.png)
Adventure Nannies On Air
The team behind Adventure Nannies is joined by industry experts and dear friends to share anecdotes and resources for nannies, childcare providers, and families. Adventure Nannies is a nationwide agency that helps humans find the support and tools they need to build their dream lives. They have been featured in the New York Times, Forbes, Fortune, and Marie Claire and are well-known in the industry as being progressive innovators and advocates.
For more, visit adventurenannies.com or email marketing@adventurenannies.com to learn how to become a guest on the show.
Adventure Nannies On Air
The Transformative Power of Everyday Play with Annie Delaney
The role of a nanny or childcare provider is evolving, especially with more parents working from home. This episode delves into the new expectations and challenges caregivers face, exploring how they can thrive in this changing landscape. We uncover the power of simple activities in child development and how incorporating personal interests into caregiving can create richer learning experiences.
Join us as we chat with Annie Delaney, creator of the innovative Rayz Kidz app, designed to revolutionize communication between parents and caregivers. Annie shares her insights on:
- The Evolving Role of the Caregiver: We discuss the increasing demands placed on caregivers and how they can rise to the challenge.
- The Impact of Everyday Interactions: Discover how seemingly simple activities can have a profound impact on a child's development.
- Bridging the Communication Gap: Learn how the Rayz Kidz app fosters seamless communication and strengthens the parent-caregiver partnership. This platform provides structure for planning educational activities and documenting developmental milestones, ensuring parents are always in the loop.
- Play-Based Learning: The Key to Development: We explore the importance of balancing independent and guided play, addressing the pressures parents often feel from online resources. Annie shares practical tips for creating engaging learning experiences, like a simple sensory sandbox, and how caregivers can educate parents on the benefits of play-based learning. The Rayz Kidz app offers structured prompts to support this approach.
- From Childhood Dreams to Innovation: Get to know Annie as she shares inspiring anecdotes about her childhood and the experiences that led her to create the Rayz Kidz app.
Featured Guest: Annie Delaney, creator of the Rayz Kidz app
Key Takeaways:
- Caregivers are essential partners in a child's development.
- Simple, everyday activities can have a significant impact on learning.
- Open and consistent communication between parents and caregivers is crucial.
- Play-based learning is a powerful tool for fostering development.
- The Rayz Kidz app provides a valuable resource for caregivers and parents alike.
Visit Rayz Kidz at https://rayzkidz.com/ to learn more and download the app!
Links mentioned in the show:
https://rayzkidz.com/play
https://rayzkidz/communication
- Have any questions? Reach out to us on Facebook, and Instagram, and check out the resources on our blog!
- If you’d like to join our newsletter to be the first to know about our new positions, click here.
- Are you looking for an exceptional nanny, newborn care specialist, or private educator? Get in touch!
- Do you have what it takes to be an Adventure Nanny? Apply Now!
you're listening to adventure nannies on air in each episode we'll dive into a topic from the wide world of nannying from what to pack for your next adventure, professional development opportunities, industry standards, legal pay and anything else we see crossing our desks at adventure nannies, the nationwide agency for families, nannies, private educators and newborn care specialists. I'm Danielle, I'm Shenandoah and this is Adventure Nannies On Air. The policies and views expressed in this episode are those of the individuals and do not necessarily represent the views of Adventure Nannies.
Speaker 1:Also, this episode has a little salty language in it and may not be appropriate for kids. Hello Danielle, Hi Shenandoah, how are you today?
Speaker 2:I am doing so well, how are you?
Speaker 1:I'm great and I'm so excited to be here today.
Speaker 2:Me too, a hot topic that has been coming up for us, particularly with so many parents working from home now because of COVID. A lot of nannies are feeling this extra pressure to really create even more off the charts amazing experiences and activities for them to do with their nanny kids throughout the day, because families are witnessing a lot more of it and there's kind of this unspoken pressure or desire to like show me at the end of the day how you made my child a rocket scientist, or how my child is fluent in five languages now than there maybe was before the before the pandemic.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. It's such a strange feeling I think, even if you have never worked as a nanny, I think you could understand. I mean, both of us have worked as nannies, so I think we definitely understand. But, regardless of the industry that you're working in, any time that you've got your employer kind of looking over your shoulder on a regular basis, it can add quite a bit of pressure and I think in a lot of ways kind of maybe have a different impact than might be intended. So I think it's true that with more families and more parents that are all sort of congregating at home after within around the pandemic, it makes for a different challenge for people that are working within the home, because a lot of the work that they do that is so valuable day-to-day can look maybe not as exciting if somebody's kind of looking over their shoulder and saying I thought we were going to build a rocket ship every day.
