Au pair is amazing and I love her

[Gusthetheatrecat]

I posted here a couple of times with questions about maybe, possibly getting an au pair. I was worried about lots of aspects of how things would work, and fretted myself into a bit of a frenzy before she arrived.
I thought I'd come back here to post, in amongst all the problems and issues which people inevitably share, to say that our au pair is wonderful and lovely and brilliant. She is only here for a few more weeks (was a summer placement of 2 months as a trial for everyone. She's going back to study.) but I already am recruiting a replacement and can't imagine how we'll function without her.
I remember a poster on here saying that her au pair had 'changed her life' and it feels a bit like that for me. She was brilliant at my 6 year old's party on Sunday, is so helpful in the mornings, and generally just bustles about playing with the children, and being helpful.
I wanted to share this partly as thanks for the various posters who gave me advice, but also to encourage anyone who was thinking about getting an au pair with a good story. The internet is full of horror stories about au pairs. I should know. I read most of them the night before ours arrived!

Ooh lovely Gus! Will watch with interest as we are thinking of getting one to help with the DC run around. My work hours will be changing around, and as the DC get older they just seem to get busier!

It was me who sad my au pair had changed my life. 6 months on she is still amazing. Currently she has gone home for 2 weeks to take her finals and I notice all the little things she oes to make my life easier.

scouse - obviously we are only a month or so in (with someone who seems quite remarkably easy to live with) but I am wholly in favour. I keep having these wonderful 'tiny moments' of realising how much better she is making things. Like yesterday when I sat on the floor reading a grumpy baby books whilst she assembled Play Mobil with my elder two. Or Wednesdays when she picks up my eldest from school and takes her to piano, rather than all of us having to schlep there, wait around, and come back again. It's totally great. I need to find another without delay!
And lonecat - thank you again! Your comment really stuck with me, and made me feel better when I was really worrying about what we'd done and why.

Any niggles will usually present itself in one way or another within the first week. If you got through a month and now cannot imagine living without her, I reckon you have a keeper .

Well done. Good aupairs make it seem so effortless and are worth their weight in gold.

Where did you find her Gus? We are in NZ which complicates the situation somewhat. No easy return ticket if it's shite. It would be a $2000 airfare!

Hello scouse, we found her through friends. A friend of my Mum's posted on facebook to say she knew someone whose student was hoping to au pair for the summer in London. So we went for it. It's worked so well that I am trying to recruit a replacement for her through social media. So far a facebook post and some emails have yielded a few interested people. No guarantees, obviously, but I quite like the security of the 'friend-of-a-friend' kind of contact.