Goodbye to Our German Family

After a long wait at the airport with four inpatient children scanning the faces of everyone who walked through the international arrivals security checkpoint, out finally walked Oma Heidi and Mama Danny.  It was a tearful reunion for Mama Danny, who could not stop touching the daughter she hadn't seen in nine months, our au pair, Celina.  And Oma Heidi could not wait to get her hands on my four little ones, the children she'd only previously known via Skype. This is the woman they had come to know as the one to keep us well-stocked with German chocolate and Nutella, thanks to her frequent care packages, and here she was in person and larger than life. 

The evolution of waiting for Oma Heidi and Mama Danny

I can see where Celina gets her personality from after meeting Danny.  Both are quiet and calm and quick to flash a friendly smile. She was as eager to accompany on a trip to Target as she was to sightsee with four children in tow.

Oma Heidi was a hoot! She wanted to kiss and hug everyone and treated us instantly like family.  Like Danny, it was her first time in the U.S. and she embraced all the new sights and experiences with gusto. It didn't bother her that no one spoke or understood German.  She nonetheless chatted it up with anyone and everyone. 

Back at our house in St. Paul, the nine of us crowded around the dining room table for a simple dinner of soup and bread before our guests crashed for the night. They would need their rest because we were going to wear them out with early mornings, sightseeing, and the chaos of a house with four young children and three other adults under one roof.

Celina had previously committed to attending prom with some American friends on Heidi and Danny's first Saturday with us, so I played tour director on her behalf.  I was more than happy to do this because I love showing guests around my adopted state and bringing them to places my au pairs might not think to visit, or even know about. In the case of our German guests, it was also an opportunity to practice my German and get to know my au pair's family.

So that Saturday morning, Kiera and I drove Oma Heidi and Mama Danny over to Minneapolis where we enjoyed the view of the Stone Arch Bridge and Mississippi River from the perch the Guthrie Theater's "Endless Bridge."  We walked through Mills Ruins Park and along the bridge, and then tried some clothes on inside a "mobile boutique" (think food truck parked on a city street, but instead of serving food, they sell clothes).  We also visited the Basilica of St. Mary and the famous "Spoonbridge and Cherry" sculpture in the Walker Art Museum's Sculpture Garden.  Road construction forced me to take the scenic route home, which lead us around the Chain of Lakes and its parkland and $1,000,000+ homes. 

In the afternoon we attended a birthday party for two friends of the kids.  Mama Danny and Oma Heidi were great sports.  They played with the kids and helped them on a scavenger hunt to find all the Hershey's Kisses hidden in the garden. 

Our reflections in the blue glass of the Guthrie Theater.

On the Endless Bridge at the Guthrie Theater.  It overlooks the Mississippi River and the Stone Arch Bridge.

At the Basilica in Minneapolis

In front of the famous "Spoonbridge and Cherry" sculpture

Hunting for Hershey's Kisses at a birthday party

Oma Heidi and Mama Danny helped out in the hunt for Hershey's Kisses.

On the way home from the party, we made a stop at the Adirondack chair for a photo op.

Bright and early the next day, I hauled everyone down to southern Minnesota to visit Forestville/Mysterious Cave State Park, which is a two-hour drive from St. Paul. I'm a big fan of our state park system, yet had never heard of this particular park until about two weeks prior. It was an opportunity to get out of the city and show Oma Heidi and Mama Danny rural Minnesota.  They said the countryside reminded them of Germany.

I'm glad I insisted on packing a cooler with lunches, because there was nowhere around the park to eat.  We had to drive on multiple dirt roads to even access the park and were so deep into rural Minnesota that I was surprised to find a modern visitor center at the end of the road.  We quickly ate our lunches so that we could join the 12:00 p.m. tour. Well, almost all of us joined the tour.  There must have been something lost in translation because it wasn't until we were in the visitors center and Oma Heidi saw the pictures of the cave that she realized what the word meant in English and she wanted nothing to do with it. I'm terribly claustrophobic myself, but the park ranger promised he wouldn't turn the lights out on us, so off we went. 

