Our Au Pair is Here!

After a lot of nervous and excited anticipation, Marcel, our new au pair, is finally here in Minnesota.  We are so excited to have him here, share our culture our culture with him and have him as part of our family.

As I wrapped up a couple final things at worked, I checked the status of Marcel's flight one last time and saw his plane was arriving earlier than expected.  His flight was landing in 15 minutes and it was a 15-minute drive to the airport.  A co-worker had offered to come to the airport with me, so we dashed out the door hoping that we could make it to the security gate before Marcel exited.  Unfortunately, we just missed him! 

His first impression of me was probably of a crazy woman running towards him waving a "Welcome Marcel" sign.  But ours of him?  He's as friendly and easy-going as we as thought of him during the interview process.  He kept telling us he was nervous, but he genuinely seemed excited about this year-long adventure in a new country.

Oh, and he's a light-packer.  Marcel arrived with a messenger bag and one reasonable-size suitcase.  Seriously? That's all?  I packed almost that much for my five-day trip to Washington D.C. a few weeks ago.  Whenever I traveled abroad for extended stays, I maxed out the weight limit for my bag...and then carried everything else on board with me.  No wonder my husband is embarrassed to travel with me. I had noticed in his application that he liked shopping.  Obviously he intends to take advantage of the favorable euro-to-dollar exchange rate and our proximity to the Mall of America.

After leaving the airport, our next stop was...the county jail!  This was not the Minnesota welcome I normally give people, trust me.  However, due to state and federal adoption requirements, all members of a household over the age of 18 must have background checks, and a background check requires fingerprinting.  So even though Marcel had undergone a background check through the State Department before his visa was approved and had only stepped foot in Minnesota an hour prior, here I was taking him from the airport to the jail to have his fingerprints taken so that the Minnesota Department of Human Services can check to see if he's ever been convicted of child abuse, so that our social worker can update our home study and write that he's an upstanding guy, so that we can submit the updated home study to the USCIS, who will want to finger-print him again, so that they can re-issue their initial approval to bring an adopted child into this country.  This is one of the more ridiculous things we've done in this adoption process.

Marcel proved to be the flexible guy we had taken him for when we interviewed him and didn't let on that he thought the experience was anything but the normal thing you do with your new au pair.  After our visit to the county jail, we walked over to the post office to mail the fingerprint cards and accompanying paperwork to our home study agency.  With our adoption-related tasks behind us, it was finally time for Marcel to meet Oliver and Soren.

We drove to kids' daycare to pick them up on their last day.  Oliver had been talking all day about Marcel's arrival, so he was super excited, but as I had predicted, Soren was shy.  However, by the time we left the daycare center, he decided it was okay to give Marcel a high-five.  Marcel asked him if he liked playing t-ball and when we got home, the first thing Soren did was drag his tee and bat off the porch so he could show Marcel his swing.  And with that, Marcel had officially broken the ice with the kids.

The rest of the weekend is being devoted to getting to know our kids better, teaching him to change his first ever diaper, letting him practice driving our "big American cars," learning the kids' routine and of course having a little fun.  Prior to Marcel's arrival, we put him in contact with another German au pair who arrived last March, so they're out tonight doing whatever 22-two-year-olds like to do.  Then on Monday morning, at 7:30 a.m., he starts his gig as full-time nanny.