So Mr. W’s renter’s wife, Jayne (turned out it’s not “Jane,” it’s “Jayne,” which is so much prettier) came over to meet Allie. She came by yesterday afternoon when my parents were here. (My mom insisted on coming over because I didn’t respond to her texts on Wednesday and she didn’t know what was going on so she thought I was out doing something “foolish” and was freaking out.) I thanked her and hugged her at the door. As soon as she walked in, the entire energy was SO different. I didn’t really think about it, but I guess I wasn’t ever actually happy and relieved to see Laura. Maybe it was cuz she was usually a little bit late. And I didn’t realize there were so many MORE red flags with Laura until Jayne. For example, when Jayne came over, Allie was napping and I showed her cameras on the monitor. She immediately did this “Aww!” thing and I thought, “Hmm, I didn’t get that from Laura.” When I showed Jayne our bedroom and Dodo was napping in the closet, she melted in an “Aww!” again and went over to see if she could greet Dodo. Which made me realize that Laura in our bedroom had barely glanced at Dodo, altho she said she’d always had cats and grown up with cats, and knowing about Dodo’s kidney disease, Laura had said, “Now, he’s going to start having ‘accidents.’ I’d hate to see that ruin your nice carpeting. So maybe I can fence him in right here,” motioning blocking off the tile section of our master bathroom, which is like 8 square feet. What? You’re going to come in here and confine my cat in our bathroom? He’s already only in the bedroom. Who the heck do you think you are? Seeing my hesitation, she said, “Okay, maybe I’ll just close the bedroom door, then.” When Allie woke from the nap and I went to get her, Jayne melted and said, “She’s such a mix of both of you!” and kind of respectfully walked around with me smiling at Allie, and then later, asked, “Can I hold her?” Laura had just kind of come in and picked her up and held her as if she owned the place. I’d thought at the time, “Great, she’s comfortable here,” but knowing what I know now, she was totally audacious and bossy. Also, remembering how Laura was practically pushing us to evict Jayne and her family and get paying renters in there so that we can get better income to pay Laura and pay for her health insurance, I now realize, “What the heck. These are OUR major life decisions, she’s known us a WEEK, she doesn’t know the relationship we have with our renters and Mr. W had already told her they are good people and we like them, who is she to tell us what to do?” She told me how to feel, too. When I was a mess on Wednesday cuz my intuition was screaming at me, Laura had said, seeing my discomfort, “I think you should be pleased. Everything went really well here.” I watched my daughter screaming and crying in her crib to the point where she was rolling over. Rebecca said yesterday, “She’s YOUR daughter. She has intuition, too.” Jayne asked me how I do things, and wanted to watch me so she could learn how I want things done, listened carefully to me, kept saying she wanted ME to be comfortable. Laura, on the last aggravating phone call in which I disclosed how uncomfortable I had been, argued, “*I* was VERY comfortable.” It was such a difference. Allie seemed GREAT with her, too.

Today, Jayne came over in the morning as a trial run. She and her husband had talked and figured out how to work the ride situation. Having her help us out had come up long before at her husband’s suggestion, and at that time, I was instantly happy and at ease, so relieved picturing this, but when I’d called her and she’d said it wasn’t possible because she had to drive her daughters to school and work, I’d been disappointed and nearly in tears again. This was before the nanny sites, before Susanne. She and I talked a long time then and she’d been trying to find people from her church and social circle to help me, but nothing long-term or full-time came from her leads. Now suddenly, very recently and unexpectedly, her older daughter got her license, and they just got her a used car. She suddenly was able to do this, and she found herself suggesting this to her husband when he told her about his meeting with Mr. W over the rent issue, thinking, “I can’t believe I’m suggesting this, and feeling completely at peace with it.” So they decided they could rideshare, drop him off at his work on the way to our place, and the younger daughter that needed a ride to school could get it from her boyfriend, or a neighbor friend and they could even pay the neighbor a little gas money. Her husband said that getting in to work at 6am is a good thing for him because then he could take calls from the east coast and midwest clients, pick up more business that way. Things totally just lined up to where even Jayne was amazed. (My dad noted that this was a major personality difference: Laura wanted us to cater to HER needs and wants, even to our detriment, and was ungrateful and demanding; Jayne and her husband were trying to figure out how to arrange their lives and routines to accommodate us and our needs because they appreciated us and wanted truly to help, and were turning an inconvenient situation into a blessing, i.e. the time difference working to the husband’s advantage.)

So today, the husband dropped Jayne off at our place, and came by later on to pick her up. She spent a day with me, and did EVERYTHING, including putting Allie down for her noon and afternoon naps. Allie cried for 10 minutes during the soothing, and then fell asleep on Jayne. When Jayne put her into her crib, she awoke cried for about 10 seconds, then settled into a peaceful nap that lasted an hour and 45 mins. Jayne was scared I’d be dying downstairs watching the monitor while Allie was crying, so after awhile of the crying, she came out and said, “Do you think something is wrong?” I said no, she just needed to be held a little lower so her head has somewhere to lean. After that, it was fine. I saw that as Allie was crying in the crib, Jayne was torn about whether to pick her up and resoothe her, so I ran up and motioned Jayne to come out of the bedroom and let Allie settle on her own. I was totally at peace thru the whole thing, unlike when Laura was doing it and I was watching Allie go into hysterics in her crib and I lost it crying in the car on Wednesday. I knew intuitively it was fine, and told Jayne her protest crying is going to be shorter and shorter each time until she got used to Jayne, it’s not a problem. The afternoon nap, Allie cried for FOUR minutes during the soothing, and maybe 30 seconds in the crib after she fell asleep and was transferred, and this time Jayne knew to come out and let Allie settle. Allie settled and napped an hour and a half, very long for her afternoon nap. She even had two poopies. The chart for today looks BEAUTIFUL. Jayne and I also had great chats, getting to know each other better during Allie’s naps. I chatted with Laura during Allie’s naps, too, but I always felt slightly uncomfortable, and forcing myself to kind of make an effort to act friendly, even tho in the back of my head I was already feeling guarded.

Rebecca called me to check up on me yesterday, and she had said that the energy with Jayne was “right,” and that as two couples, we’d be good friends in maybe 6 months. She said Laura didn’t respect us, but Jayne saw me as an equal except she would defer to me as Allie’s mom and would do things the way I would want her to. That certainly turned out to be true, from napping to bottle-washing. I didn’t even realize that Laura never asked me stuff about how I wanted the bottles and nipples cleaned until Jayne asked me and watched me clean a bottle to see the attention I gave the nipple and how I used the nipple brush hidden inside of the bottle brush handle. I had noted that the nipples of the bottles that Laura washed were hazy and I had rewashed everything. Now I’m thinking she just rinsed them; she never even asked me where the dishwashing soap was.

So I’m totally comfortable and at ease now. I’m looking forward to work on Monday, as much as I may be crying in the car on the way there, not because I’d be scared or nervous about Allie at home, only because I’d miss her.

Tomorrow we’re meeting up with Jayne and her husband in the afternoon to discuss placing a value on this arrangement. They were thinking her working as our nanny could partially pay for each month’s rent, but their total monthly rent is actually well LESS than what we would’ve been paying Laura monthly. I’m happy with her care covering their entire rent each month, and still giving her paid holidays and vacations.