Speaker 1:You know what are you doing over here, Just playing in the sandbox, when really playing in the sandbox is developing all of these incredible skills, including things from fine motor skills and I think you know understanding perception, and I think it's interesting to see this sort of burden of activity planning that you kind of mentioned, shift in a way that impacts nannies so much to where they have this kind of undue pressure every day.
Speaker 1:And one of the things that's really important, I think, to balance that perspective with is that the work that nannies are doing every single day have a lifelong impact on the children in their care, and some of the most what might appear in their care and some of the most what might appear as basic activities can be some of the most educational and supportive activities for the child at that particular age and where they're at in their development. So the key is kind of creating a communication where families are able to really see and understand the developmental impact that the nannies are having on their children, even in those moments that might just look like day-to-day care.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I feel like when I was a nanny, because during that time I was also a touring musician and so I had it really easy. I had kind of a freebie, because A the family I nannied for lived 10 blocks away from my house and my house had a piano in it and an accordion and all of these instruments and so if we were having sort of a a boring day together or a slow day, and you know, or the park was too crowded or sort of whatever, I had permission to just bring my four-year-old nanny charge back to my house and we would just sit and hang out at the piano or we learned a lot of Raffi songs together. There's still there's a video of me wearing a dinosaur hat and this child, who now is about to graduate from high school, sitting on the couch singing Baby Beluga together that his parents repost every two or three years on social media and they're like Shenandoah, you were the best nanny to our kid and it truly. You know it was just my hobby or my interest that I was bringing in, but that was really valuable to them and I think that plays in really nicely to what today's conversation with Annie Delaney is all about. Annie Delaney founded Raise Kids, which is an app that helps caregivers and parents communicate about what's going on in the day to day and what skills are being worked on.
Speaker 2:While parents may be reading a lot of books or articles or talking to friends about what childhood development should look like for their kids, at any of these sort of developmental milestones they often don't realize or need a little bit of extra help or extra communication and understanding that any day-to-day activity that you're doing with a child other than parking them in front of a TV and taking a nap is contributing somehow into these major developmental categories.
Speaker 2:And so the difference between a family thinking this is a you know, this is a great nanny who keeps my kids safe while I'm at work, versus this is an exceptional, amazing nanny who is doing all of these very cool developmental, age appropriate activities with my kids might not be you spending your whole weekend on Pinterest and going to a craft store and bringing $100 worth of crafts over to try to make you know the most fancy popsicle stick house that anyone has ever seen and trying to turn one of your nanny charges into the next Frank Lloyd Wright. It could just be. Instead of saying we had a great day. We just went and sat at the park for three hours of saying we had a great day. We went to the park, we worked on our fine motor skills, we did a nature walk, we identified some plants, we worked on sharing. We had this communication situation that came up and it really is just about the way that you're communicating it and sharing and transferring some of the knowledge that you have as a professional caregiver over to the parents.
Speaker 1:Yes, that's so true. I could not agree with you more. You add this extra value to the job it's. Parents are then able to really understand the impact of your work, and I love the examples that you gave, and also I, just as an aside, can you imagine how incredible it would be to have a world touring musician as your nanny, and your kind of laid back task, if you're having a hard afternoon, is to just sit back and listen to her play instruments, like get out of here. I would be reposting that on social media all the time, too, as either the parent or the kid that was so so benefited by that. So I think it's really important to remember the impact that you're having on these kids' lives and the longevity of that impact. So we're so excited to speak with Annie.
