The madness of aupairs

[Quattrocento]

Just sifting through applications now

1. From a wannabe grunge rockstar who assures me he will be fully prepared to care for the DCs 15 hours a week right after he has finished touring North America with his band

1. One who started a letter with "I am a happy boy" and signed off "God save the Queen" which had me giggling for an hour

1. One who is likes to make things with her hands and make art all the time "see i have lots of ideas" but confesses to believing in reincarnation, being vegetarian, and untidy (that would Never Do)

Clearly madness would be an advantage in the Quattro household - but is this normal?

Number 2 deserves a trial period, at least!

the first au pair I had was mad as a box of frogs - it wasn't ideal though as she fed my (7 y old) son pepper sandwiches, ran up 450 on the phone bill in 2 weeks, and then planned to skip without telling me (I found out before she did) (and skipped the next place the agency sent her to, leaving them with a surprisingly empty room when they got up on the Monday morning)

pmsl.

I never had those. My last one was very serious on her application, yet she proceeded to give my ds2 (2 years old) a large mug of hot tea with milk and sugar every time she fancied quiet time with her book (all the time) as it would keep him occupied for absolute ages. You know, wait for tea too cool, then start sipping, etc....

Yes, number 2 is very endearing. I worry about this sort of stuff and spend hours vetting them but in the end, probably closing my eyes and pointing would be just as scientific.

Current one is lovely generally so think we've been lucky. We had a slight freshness problem which seems to have gone away.

Is it okay to ask them if they have any (mental) health issues?

you have me laughing my head off! We had exactly the same, last year, when we used an agency. The first girl was bulimic, and ate us out of house and home in the dead of night (poor thing-her mother had sent her to 'sort herself out') 2nd one was absolutely fantastic, but only needed a summer placement, and then the 3rd one claimed that I had her scrubbing my house from dawn till dusk! (not true, obviously!) On a more positive note though, I did have an application from Enrique, a spanish fitness instructor....unfortunately DH was not to keen on the idea of taking him on

why jura -he sounds ideally qualified .. am sure could keep your dc amused over summer months with some athletics practice?

Have you got rozario's details? I quite fancy learning to high jump

oh i miss some of my aupairs. 2 of them. the other one, not so much.

hmmm, maybe i need another aupair

Are we all hiring for September already? Gosh, need to get my skates on ...

You're all very brave. I would never hire an Au-pair, would rather have a nursery, childminder or nanny.
Don't you ever get worried?

Oh, Ripeberry, I use a ft nursery AND an aupair. With complex schoolrun and commute, it is a necessary evil.

LOL's Quattro sounds sooo familiar. That AP boy I had last summer signed God save the Queen too.
Well, I'm waiting for AP to come back from holiday to see what we're doing. But hopefully I won't be reading between the lines in the rubbish that is APW.

You really don't Boyz, they're a nightmare these days.

sorry jura 'tis true...
next time I'm just going to randomly pick one regardless of profile. pin in map kind of thing. Will probably get a good one.

...slightly off topic, but related.

Just how useful are au pairs?

I could sure do with some help. Four boys (11, 9, 7 and 7) and just me to herd 'em. Someone to sweep the floor and collect them from school a couple of days a week would be worth a lot....

....but wonder whether an inexperienced young person would cope with my kids. I don't want to become reliant and find that they leave quickly or "skip". Does this happen often?

...there is also the space issue. I anticipate that I would give up the master bedroom with en suite thingy and live in what I laughingly call the dining room (no dining occurs there. Junk storage and sofa bed for guests...)

Is it worth it??

nope!

no seriously,...It can be, but recently all the Ap's I've had need to be told exactly what to do minute by minute practically. The cleaning they've done is more of a quick flick and they seem to be relaxing into the extra child roll very very quickly.
There's been loads of horror stories on here, mine included BUT my current is great with the kids, and there is the reassurance that someone is here should I have to dash to London for work.

my last canadian aupair was truly fabulous. laid back, fun, intelligent (so didnt need things explaining), was more like a bf hanging out with me and just happening to be a great childcare partner.
i heart her. and miss her. id get her back only shes got some high powered job in govt back in canada now so strangely not tempted to be my wingman for peanuts anymore

my swedish one was lovely too. never got up before about 11am, but lovely nonetheless

How did you get around having a Canadian Boyz?

eh? what wrt legalities?

think she came 'on holiday' and we gave her 'pocket money'.

she was only here for about 4m.

i do vaguely remember worrying about visas or something, but there was no problem in reality. i had another canadian too (the one i dont miss)