the house rules; in fact they had "just stopped telling us when we were breaking them," because it happened so often. Meanwhile, the boys' mother was slicing and steaming vegetables, cradling an infant, and calmly preventing Benji from putting his fingers in the garbage disposal. The tone in her voice was stoic, measured, as she informed our landlords that it was inappropriate for them to go through our belongings; I watched on, mesmerized by her patience. But when the landlords crossed a line, when they informed her that she clearly had no control over her children, I had no choice. I stepped in.

"Excuse me," I began. They looked up. They had just finished telling Mira that "not all members in her party" had been using the oven vent appropriately. Namely, me. And you know what? Fuck their oven vent. "All due respect, but up until this week, I had no idea how much work it is to take care of children full-time. This woman is thousands of miles away from her home and partner, has two babies who are jetlagged and completely culture-shocked, and she is also in school all day.

No offense, but this woman does not deserve to come home and feel uncomfortable. She is dealing with enough as it is. Therefore, I'm going to have to ask you to please... shut up." 

I'd like to say that the conversation ended, that my little speech stopped them dead in their tracks--concluding perhaps with rose petals being thrown at my feet, and talk of a small-screen adaptation--but these freaky people just blinked up at me and resumed their verbal abuse. After a certain point, it just became silly: like a clown walking off the same diving board over and over again into a thimble of water, the results were invariably the same. The thimble doesn't get any bigger, so you might as well laugh when you hear the splat. In this situation, there was  nothing more I could do... except leave the house, careful to lock the door exactly as I had been shown, and purchase one hell of a brownie. I tucked it in the fridge for the boys' mother, and wrote the following:

YOU ARE RASING THE NEXT GENERATION TO BE COMPASSIONATE, FUNNY, RESPECTFUL HUMAN BEINGS

AND THAT IS WAY MORE IMPORTANT THAN COLOR-CODING SPONGES.

And of course, the irony of writing a post-it did not escape me.

In the morning, we gathered our things and waited on the sidewalk for our ride to Northeast Alberta; the funk zone, the heart of so many things, and the place we belonged all along. Benji ran around in circles like a yippy dog that had been short-circuited to perform the same action on infinite loop. Our friends pulled up and loaded us in, our bicycles and our backpacks and our crates full of mismatched tupperware, and a collective sigh filled the car. Benji garbled a made-up song about orange cats while chewing absentmindedly on the belt of his carseat, and I rattled a Ziploc full of plastic spoons at the baby; confident that, as we escaped into the Saturday air, it would be the last time we'd leave anywhere feeling like the saner ones.