Speaker 1:So Annie Delaney is the co-founder and CEO of Raise Kids, a childcare app for parents and caregivers specifically designed for the home environment. She's a mom who became an entrepreneur to solve her personal need, leaving her 13-year career in corporate America to design and build this app to benefit families in a similar position. She has a passion for children and understands the unique challenges of home child care, and she is on a mission to improve the experience for parents and caregivers, while putting the child first. Annie resides outside of Boston with her husband and three children and their 30-pound rescue pup, mikey. Without further ado, let's welcome our guest. Hi, annie.
Speaker 3:Hi. Thank you for having me Welcome, we're so glad to have you here today. I was so happy to be here.
Speaker 1:Thank you, so today we're going to be talking a little bit about the parent perspective on child development, but I think first to give our audience a little general sense of kind of where we're coming out with this, would you mind telling us just a little bit about Raise Kids and kind of how this all came to be?
Speaker 3:Yeah, and it ties in really well with the topic, because the how it came to be was about my passion for child development for my own kids, and so I really wanted to be able to have a way to bring the tools to caregivers to provide that learning environment and the meaningful activities that really make a difference in a child's learning, and couple that with some tools that caregivers need about communication that help to strengthen that caregivers need about communication that help to strengthen that relationship and that bond between a parent and a caregiver.
Speaker 3:And so that's what we created was a tool to really serve the home environment, which is a bit of a unique space to be in, and what we do is we really focus on that child development and give a caregiver a means to be able to really intentionally lean into activities and provide the balanced environment that's needed in that zero to five time, when child development is just so critically important and brain developing at just a rapid speed. What are some things that caregivers can do to be able to use best practices in harnessing as much of the learning as they can, and doing that through play, yeah.
Speaker 1:I love that. So I personally really appreciate your app. I have a couple of nieces and nephews and I love to use the app, especially when I'm going to hang out with them, because I don't have kids of my own, so I'm not personally interacting with a lot of child development on a regular basis or even really thinking too much about it. So getting the opportunity to hang out with nieces and nephews and have some activities kind of just in my pocket that are going to be really engaging and also offer something that's really valuable to them has been such a cool opportunity. So can you tell me a little bit more about some of the ways that parents might also benefit from this interaction within the app? One of the things that I appreciated was the way that there's a communication tool between care providers and the families.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean at the base of it, every relationship is built on trust, right, and that connection.
Speaker 3:And for a parent and caregiver that's so important to be able to be speaking the same language and there's an element of transparency that just helps to build that trust. And when you're communicating what's gone on during the day, the parent feels involved. And the other part of it is the idea of how you develop a child. I think can vary depending on your perspective, where you came from and to appreciate what's really the best way for children to learn, which is through play, having parents see the same thing that a caregiver is seeing. You're quite literally speaking the same language, and so what we try to do is to bring that language to you and make it in plain English terms, not the standard sort of ECE terms, so that a parent and a caregiver can really understand it. And then when there's an area of development that you want to be working on with a child, you know how to do that more easily and a parent can appreciate what they're getting out of that and a caregiver feels really good about the value that they're providing for that child.
Speaker 1:That's so, so great and such a cool perspective. Because you know from some of the care takers that I've interacted with some of the nannies at different conferences who've utilized raise kids. One of the great benefits is, when it comes to doing their performance reviews, they've got such a sort of trackable, easy way to show the impact of their work because so much of it is being captured day to day. So there's not only alignment in terms of what the goals are with that child between the nanny and the parent, but there's also a sense of just really. You know, when maybe there's some misconceptions about what the day-to-day life of a nanny looks like, the parents able to really get an insight into that and be an active participant in guiding that growth, but also knowing like, okay, they're not just sitting on the couch, they're really doing a lot of incredible things here.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean a base of a nanny's job is taking care of the child and making sure. I mean about most important is safety, and then next in line is child development. Right Like that, whether you really consciously go into it thinking that you're, you are the the one of the first teachers for a child and for a nanny to really harness that role is it shows the value that they bring beyond just caring for the child while the parents aren't there, but really the harnessing that and taking responsibility for the idea that child development is a major part of their role. And then parents can see that and taking responsibility for the idea that child development is a major part of their role, and then parents can see that and really appreciate the value that that nanny's bringing Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Well, and I know for a lot of nannies the nannies who are investing in child development and who are prioritizing it just the process of coming up with the activities and researching them is almost like a second full-time job.
