One of our grand plans for next year (no longer next year, but rather in about 4 months!) is to hire an au pair to give us more flexibility with traffic, snow days, and our study schedule. We decided we would seek only German speakers, to get the kids a little familiar with the culture and language of where we're going, and helping us with our homework would certainly be an added boon! Because we're planners, we had decided April would be when we started the process. For comparison, apparently most people start the process 2-3 months before they needed someone, and we were just shy of 5 months out. A few weeks ago Terry and I spent a large chunk of our free time crafting our "all about our family" letter, choosing photos to upload, answering all kinds of questions on the online questionnaires, reading au pair profiles, scouring advice from aupairmom.com, and scheduling time to Skype with the au pair company people who had to vet us before we could be let loose on the unsuspecting young girls (and a few boys). In the end we registered with two au pair companies to give us a broader range, although it turned out we would have done fine with only one as none of the au pairs we emailed to from the other agency ever wrote back to us.
It's only been about 10 days since we finished our paperwork and we just matched with an au pair! I was really nervous because I didn't think we could possibly get so lucky, because she was only the second au pair we had an interview with. She seemed to have all the qualities we found most important, and she seemed such a good fit for us. We had her "meet" the kids tonight via Skype before we settled down to our conversation, as we figured we never hired a nanny who hadn't met the kids before, why would we start now? Of course, we have had three out-of-the-ballpark amazing nannies so far, and one perfectly fine nanny who lacked the problems and dramas we have heard about from others, so we do seem to manage OK. Two of the amazing nannies were only the second people we interviewed so I know it can happen so quickly.
When Alex wanted to be tucked in again after getting up to use the bathroom I told her the lady she met would take care of her next year while we were at work and she asked why we chose her. I told her the main points, and she said it sounded good ... so I guess she's on board.
[note: I wrote this on Monday but was too nervous about jinxing things to post until she confirmed. She just did (within 10 minutes of being offered the match - the person at the company whose job it is to offer her our match was out Monday and Tuesday)]
It's only been about 10 days since we finished our paperwork and we just matched with an au pair! I was really nervous because I didn't think we could possibly get so lucky, because she was only the second au pair we had an interview with. She seemed to have all the qualities we found most important, and she seemed such a good fit for us. We had her "meet" the kids tonight via Skype before we settled down to our conversation, as we figured we never hired a nanny who hadn't met the kids before, why would we start now? Of course, we have had three out-of-the-ballpark amazing nannies so far, and one perfectly fine nanny who lacked the problems and dramas we have heard about from others, so we do seem to manage OK. Two of the amazing nannies were only the second people we interviewed so I know it can happen so quickly.
When Alex wanted to be tucked in again after getting up to use the bathroom I told her the lady she met would take care of her next year while we were at work and she asked why we chose her. I told her the main points, and she said it sounded good ... so I guess she's on board.
[note: I wrote this on Monday but was too nervous about jinxing things to post until she confirmed. She just did (within 10 minutes of being offered the match - the person at the company whose job it is to offer her our match was out Monday and Tuesday)]