(GK: Garrison Keillor, SS: Sue Scott, TK: Tom Keith, TR: Tim Russell, RD: Rich Dworsky, SO: Susan Ohlmann)
(CHORDS INTRO)
GK: I hesitate to tell about my baby daughter because I know how parents lie about their children. People lie about what they paid for things, about how long it took them to do something, about their weight, and about their kids. You tell someone that you've been getting about forty-five minutes of sleep a night for the past six weeks and he says:
TR: Is that right? Huh. Never had that problem. We put Taylor down at eight o'clock and he sleeps right through to eight or eight-fifteen the next morning.
GK: You say that your child naps for about six and a half minutes a day and otherwise tears around like a crazy person, and---
TR: Interesting. Taylor loves naps. Eleven a.m. and three p.m. Little guy points to his crib. Sleeps for about sixty-five minutes. Sixty-five or seventy.
GK: You admit that the scar on your cheek was made by your child, raking you with her fingernails, and---
TR: Huh. I've heard about that. Taylor never did that. They say it has to do with feeling secure.
GK: So anytime you speak truthfully about your child, you run the risk of looking like the most backward parent in town.
TR: They say that you can promote developement of coaxial adaptive traits through body massage.
GK: Massaging your kid?
TR: That's what Jean Poole says.
GK: Jean Poole?
TR: She wrote that book everybody's talking about: Believing In Your Baby, Twelve Steps To Faster Developement.
GK: Interesting.
TR: Body massage and aromatherapy. And kelp. You feed your kid kelp?
GK: They have kelp for babies? ---
TR: Very important for brain growth. Kelp and yak yoghurt.
GK: Yak yoghurt?
TR: I hope you don't use regular yoghurt---
GK: Well, I thought that---
TR: You didn't hear that report on All Things Considered? About the research? The learning curve of Mongolian children of nomadic tribes living off yak yoghurt?
GK: Really? Yak yoghurt?
TR: They talk four to six months earlier than other children.
GK: Yak yoghurt....
TR: Taylor talked when he was eleven months. In sentences. How old is your daughter?
GK: Just never you mind. (MUSIC) So a parent hesitates to tell the truth about his child, just as you never tell the truth around fishermen. It's a big disadvantage. But I was brought up to be truthful, and I've never been able to overcome that fear of dishonesty I learned in early childhood. So let me tell you about our nanny.
(BIG VIOLIN AND PIANO AND ARCO BASS THEME, ASCENDING ARPEGGS UP TO A KREISLERESQUE MELODY)
GK: I remember when my wife and I decided to get a nanny, it was about two days after she came home from the hospital.
SS: (WEEPING)
GK: What's wrong? why are you crying?
SS: I weighed myself today.
GK: Oh, don't worry about that.
SS: I feel like a cow. And I'm leaking. I feel so ugly.
GK: You're not, you're beautiful.
SS: And I'm psychotic from the sleep deprivation. I'm a desperate person.
GK: You are?
SS: I went out and knocked over a liquor store last night.
GK: You didn't.
SS: I did. I don't know why. I just did it.
GK: Oh honey.
SS: I miss the hospital. I miss my anesthesiologist. He was such a kind man. He made me so sleepy.....
GK: Honey, please---
SS: I loved the hospital.
GK: You did?
SS: It was so wonderful, lying there, and then the nurse came in with the baby in her arms, and I thought to myself, "That's her. That's my baby." (CHOKES UP) And I took her in my arms and I looked down at her and I thought, "That's my baby."
GK: I know. I felt the same way.
SS: It was so emotional. My baby being brought to me.
GK: The entrance of the baby.
SS: A person doesn't get that same thrill when the baby is always with you, though. Hanging on you, sucking on you, vomiting on you.
GK: Well, that makes sense.
SS: In order for the baby to make an entrance, the baby has to make an exit.
GK: So we need a nanny.
SS: I think so. Not that we couldn't care for the baby ourselves. But I was reading in Jean Pool where she says----
GK: Believing In Your Baby----
SS: Right. Believing In Your Baby. She says that babies without nannies grow up with a 47% greater chance of winding up in an adult incarceration program.
GK: Is that right?
SS: She says that having an alternative caregiver is crucial in the baby's socialization process.
GK: Well, we can't deny our child socialization.
SS: Can we afford to hire one?
GK: How much did you get at the liquor store?
SS: About thirty-six hundred bucks, plus a big bag of quarters.
GK: We can afford it. (MUSIC UNDER) Before you have a child, you think of a child as innocent, a blank slate, and then you have one and you realize that a child is fraught with problems. Like the old rhyme says:
Monday's child needs a lot of help; Tuesday's child is slow to develop; Wednesday's child will scratch and bite; Thursday's child won't sleep at night; Friday's child is a work of comedy; Saturday's child does projectile vomiting. But the child that is born on the Sabbath day is a complete mystery in every way.