After a very informative hour-long tour, we emerged from the depths of the earth to see sunlight again.  We moved on to Forestville, which is a small pioneer village operated by the Minnesota Historical Society. Think Colonial Williamsburg on a micro scale.  Unfortunately, we were a week too early for the historical reenactors and tours of the buildings, so we only got to walk around outside.  Danny and I took Soren and Matteo on a hike up to the top of a ridge. The boys were so spent by that point that Danny and I had to carry them on our backs most of the way back down. As I had predicted, Matteo was asleep before we even exited the park.

Anywhere there was a stream or standing water, beautiful blue wild flowers blanketed the bank. 

Matteo and Soren were the only ones to join Mama Danny and me all the way up to the ridge line.

I had planned to stop in Northfield, an adorable college town, for an early dinner, but the kids were so tired and cranky, or as the Germans would say, fix und fertig, that I aborted that plan. I didn't trust that their behavior would be suitable for even the most casual of restaurants, so I skipped the scenic route, put the minivan on cruise control and headed straight back to St. Paul.   

Because I had to work during the week and had a couple evening commitments, I saw less of Oma Heidi and Mama Danny the rest of their stay. But I still got to enjoy their cooking!  As the one generally responsible for all the meal planning, food shopping and cooking, let me tell you what a very rare treat it is to come home from work and have dinner ready. We enjoyed some really relaxing evenings during their stay thanks to relieving us from cooking. 

Even though I didn't get to spend as much time with them as I would have liked, it's more important that they got to spend time with Celina and experience her life here. Both her mom and grandmother told me they never doubted Celina's ability to be an au pair, yet to see her manage my four rambunctious children and the day-to-day tasks of our household must have had a profound impact because they radiated with pride.  

It was sad to say goodbye because we enjoyed Oma Heidi and Mama Danny's visit and we don't know when we'll see them again.  However, I told Danny that I hope we will be able to come to Germany to attend Celina's wedding, whenever that may be. 

Matching Time Again

I'm a planner, so when it comes to matching with an au pair, I buck standard practice and start looking early. Since au pairs are such an integral part of our family, I need to know who the person who is going to be living in my home, taking care of my children and being a member of my family is going to be. Having that person chosen puts my mind at ease and helps me enjoy the rest of the year with my current au pair.

Despite my good intentions, when I officially kicked off the search, I felt like I was cheating on Celina!  The rules of the au pair program mean that host families only have each au pair for a year, or if we're lucky, two years.  That means we'll eventually be on the search, even if we currently have a German Mary Poppins.  As much as I worried about Celina feeling like she was being replaced, she turned out to be my biggest asset in the matching process.

When there are over 2,000 au pairs waiting to be matched, the search feels overwhelming. Where do you even start?  Well, when you have four children, that's where you start.  I wasted so much time my first two rounds of matching contacting au pairs who had no interest in caring for so many children.  Now that I'm an LCC with my agency, I'm finally privy to this information (why they won't make this information available to all host families is beyond me) and searched for au pairs who had indicated they are willing to care for four or more children. I then narrowed down the list based on a couple non-negotiables (native German-speaking, solid driving skills and available in early August).  Since I was frustrated by the lack of responses via e-mail last year, this time around I sent each candidate a short WhatsApp message.  According to Marcel, no one under the age of 25 checks e-mail, and Europeans especially, all use WhatsApp.

The search wasn't quite as frustrating as last year's, but still so time-consuming. I felt like my free time was consumed with a cycle of searching for au pairs, locking in their applications, having them reject us and then starting over again with another au pair. Most rejections came with the vague excuse about "not being a good fit," which I took to mean, "I don't want to go to Minnesota."  I didn't think anyone could reject us this time around due to our children, but there were people who didn't think they could handle four children so close in age or wanted to care for older children. 

The seven-hour time difference between Minnesota and Germany made scheduling Skype interviews challenging, but we somehow managed to interview five au pairs, sometimes more than once. I was so excited about our first interview.  The guy seemed perfect!  Before getting started, I asked him if he had any questions for me. I should have known the match was doomed when he asked me to explain more by what I meant when I described our house as "cluttered and cozy." Um, we have four children and a small house. Next question please. He then wanted to know exactly how many times I forget things. Huh?  Oh, yeah, I had written in our application about how we need an au pair who is flexible and able to go with the flow and doesn't get flustered or thrown off course by changes in the plan. As an example, if I forget to tell him that one of the kid's speech therapy appointments got changed to today, I need him to roll with it. He was very preoccupied by how many times this happens.  Let's be honest, stuff like this happens every day. Marcel and Celina hardly blinked. This guy clearly wasn't going to cut it. 

