The Best Nanny Becomes a Mommy

Back when Carter was just barely two I was taking a class at church and mentioned I was looking for a summer baby sitter. My friend Susan volunteered her daughter Megan. It turned out to be a match made in heaven. Megan was an actress heading to UNC to major in Drama. She was full of magic and playfulness and Carter, fell madly in love with her. It didn’t take long for Megan to become an important and beloved part of our family.

She was innately good with children. More Poppins than any Mary ever was. Carter and Megan could be found making puppets and putting on shows, or coloring full size drawings of themselves. Life with Megan was sparkle and glitter.

I quickly learned to give Megan and Carter free reign to spend their days together as they saw fit. With a car seat permanently installed in Megan’s turquoise Saturn they would traipse about Durham county and venture off to Chapel Hill with Carter. When Megan went to college she would continue to sit for us as well as provide a dramatic troupe of back-up baby sitters from the Drama Department.

Sometimes Carter would accompany Megan to rehearsal. One day when Carter and I were walking down Franklin St. A boy screamed out across the four lanes of traffic, “Carter, Carter!” She waved her tiny three year old hand enthusiastically back at him and said, “Hi!” I asked who that boy was, since she obviously knew this college student. “Hamlet,” she responded nonchalantly as we continued down the sidewalk.

Megan was so important to our family that we took with us to Disney world the first time Carter went. We didn’t really need a baby sitter, we just knew that Disney would be more fun for all of us if Megan came. For Russ it was a big bonus because he did not have to sit next to the two crazy ladies singing along to Hakuna Mattata at the Lion King show. Carter just thought is was normal to have your very own fairy Godmother everywhere you went.

Eventually Megan graduated, moved to New York City, got a masters at NYU and became a big time actress. Along the way she loved and cared for other children while in school and between acting gigs. She married the dreamy Max, a British actor and they moved to LA.

At last, more than twenty years after becoming our very best nanny and friend, Megan had a baby of her own. We are all ecstatic here in our house. We know first hand that her little boy is born into the most wonderful family, full of love and imagination. His pictures show a prince and we can hardly wait until the day we can meet him and whisper in his ear, “You are the luckiest boy.”