And that's why Jean Pool's Believing In Your Baby: Twelve Steps To Faster Development is the top parenting book in the country today. There's less time for a kid to develop at its own pace because by the time your child is two, which our daughter is now, you have to be making applications to kindergarten. The Montessori we're trying to get into, only takes about 15% of the applicants. A nanny's recommendation can be crucial. So we put an ad in the paper.
SS: Older exhausted couple with small child seek experienced nanny. No convicted felons, drug users, bikers, sadomasochists, or sopranos.
GK: No sopranos?
SS: I read in Jean Pool that soprano singing in the first eighteen months can cause bad dreams and inappropriate aggressive behavior.
GK: And the next day we started to interview people.....there was the lady in the navy blue uniform with the starched cotton blouse.
TR (BRIT LADY, JULIA): I require a room with an electric teakettle and a fireplace, and I must have four weeks in the summer when I go to the Orkneys.
GK: We interviewed a guy with a fright wig and red clown nose and big floppy shoes.
TR: Hi. It's me. Uncle Sugar from the Uncle Sugar Show! (HORN BEEPS) How are we doin, kids? Huh? Let's all march around the kitchen, okay? What do you say? (GOOFUS MARCH SOUNDS)
GK: We interviewed a short stout lady with a sensible suit and sensible shoes.
TR (GERMAN): It would indeed be my very great pleasure to see to your child. Yes, I had four of my own. Rudy and Trudie and Heidi and Schottsie. Oh yeah.
GK: And in the end we hired a young woman named Prairie. Prairie Holman. Nice name.
SO: My parents were hippies in the sixties. I grew up in a yurt. We kept goats and they did pottery.
GK: Sure. Well, we'd like you to come for three months and we'd like you to work five days a week and we can pay you thirty-six hundred dollars and a big bag of quarters and basically we'd like you to come into our room every day at about ten a.m. and again at three p.m. and say, "Here's your baby" and hand her to us.
SO: Okay. What do I do with her the rest of the time?
GK: I have no idea. Whatever nannies do. You've been a nanny before?
SO: Yes.
GK: Good. Any questions you have?
SO: I have two cats.
GK: Oh. Don't they suck the breath out of babies? I thought I read that.
SO: No. They whisper to babies. They teach them sibilants. I also have a hoot owl.
GK: Okay.
SO: And a timber wolf named Ralph.
GK: Pets are fine. I read that having animals around can speed up the language process. Anything else?
SO: I wear these shoes with the curly toes and I always have an amulet around my neck. I hope that's okay.
GK: That's fine. (FOOTSTEPS) And here's your room here. (DOOR OPEN) (WOLF HOWL) Oh. You already moved in.
SO: I knew you were going to hire me. I found a penny on the sidewalk. A 1962 penny. Six and two and one equal nine. 1962.
GK: Yes, of course. (MUSIC) It was great having Prairie as a nanny. My wife and I woke up about nine in the morning and (TEACUPS, POURING) we sat in the solarium in our robes and drank tea and read Dickens and Thackeray and at ten, the nanny opened the door and brought in the baby. (AUDIO, BABY LAUGH)
SS: My child!
GK: She's beautiful.
SS: Our baby. How lucky we are.
GK: Indeed. How precious she is.
SS: Look at her. Our baby. I can't believe it.
GK: So alert. So bright.
SS: I love her so much.
GK: I do too.
SS: Thank you, Prairie.
GK: See you this afternoon. (DOOR CLOSE)
SS: Well, that was nice.
GK: It was.
SS: It's so civilized having a nanny. I get so much read. I'm almost through with Far From The Madding Crowd.
GK: Are you? Lovely. (SO OFF-MIKE, ARIA: MOZART MAGIC FLUTE)
SS: Is that a CD?
GK: I don't think so. No orchestra.
SS: Is it Mozart?
GK: I think so. From the opera with the weird animals and the Masons.
SS: Is that Prairie singing?
GK: It must be.
SS: But we specified no sopranos.
GK: Maybe she's a mezzo on some kind of medication.
SS: What should we do?
GK: I don't know. (SINGING STOPS) There. Maybe it was just temporary. Maybe she does it to relieve stomach upset.
SS: A soprano! But she wasn't wearing a scarf and she wasn't carrying a bottle of water----
GK: She looked normal. (SO OFF MIC SINGING: WAGNERIAN VALKYRIE YODELS)
SS: Oh my gosh.
GK: Wagner.
SS: That is serious. (SINGING STOPS)
GK: What does Jean Pool say about babies listening to Wagner?
SS: You don't want to know. (MUSIC BRIDGE)
GK: I meant to speak to the nanny about it but then we got busy playing backgammon and we had a nap and we watched Great Expectations, which is one of our favorite movies, and then it was afternoon and Prairie came in with the baby----- (DOOR OPENS. AUDIO OF BABY LAUGHING)
SS: My child. My beloved child.
GK: Look at her. How sweet.
SS: Her hair is so beautiful.