The second interview was with a wonderful young man from the same city as Marcel who even rooted for the same soccer team. After the first interview, it might not have been coincidence that I allowed all four children to run wild while I Skyped with applicant #2. The chaos didn't scare him off and I told him I needed him to speak to my current and former au pair, which he promptly did.  He wrote me back and said we were the first family he had spoken with and while he thought we were great, he had no comparison and wanted time to speak to other families.  I was completely fine with that because I really don't want to be the first and only family an au pair has spoken with.  When I texted Marcel the au pair's decision, he shot back, "He'll regret it."

We went on to interview two more who we thought we were trying to decide between. But neither one felt 100% right. Celina interviewed both and brought up the same nagging concerns Chris and i had identified. And then I stumbled upon "the one". What I've learned from round three of interviewing is that after you've narrowed down your search and read every little detail of an au pair's application and deemed the person "perfect" for your family, if he or she doesn't show the same level of enthusiasm, move on, and quickly. The woman we matched with responded instantly to my WhatsApp message and promised to follow up again as soon as she had read our profile, which she did. Her questions proved she had clearly read our profile and that her heart was in the right place.  

We ended up choosing this woman after what ended up being an expedited interview process because we liked her that much. Her extensive experience is almost identical to Celina's and her outgoing personality reminds me of Marcel. I not only had her interview with Celina, but also with Celina's best friend, who is extending with her host family and will be spending a lot of time with whoever becomes our next au pair. Celina's text message to me after the Skype call started with, "We are team Nina!" She mentioned talking to the au pair about "our family," which of course made my heart swell. 

Matching with an au pair is a stressful  process, even for an experienced host family. But through this process I got to learn that Marcel and Celina are in my corner and what a comforting feeling that was amidst all the rejection. Chris and I were no longer alone because Celina and Marcel felt the same rejection because it was their family and their kids the au pairs were rejecting.  

Cold Weather Tricks

All the years I've lived in Minnesota, I thought it was urban lore that when it gets cold enough, you can throw water in the air and it freezes. Low and behold, it's true!  And it doesn't have to even be that cold.  Just -5 degrees Fahrenheit or colder.  Since we're in the midst of Minnesota's annual mid-January cold snap and the highs this weekend stayed in the negative digits, it was about time I test out this phenomenon. 

The kids were so excited to go outside and we even dragged Celina out with us. She was brave enough to come to Minnesota, and because of that, I think she should be able to go home with some cool stories of Minnesota's infamous winter weather.  So we gave her the honor of throwing the cup of bowling water into the air. 

Winter Fun in Minnesota

Chris was able to explain to the kids the science behind why only boiling water freezes instantly, but I'll let a climatologist explain on my behalf: Cold Weather Experiments to Try.

The Boyfriend Back Home

If you were choosing an au pair, would you choose one who had a boyfriend or girlfriend back home?  When we were new host parents-to-be, the relationship status of au pair candidates never would have been on our radar if I hadn't noticed it was one of the search criteria when we were looking at profiles.  (Yet the number of children an au pair is willing to take care of is NOT one of the search criteria...) It ended up not mattering since the au pair we chose did not have a girlfriend back home.

Then I joined a host parent group on Facebook, and whoa, folks there have OPINIONS on the subject of "boyfriend back home."  There's a small, but vocal group of host parents who screen for "boyfriend back home" and won't choose an au pair who has one.  (Host parents of male au pairs didn't have much opinion on the subject of a significant other back home, but our sample size was pretty darn small.) They warn of the extra drama you're signing up for when the au pair misses her boyfriend and locks herself in her room whenever off-duty, or worse, eventually gets so homesick she goes home early.  Or worse than that is the jealous boyfriend who will guilt-trip your au pair into coming home because he misses her.  One couple was so concerned we were considering a candidate with a boyfriend that within five minutes of my post on Facebook, they called me on conference call from their perspective jobs to try to talk me out of it. 

