Every day after school, while most kids jump into their cars and fly down Cascade Road aching to get home and sleep, or run out onto the field for practice, I take a 15-second drive past the tennis courts and three more houses down to a house that is not mine. Inside, there are two dogs who are not mine; food that is not the typical food you would normally find in my fridge and two sets of wide eyes and screaming voices that I hadn’t even met until the first day of school.

These smiling eyes and loud laughs belong to two of the people who have quickly become some of the most important in my life. They are my kids. No, not actually, but for two or three hours after school each day they are. I’m their nanny, and there is nothing else I would rather be doing with those precious three hours.

In the last few weeks leading up to the school year, I wasn’t planning on having a job. After all, I was just about to begin junior year and all of the stress and pressure that comes with it. I figured a job would just be too much; but then, I got a text from a friend that had graduated the previous year asking me if I would take over her job of nannying two kids. Out of nowhere, I instantly said yes. To this day I have no idea why, especially since I was so dead set on steering clear of the working world for as long as possible. But now, here I am, forcing a ten-year-old to spit out his gum and teaching seventh-grade science, and I love every minute of it.

So quickly a thirteen-year-old has become my best friend. While I still am the one to force her to sit down and do her homework or get up and get ready for dance, she is the one who can make me laugh no matter how bad of a day I had at school. I have grown to love the way a ten-year-old always is filled with energy and always has something different on his mind. So quickly has a 90-pound chocolate lab and a 15-pound terrier wiggled their way into my heart, and not to mention onto my lap.

People constantly tell me that I should stop working after they see me tired and stressed. Most nights I don’t get home from school, work, and practice until 8:30 or 9:00 p.m., but I wouldn’t have it any other way. These kids make me smile, and on some days, there’s nothing more I could ask for.