Speaker 2:I see so many nannies in Facebook groups Like I think nannies are single-handedly like nannies and people planning weddings are just keeping Pinterest in business. Yes, and so I. I really love the idea. No, we've talked to so many nannies who have used it who were like, cool, I don't have to make, like Thanksgiving, hand turkeys out of construction paper every day for the entire month of November and and you know, and be like, okay, we need some, we need this Right. I'm curious about, just from a value perspective for the parents, what is the easiest way for a caregiver to approach the idea of using the app or a tool like that without it kind of accidentally backfiring and the parent's perspective being oh no, you're the nanny, I'm paying you to invent all this stuff and be magical and pull magic crafts and ideas out of your bag all of the time.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I think there's some education for the parents that's necessary here and we want to help bring that. Child development doesn't have to be as hard as it sounds and in fact, a lot of times when they're doing these sort of Pinterest-worthy activities for the sake of showing the parents, it actually has the reverse effect on a child, which is the most important part, right? So if you're doing a lot of these Pinterest-y crafts a lot of time it's just for the sake of showing something. But the child those are limited in the depth that you can go with for the skills that a child is building and a nanny really should be harnessing their power in serve and return and the exchanges that they have to be able to create this bond with the child, to be able to give them confidence, to help with their social and emotional skills, their self-regulation, in addition to their physical skills, their cognitive skills, some school readiness. There's so much that you can be doing with these activities that don't show in a beautiful craft at the end of the day that the nanny probably had to end up finishing. Really, some of the ones that are the most valuable are the simplest and that's where I think parents can need to sort of reframe. I think a lot of times we end up being on two ends of the spectrum, where there's either these beautiful looking crafts and that we spent so much time on, and that's the output, or there's these worksheets and that's the school readiness part, and oftentimes parents say, oh well, I have to send my child to a preschool or have to send them to some sort of academic setting to get this In reality. Home is a wonderful place for that learning to happen, but it really can't be either end of those. It has to be in the middle, where there are activities that are approachable and are simple, and it's also a mix. You know you want a blend of some independent play, you want some guided play, and an Annie needs to understand the target balance that they want to be having and really approach that with intentionality and thought when you go into your week or your day, and then how to utilize that guided play for that more in-depth learning, which is where the school readiness actually comes from.
Speaker 3:And the simplest ones are the ones where the most can happen, whether it's just a sensory box filled with sand and some toys that are in there. You're talking about the softness of the sand and oh, sand's soft. The S oh, what else starts with an S. And you're appreciating how soft the sand is and how it goes through your fingers. And what else can we use to play with this? How could we mold it? You put some water in with it, you make a sand castle another thing that starts with an S, what else can we build with this?
Speaker 3:And you really just take that one simple sensory sandbox and build it into something that is so much more meaningful for a child, all while bonding with them. Build it into something that is so much more meaningful for a child, all while bonding with them. Like that's the beauty of the simplicity of it. We kind of had to know how to do that, and so what we do with the app is give you play prompts to say you know, taking these simple activities, how could you break that down? What area can you intentionally think about leaning into? Is it some physical development, cognitive development? And how can you incorporate some school readiness into this without it having to be wrote? Learning with a worksheet.
Speaker 1:It's so wild because I can kind of feel, as you're describing, more about this. I think that there are so many different ways that the app could really support any style of parenting technique and I think that kind of knowing as a nanny that that conversation doesn't actually need to be super intimidating. It actually is kind of an assistant manager to the work that you're already doing.