We did choose that au pair with the boyfriend back home, and well, for the long-time readers of my blog, you know how it worked out. Celina has been great.  Her boyfriend left on New Year's Day after a 10-day visit and we love him as much as we love her.

While he was visiting, we had a good laugh when I told him that the Skype call I had asked Celina to set up with him before we matched with her was actually an interview.  I assured him he had "passed" with flying colors.

I approach the "boyfriend back home" scenario with the same concerns as those from my Facebook group who would have said no to Celina as soon as they learned she had a boyfriend.  Instead of rejecting her, I wanted to go right to the source and talk directly to the boyfriend. So I asked him straight up what he would say to Celina if she called him crying that she wanted to come home.  I asked him if he planned to visit Celina and whether he liked kids.  I asked him what he was studying, what position he played in soccer and who his favorite team was.  To the extent I could in a short Skype call, I tried to get to know him as a person, just as I had when interviewing Celina, and went with my gut.

Thankfully my gut was right.  The boyfriend came and I can see why Celina is smitten with him. He was an impeccable house guest.  Celina had to work much of his visit and he jumped in as co-au pair and played with the kids, read books, built snow forts in the yard, prepared lunches and helped everyone gets coats and boots on.  Hopefully he gained an appreciation for all the hard work Celina does day in and day out.

For my curious readers, yes, we let him stay in Celina's room.  We don't pay attention to what two consenting adults do behind closed doors so long as they model good behavior in front of my family.  And that they did of course.  They cleaned up after themselves, enjoyed meals with our family, thanked me for cooking, said please and thank you, made pleasant conversation and modeled all the manners I'm trying to impress upon my children.  Equally as important, they modeled how two adults who care about each other treat each other.  There was nothing but respect and tenderness between those two.   

The downside to the boyfriend visiting is that the boyfriend eventually had to leave, and of course Celina has been sad.  However, the positives of his visit outweigh having a sad au pair, who otherwise has a good head on her shoulders and will find her way back to her previous routine of staying in touch with her boyfriend via Skype calls and Whatsapp messages. His visit was not a burden on our family, but instead made our Christmas holiday that much more fun.  And if that was our experience, I know Celina enjoyed his visit that much more and hopefully was a morale booster for what is a long 12 months away from home. 

Advent Calendar

As tired, working parents, there's so much we want to do with our kids, but there just isn't enough time in the day! Thankfully our au pair Celina steps in to bring a special kind of creativity and magic to our household. Her most recent offer was to make an advent calendar for the kids and she totally outdid herself. 

She took inspiration from an advent calendar she saw on Pinterest and went from there. 

She and a fellow au pair friend spent all day scouring both Michael's and a neighbor's yard (who had conveniently just trimmed a birch tree) for supplies and assembling the "calendar".  Their final creation ended up being a Christmas decoration in itself.

Celina didn't just fill the cups with a chocolate for each kid, but also puzzles pieces.  Each morning the kids get anywhere from two to four puzzle pieces with the final pieces received on Christmas Eve to complete a Christmas-themed puzzle.  This idea is genius because my kids love puzzles!  So much so that she could have easily gone without the chocolates

The Fishhook

I got the call every parent fears, the call that one of my children had been injured.  The call came in from Celina's phone, but it wasn't Celina on the other end, but rather a man who told me he was with Celina and Soren had hurt his leg and they were all headed to the hospital.  I immediately gathered my things and left for the hospital, which was thankfully only a five-minute drive away.  Before I arrived though, I received a text from my mother-in-law that she too was on her way and that she didn't know exactly what had happened, but thought that Celina and the kids might have been involved in a car accident.  I panicked as I thought of all the possibilities of what could have happened.

When I was finally reunited with Soren in the emergency room, I was relieved to see that he was not gravely injured, his leg had not been broken, our minivan had not been in an accident and Celina, our au pair, was not in a puddle of tears, as I would have been had our roles been reversed.  My son, however, had a fishhook stuck in his leg.  Yes, a fish hook.

