Wake-up call?

Tonight, Mary Poppins (our amazing nanny), got very mad at our children. They were at our house and were just not listening or doing anything for her. She was both frustrated with them and scared that they might hurt themselves. (They were jumping on the furniture and being out-of-control.)

K (29 months) was being especially awful because she didn't want to get out of the bathtub and she was hitting and kicking. K has learned how to open our front door and she frequently does this. We just put up a flip lock on it so hopefully it will prevent her from opening the door. As I said above, the nanny is worried that they might get hurt (or in this case that they might wander out the front door).

Mary Poppins always gives them baths for us and we've told her she doesn't need to. Tonight she admitted it might be too hard for one person to bathe all 3. We are fine with that. Both MWH (my husband) and I believe that 3 little girls all under 5 are too hard for one person. Neither he nor I like to be alone with them at night during dinner and bath time.

Anyway, we're instituting changes around here. The first change is that K is going to have to learn how to listen better. We have to figure out a way to get her to do time-out. She doesn't do chairs. She gets up and runs. She can climb out of every crib we have. It is frustrating. We don't want kids who drive away their nanny. This nanny doesn't scare easily. She was really upset when she left our house, but she did sound a lot better when she got home.

There are days when I feel the same way, but since I'm the Mom, and this is my house, I don't get the luxury of going home and escaping them.