Speaker 3:Right, right, yeah, and I think parents probably spend some time doing some research, but we also are just in this age of being flooded with information around us and not really understanding what all those terms really mean. So you have, you know, you're on Pinterest and you're like, well, these things are cool. You're on Instagram and you're like, oh, these parents are doing this or these accounts are doing these things. What does it really mean? Or, you know, I follow some Montessori accounts. Okay, montessori, that sounds like it's what I should be doing, but really to set up a Montessori environment is like there's a lot involved in setting up a Montessori environment, and so to be all one thing or all another, I think, probably does a disservice to not think of the value that you can get from. Multiple is sort of her style, but she also loves outdoor learning and she also appreciates Montessori and. But at the end of the day, it's all about the experience that you can get with a child and that bonding and the connection that you can get. So, however, you get there for a parent to appreciate the nature of that nanny in what seems to be very simple. That's where I think a lot of the education can come from that makes them still feel good about it, because there's so much societal pressure on us parents to make them feel like their child is ready.
Speaker 3:And when you have parents that are in the same class as your child and they're saying their kids are doing X, y and Z things, well, of course you feel like I have to be doing that, but you have to have the confidence to know you're doing the right thing by leaning into play and that play is really the most effective way that a child learns. I mean one. It's fun, right. So by nature someone's going to take to that a lot more. But think about language in the way that you would learn Spanish If you were to just say flashcards and say escuela and teach them that this is school.
Speaker 3:Or if you're to be outside in a playhouse and make that be the escuela oh, we're going to go visit and you start to incorporate some language in there. A child is going to pick up on that a lot more than they're going to pick up on flash cards and worksheets and things. And so the nanny, although unfortunate, has some education to do for parents about why that is a more effective way. But that's because we were all raised on worksheets and flash cards and things. It's really only been in the last 10 years or so that play has taken. The science behind play and child development has really become obvious that play is the most effective way. So a nanny has to educate themselves, to educate a parent.
Speaker 2:but utilizing the app, which we try to make it super easy because we put all the language right there- Awesome and for nannies who really have kind of fallen into the pattern and maybe brought their parents or their employers into the pattern of having sort of results-based activities like a Pinterest craft where at the end of it there's going to be this beautiful thing or a worksheet to say look your child, did you go? Abby, did a 92% today. What is the? What is the experience like through raise kids, for families to be able to see some of the value in what's going on throughout the day without the nanny sort of needing to feel like they're going on the defensive and saying no, like no, I did stuff today. It's just not a worksheet. We went, we made a whole lot of squalor, like, come on guys, this was a great day for us.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it is a little bit tricky. I mean, we give the opportunity to be able to show pictures and to be able to write in what was done. So for me that passes my test. If I see a picture of my child learning and and it's a video of them doing it, like that is just evidence right there and I can see how much fun they're having doing it. And some of the evidence comes after the fact, when you start to hear their vocabulary and the way they're talking and it's like, okay, it might be a little bit slower than the immediate satisfaction of a worksheet that they completed correctly, but it's going to be more long lasting. But the beginning of this you have to start to align on that it should come in the interview process and it should come in those monthly check-ins that you're doing, and so it's not just in the day-to-day interactions. There's a lot more foundational things that need to happen, but the day-to-day can come in the form of pictures and updates and also, I think, even just running a parent through.
Speaker 3:Oh, here are some things that I'm planning on for the week.
Speaker 3:Take a look at this activity and I'm really planning on leaning into sort of the cognitive development here and you push our dropdown and it talks about how you lean into that cognitive development, school readiness.
Speaker 3:I think this is a great opportunity for us to focus on the letter S and all the S sounds and we'll start reading some things. Maybe we'll focus on snails this week and I'll get a book on snails and we'll sing a story about snails or trying to wrap it around, a concept that can take you through the week. And I think the thing for a parent that is impressive for a nanny to do is to approach it with intentionality, to say here's my plan, here's what I hope to get out of this, because, just like anything, approaching something with intentionality is going to lead to better outcomes, right. So, even if you don't do exactly what you set out to do, really start about it and the app's there for prompts and fun ideas and fresh ideas to be able to do that, and also the structure for a parent to be able to see the same thing. But really it's on a nanny to come up with that intentional approach and make sure that the parent is looped in on that.