After Celina left to take our good Samaritan home, I was left to explain to the emergency room technician who was clipping four feet of line from Soren's newly-embedded fish hook what had happened.  She looked at me quizzically, as did everyone else we met that afternoon, as I explained the little bit Celina had told me.  They were headed to get ice cream, Soren tripped on the sidewalk, skinned his knee, and ended up with a fish hook in his calf.  No, they weren't fishing.  No, it wasn't our fish hook.  No, he wasn't playing with it.  No, I have no idea what a fish hook was doing there on the ground.  The more I explained, the more I was surprised that Child Protective Services did not show up.

Soren had to have an x-ray so the doctor could see how deep the hook had penetrated and the results quickly ruled out being able to employ the "string pull method" and we talked other options.  I opted for the Ketamine, which put Soren into a sedative state and protected him from memories of the painful Lidokaine shots and the doctor having to push the barb out another section of his calf, clipping the hook, and pulling the remaining piece of the barb out through the other hole.  The method had sounded straight-forwarded, so I was surprised by how much pushing and yanking was required to get the job done.

As I waited for Soren to rouse from the sedation, I commented to the nurse tending to Soren about his dumb luck.  He couldn't have done this to himself again if he tried I said.  The nurse laughed, but then estimated the hospital sees about 275 cases a year involving fishhooks.  In fact, Soren's case will probably end up as part of some study about how the hospital treats people impaled by fishhooks.  Two-hundred seventy-five I asked him incredulously.  He shrugged his shoulders and responded, "Well, it is the Land of 10,000 Lakes."  This kind of stuff just happens.

Even though this experience was traumatic for Soren, it reminded me how much I have to be thankful for - our au pair whose maturity and composure defies her 20 years of age, a stranger who helped her and drove with her to the hospital, my mother-in-law who kept us company during the long wait and the hospital staff who provided the best care possible to a terrified little boy. 

Our Au Pair, a Fellow Blogger

Our new au pair, Celina, started a blog so she could share her year in the U.S. with her friends family and boyfriend back home.  I was super excited and immediately asked if I could read it, you know, as a fellow blogger.  As soon as the words left my mouth though, it occurred to me that she perhaps wouldn't want her host mother reading her blog.  It's hard enough to live with your employer and perhaps she'd want some semblance of separation between us and her private life.  And then I panicked when I wondered what she'd have to say about our family.  I know we're not perfect, but to read about our imperfectness is another thing. 

However, when Celina shared the web address with me, curiosity got the best of me and I immediately started to read.  And I loved it!  Of course I was relieved (and flattered) that she had nice things to say about her experience living with our family, but what I most appreciated was reading about her perspective on things, like what she finds cool and interesting and what she thinks of all her new experiences in our city and our country overall.  I like hearing her side of the story of shared experiences, such as when I had her drive the minivan for the first time.  I could tell she was nervous, but she did great.  Not until I read her blog did I understand just how nervous she was!  After I read her account of the differences in driving laws and customs between the U.S. and Germany and how she affectionately referred to our minivan as "the boat", I had a greater appreciation for her driving skills. 

I also enjoy Celina's blog because it's in German and it's a fun way for me to practice the language.  Although I'm quite rusty speaking German, I was surprised by how few words I needed to look up and how effortlessly I read through her posts.  If you also know German or don't mind using an online translator, you can check out her blog as well:  ceeelina.wix.com/12months

I hope Celina continues to blog even as her time in Minnesota gets busier and she has less time to write and even after the newness wears off and she doesn't think she has anything cool to write about anymore.  I know her words are precious to everyone reading back home and that she will appreciate having written down her thoughts during this life-changing year. 

Transitions

Transitions are a fact of life when you participate in the au pair program.  The au pair contract is for one year (they can extend six to 12 months) and then it's time to say goodbye and welcome someone new.  

Families hosting au pairs have different preferences for handling the transition from the outgoing au pair to the incoming au pair.  Some purposefully schedule an overlap by contracting the new au pair to arrive a couple of days, or even a week or more, before the outgoing au pair departs.  Others want no overlap at all, often because they prefer to train the new au pair themselves or want to do things differently with the next au pair, but sometimes because the outgoing au pair wasn't stellar or developed "senioritis" at the end of the year and they don't want the new au pair influenced by bad habits.  Host parents with lots of vacation time or alternative childcare will sometimes choose take a week or two break between au pairs so they have more time to say goodbye to the outgoing au pair and prepare for the next arrival.

