I had a dream nanny named Theresa. It was 1998 and I was pregnant with my first child.

Theresa was the lovely woman I dreamed up to care for my future babies. Theresa, in my dreams, was a sweet, caring and energetic woman who would love my children as her own.

My dream nanny Theresa was a religious woman. She was kind and honest and good, like Mother Teresa.

In my dreams, Theresa was a teacher who became a nanny because she wanted to spend more one-on-one time with children. She would be be happy to spend one-on-four time with my future children because they were so smart and perfectly well behaved, in my dreams.

Theresa was fluent in English and Spanish. She would teach my kids to speak, read and write in both English and Spanish. I was certain that this early world language training would be essential for the development of my dream children.

Incredibly, my dream nanny Theresa was also a master chef who would cook delicious, healthy meals for the entire family. Theresa was just too good to be true.

Really. She was. We hired a reputable nanny placement agency to find her and they searched, but could not find her.

For a few months, we endured an awful, unreliable nanny who was the complete opposite of Mother Teresa. We then hired a nanny who had taken some early childhood education courses and was great, until she decided to return to college to finish her degree.

We finally found my dream nanny in 1999, after the birth of our second child. Her name was Kathy, not Theresa. She was not particularly religious, nor was she a teacher. She did not speak Spanish and she never cooked for us, but she could get down on the floor and play with my kids for hours without losing patience.

Most importantly, my dream nanny was a sweet, caring and energetic woman who loved my children as her own.

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