Speaker 1:I think that's so cool and one of the things I really appreciate about what you just said is this idea of setting an intentionality and really moving forward with a plan. And I think you know to Shenandoah's point a lot of times you know families that are paying, you know, a very great wage to have somebody care for their children. They really do want to see the impact of that. So having a way to quantify that that isn't necessarily a score on some sort of a weird sheet where somebody's had to memorize something at six years old. I think it's so much more valuable to see the impact of that in the day to day life. You're going to see the growth that's happening with the child in the way that they interact at the dinner table, in the way that their language is developing, in the way that they're sort of adjusting and learning different social cues. So I can see so many practical ways that this benefits the children, which, of course, is always the main focus here.
Speaker 1:But I also love the idea, like you said, of doing check-ins with the parents. We recommend weekly check-ins. Just stay on the same page, and I think if I were a parent and I had an amazing nanny coming to me during our weekly check-ins with a quick rundown of okay, this is what we're focusing on. I checked out the Raise Kids app and these are the things that we're going to be working on this week. I'm really excited about XYZ. I would feel really thrilled about having that person care for my child, so I love that idea of incorporating it into check-ins and being super intentional.
Speaker 3:Yeah, for me when I see my daughter, our five-year-old, and I see some of the things that she's learning and she's in kindergarten now and so she brings back some tools there.
Speaker 3:But I also see it in the day-to-day of our own household, her self-regulation that she's learning to have, so she'll now unprompted if she's having a hard time and she has some big emotions that she's trying to manage, she'll go into a corner and she'll do her finger breathing, which is you go to the top of each finger and you inhale and wait, exhale and she'll go and she'll do her finger breathing.
Speaker 3:And she's taught us all how to do her finger breathing. And just the power of that self-regulation to bring her to a totally different mindset is such an amazing tool to have. And so bringing that into the home environment and doing it through some activities and generally maybe more the sensory activities, something where you can talk about social and emotional. We have one on routines, where routines are important too. We talk about bedtime routines Routines by themselves are important and utilizing those opportunities to talk about what makes you feel safe, what makes you feel secure, what makes you feel happy and what can calm you down if you're having a hard time and then practicing those throughout the week. I mean, those are such powerful things as a parent that you appreciate so much.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, I really think it's cool too to kind of imagine the way that you can utilize this sort of tool to create an opportunity within the home where learning is just a continuous ongoing process for everyone. You know, not just the child that is benefiting from the app, but for everyone in the home. So, for instance, your daughter is teaching everybody this really cool regulation skill that she learned, and how amazing would every boardroom be if more people understood that. You know so.
Speaker 1:I think there's something right, like everybody should know that. But I think it's so helpful and cool to think about learning not, as like you said, this sort of rigid activity that happens in only one specific setting, but instead to really build within your child this understanding that learning is never ending, that we're all always learning and that learning is a part of every single part of our day. You know, I think that's just such a cool approach.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and and I think you end up appreciating it so more, but so much more.
Speaker 3:When you understand what a child is getting out of something, it makes you feel really good and then you lean into it more and you want to do it more and it's, you know, it's about that connection and relationship that you have with the child, but it's also about seeing that that happen. I can see a direct correlation with the amount of time that I spend with my child and the quality time that I spend with them and their behavior that day or later on that day, like they're easier to put to bed, like there's there's a really big difference in a child. And and then I also see things like the fine motor skills Like our daughter has incredible fine motor skills because she spends so much time cutting things and I see that all develop. But what I I think I've come to appreciate more in having developed this app and really started learning more about child development is the beauty of of watching a child grow and that we all take part in that. And to appreciate that is to lean into it more.
Speaker 2:That's so beautiful. And, annie, we have a couple of questions that we'd like to ask you before we wrap up our time together. Sure, of course, they're really tough questions. We ask them to everyone. Danielle, would you like to break out your investigative journalism chops and ask Annie her first question?
Speaker 1:Absolutely Brace yourself, Annie. This one's going to be hard-hitting journalism.
Speaker 2:I'm nervous.
Speaker 1:So when you were four years old imagining and just assuming that you knew what a nanny was at four years old who would your dream nanny have been?