GK: I love it.
SS: Those little golden ringlets. My darling. My beautiful innocent darling.
GK: Prairie----
SO: Yes, sir----
GK: I forgot to tell you, we have a rule in our house. No Wagner. We've never allowed it.
SS: We're very specific with guests, with family ---- no Wagner. No humming, no whistling, nothing.
GK: This is a Wagner-free house.
SO: I understand. That's your choice.
GK: Exactly.
SO: I must tell you, though, that while I was singing Wagner, Maia stood up and walked. (AUDIO, BABY LAUGH)
GK: She walked!
SS: But she's only six months old!
GK: Amazing.
SS: Walking. Our baby.
GK: That's wonderful.
SS: I only mentioned Wagner because Jean Poole, the pediatrician, warns against it in her book----
SO: You're still going with Jean Poole?
GK: She's very big right now. Believing In Your Child. Isn't she?
SO: That was a year ago. She's pretty much over.
GK: (HE SNEEZES)
SO: Bless you.
GK: What are you doing?
SO: Throwing a pinch of salt at the baby. (BABY AUDIO LAUGH)
GK: Why did you do that?
SO: To ward off evil and also to promote verbal skills.
GK: With a pinch of salt?
SO: It's the new way, salt. Stop.
GK: What?
SO: Stop. You were just about to step on that crack in the floor.
GK: What crack?
SO: You step on a crack and you set your child two weeks back. You never heard that?
GK: No.
SO: You ought to read Natalie Dressed.
SS: Natalie Dressed---- she wrote THE QUEST FOR YOUR CHILD'S INNER PERSON, right?
SO: Right. She says a lot about the importance of candles. And butterflies. You keep butterflies in the baby's room and it prevents temper tantrums.
GK: Really----
SO: And if you draw a circle around the crib, and put an eyelash inside of your left shoe, the baby's small motor skills will improve.
GK: Interesting.
SO: And when you're photographed with your baby, you never put the baby in the middle.
GK: No?
SO: It causes colic.
GK: There is so much to learn about parenting. I feel so unprepared.
SO: Just like the poem says: Red sky at night, Parents in fright. Red sky at morning Parents take warning.
GK: Interesting.
SS: Thank you, dear. See you in the morning, baby. (MUSIC)
GK: We went out to a restaurant for dinner and then to a movie and over to some friends' house for a party and when we got home, it was past midnight and ---- (SO OFF-MIC SINGING: EDELWEISS)
SS: Oh dear.
GK: The Sound of Music.
SS: I can't take this.
GK: I can't either.
SS: Edelweiss ---- Doe a deer, a female deer, ray a drop of golden sun---- I can't live like this----
GK: But what can we do?
SS: We can fire her. Now.
GK: Yes, but----
SS: Is this our house or is it not?
GK: But the baby----- she loves her nanny.
SS: We can get a new one.
GK: She loves this nanny.
SS: We'll get the one with the starched blouse. (SONG ENDS) Oh, what a relief. You must speak to her. You must. Right now. Tell her it has to stop.
GK: But what about our lovely mornings? Our leisurely afternoons? Our beautiful evenings? Do we want to go back to a life as exhausted savages?
SS: Good point. (SO OFF MIC: COPLAND) What??? Copland??? No, sir. No way. I'm not going to have my child growing up on fake Americana and folk ballets about barn-raising. No, sir. I draw the line there.
GK: Wait. Listen to me.
SS: Tell her to pack her things and be out by the morning.
GK: You and I need to talk, first. Honey---- (SINGING ENDS)
SS: Talk about what?
GK: I went in the baby's room today.
SS: Yes? and----?
GK: The owl was there. Perched at the head of the crib.
SS: Oh?
GK: And the wolf was asleep at the foot.
SS: Really.
GK: The two cats sat in the window. There was garlic hanging over the crib. A frog was sitting on the pillow. With a mirror next to it. And a candle. And a golden apple. There was a wisp of hair in a gold locket. And a fresh broom. I stood there and ---- listen. (BELL CHIMES FIVE)
SS: What else?
GK: A note.
SS: From whom?
GK: Guess.
SS: The baby?
GK: She's learned to write.
SS: But she's only six months.
GK: She wrote us a note. Complete sentences. No misspellings. No grammatical mistakes.
SS: What did she say?
GK: She says, the nanny stays.
SS: Well-----
GK: What about a game of backgammon?
SS: Fine.
GK: In the library or the solarium?
SS: In the library. I'll get a bottle of wine.
GK: Lovely. (MUSIC) And that's how my daughter, at the age of slightly more than two, qualified for early admission to kindergarten. She already reads and does some arithmetic, and (SO SINGING OFF MIC, THE GLITTER AND BE GAY FINALE) of course she's extremely talented musically. We didn't push her at all. One day she just picked up the violin. Play it, kid. (SO AND VIOLIN FINISH GLITTER FINALE)
(c) 2000 by Garrison Keillor