About Candace

Reviewed on 9/24/2014

Candace M. has worked with us as a nanny for the past 18 months, starting when our children were 3.5 and almost 2.5. She has been an extraordinarily dedicated, flexible, caring and reliable nanny in every respect. We highly recommend her without any reservation. Some key strengths are: *Safety: Candace is very careful when it comes to safety. She has been very good about teaching kids basic hygiene and safety rules - especially important for us as we live in a city. She tends to be conservative about these issues (e.g., cutting up food into very small pieces, really lathering them up with SPF), which we very much appreciate. *Creativity and Engagement: Candace has a background in design and does all kinds of interesting art and imaginative play projects with the kids. She gets them out every day as weather allows (no small feat as we live on the third floor!) exploring playgrounds, museums and other activities. We are members at numerous museums and Candace take the T or bus to them regularly with the kids *Discipline and Developmental Needs: Candace deals very well with toddlers and independent small children. She sets boundaries, uses time-outs consistently and efficiently in ways that we have discussed and support. She enforces house rules about manners, the way we treat each other, etc. She has done a wonderful job helping to potty train our son. We are expecting a third baby in October and I have no questions about her abilities to handle three children together and to appropriately care for an infant, which I know she has experience doing. I sometimes work from home and can hear firsthand that she is gentle and kind with the children under circumstances in which my own patience would run a little thin! *Nanny-Parent Relationship: Candace is respectful, always on time, flexible and very responsive to requests we have to manage things a certain way with the children. She also helps out in all kinds of ways during the day when she has some down time: she does all the kids' laundry weekly, empties the dishwasher, sweeps the floor periodically, gets lunches ready for the kids, bathes the kids and helps do some light prep for dinner when asked. These tasks make a huge impact for us when we come home from work, and it's not unusual for me to feel a real sense of gratitude in the evening when I realize all that Candace has done during the day. In summary, we think Candace is an excellent nanny. She's been a perfect fit for our family and our children love her. We rely on her and trust her greatly. We're not the only ones who think she's wonderful: other parents at both our son's preschool and daughter's kindergarten often specifically mentioned nice stories about how good Candace is with the kids and our son's preschool hired her as one of their three preschool teachers. Renee and Chris