Speaker 3:Who would my dream nanny have been? I mean, the nannies that were front and center were like Mary Poppins, of course. We did a test. We did a test for nannies, like a quiz of which kind of nanny would you be? And I went back and watched clips of these nannies to really get a sense of their personalities, to put together the test. And it was Mary Poppins, Nanny McPhee and Mrs Doubtfire, who wasn't really a nanny, but Mrs Doubtfire like hands down, because you'd want like that fun person, and so it was fun going back and watching the clips of that. But yeah, you want somebody who's going to engage and have fun and play games and be silly, because that's what childhood's about.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I completely agree. I think Mrs Doubtfire would have been a blast as a nanny just wildly fun and you know, throwing pies in people's faces, hopefully, and dancing in the kitchen. I love it, yes. So all of the candidates at Adventure Nannies list out 10 fun facts that we share with families when we're going through the application process, and I would love to hear your three fun facts. Just as like kind of a little preface to this. Your facts can be really anything. We get a variety of fun facts. Just as like, kind of a little preface to this. Your facts can be really anything. We get a variety of fun facts, some of which are maybe not quite as fun as you might imagine and some are really bizarre, but anything fun or interesting that you'd like to share about yourself I'd love to hear.
Speaker 3:Some things that are unexpected about me, because I seem pretty maybe vanilla is the right word. I fully appreciate hip hop music and can like turn into a totally different person when I listen to it and actually get really focused when I'm like working and writing, on writing something. If I just have it in the background, you know, it just brings you back to where you were at that time when you heard that, and so that's probably unexpected.
Speaker 1:I love that.
Speaker 3:I'm a middle child, which isn't very interesting in and of itself, but I think it might explain the part of me that is the person who tries to connect people and be the peacekeeper. But I also got really good at arguing, because I felt like I had to always sort of be arguing my point and finding creative ways to get the attention that kids so much crave my point and finding creative ways to get the attention that kids so much crave. And then this is always a like a big story that we don't have time to talk about right now. But I went on a trip to Italy for work for my old job and two jobs ago and I got an emergency appendectomy at like a little town in Italy so that's another story for another day, but I spent a week in the hospital there.
Speaker 1:That's like the antithesis of fun.
Speaker 3:Unless there was pasta, I don't know the only person that spoke English was a woman who helped to. She was like a custodial person there, and so she would come and speak to me, and some of the doctors did too, but the nurses would go home and tell their kids about the American was at the hospital.
Speaker 1:Oh my goodness, that sounds really scary, honestly, but also intriguing.
Speaker 2:I want to hear the whole story sometime yeah, now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's so interesting.
Speaker 2:Well, Annie, where can people who are excited to learn a little bit more about you or about Raise Kids find you on the internet?
Speaker 3:So we are on Instagram, facebook, linkedin. I've dabbled a little bit in TikTok. It's a bit of a challenging one, but all the handles are at Raise Kids and then, of course, RaiseKidscom. You can find the app on the App Store or on Google Play. It's available to download for free, and so with the free part of it, you get the communication tools, you get some photo storage and things. You get limited activities, but you do get some activities to get a sense of what's there, and then you can upgrade to premium. It's $20 a month and then you get access to all the activities. You get the scheduling feature and chat and then boatloads of storage. So I encourage you to do that, and, of course, you can always reach out to me as well. My email is anniedelaney at raisekidscom, and we look forward to connecting with the amazing nannies of the Adventure Nannies Network, because we know that they're awesome.
Speaker 1:Thank you for being here with us today and for your time. I think it's just been really cool to get a deeper, deeper understanding of raise kids and all of the benefits that it can offer both nannies and parents, and I just want to thank you for your time.
Speaker 3:Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. Love talking to you guys, as always.
Speaker 1:Well, we look forward to seeing you, hopefully at some conferences this year.
Speaker 3:Yes, coming up, yay, awesome.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much. Thanks for listening. You can find all of our episodes on Apple Music, spotify and wherever podcasts are streamed.
Speaker 2:And you can find Adventure Nannies off air on our website adventuredanniescom, or you can follow us on Facebook and Instagram to stay up to date on our latest opportunities.
Speaker 1:If you love this episode, please give us a review if you're feeling so inclined.
Speaker 2:And if you hated this episode, well, sorry.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening.