With a small house and no affordable full-time childcare alternatives, our transition plan was decided for us.  We needed as little overlap as possible, without any gap in childcare. Even though we left it up to Marcel to decide when he would leave for his travel month, he had to be out of his room by the morning Celina arrived and sleep on the couch in the basement after that. In the end, we had a one-night overlap.   I spent the morning of Celina's arrival furiously cleaning and running last-minute errands while Marcel took the kids to preschool and then to the Children's Museum.  Then the entire family and Marcel sprinted to the airport where I'm now 0-2 in being on time for my incoming au pair's flight. 

I give both Marcel and Celina a lot of credit for how maturely they handled the transition.  Even though they only overlapped one night under the same roof, they've been a presence in each other's lives for longer.  Marcel interviewed Celina, and after we matched, was a resource for her as she prepared to come to the U.S. Because Marcel was from the same country and spoke the same language as Celina, he took on more a mentor role than your average outgoing au pair. I was thankful for Marcel's maturity, because it's not unusual for outgoing au pairs to feel jealous of the attention the new au pair is getting or feel like he or she is being replaced. That was never the case with Marcel and not only could I talk openly with him about our plans for Celina's arrival, but he was a resource for me as he clued me in on what Celina must be feeling and what she would want in her room.

Celina was equally as gracious and was comfortable sharing the attention that would have been completely hers if her arrival had not coincided with Marcel's last night.  Instead of the welcome dinner I had planned in Celina's honor, we ended up spending her first evening on the lake so Marcel could go waterskiing one last time.  She listened with genuine interest to our stories of our year with Marcel and politely tolerated countless comments of Marcel liked doing this/eating that/going there and so on. 

As well as our transition went, I don't think I'd want an overlap of more than a night because it was an incredibly emotional time.  It was tiring doing all our "lasts" with Marcel while doing all our "firsts" with Celina.  It was easy to want to spend time all our time with the au pair who had become a family member, but then I'd feel overwhelmed by all that I had to get done with Celina, who had less than 72 hours before her first day of work.  

Two excellent au pairs are what got me through the transition.  We had had a great year with Marcel and as sad as we were for him to leave our family, the wonderful memories remain.  And then there's Celina, who I'm so excited is finally here and I look forward to getting to know her.  No matter how many au pairs have come before, the new au pair deserves a warm welcome and the attention as if she were the first.  With that, we proceed through the transition and focus on the joys of welcoming a new person into our family. 

Bis Bald Marcel!

Our family's last night with Marcel was exactly how it should be, full of fun and laughter and so relaxed, as if the evening was never going to end. The storms that had cancelled Marcel's final water skiing outing the night before finally cleared and we spent the evening on the water.  We ate picnic dinners on the boat and Marcel got a last run on skis in.  We anchored at a popular sandbar where shallow water stretches for dozens of feet out into the lake and the kids and Marcel splashed around in the water and tossed a football around with friends. With his skin tanned from a summer spent as much as possible outside and cracking jokes effortlessly with our family, Marcel resembled more an American than the German who constantly needed to look up words on the translator app on his phone when he first arrived. 

Early the next morning, the whole family drove Marcel to the airport, waited as he and his girlfriend checked their bags and then hugged him one last time before they walked through security and onto the next adventure in their lives.  I'm the really emotional type, yet hate to have people see me cry, so I couldn't bare to turn around for one final wave because I couldn't hold back my tears any longer.

I was sad Marcel's time with us had come to an end, but also so proud of him.  He had stepped way out of his comfort zone to move away from home for the first time to a place he had never heard of.  He had had to make new friends.  He had swapped his lucrative sales job for a year of taking care of four young children.  But to see him accomplish his goals was awesome. He could carry on a conversation with anyone and even make them laugh, while speaking a language he had once not considered himself good at when he took English in school.  He traveled a lot and got to experience the United States in a way different than if he had come as a tourist.  He will someday enter parenthood with much more experience than Chris or I ever had, notably, he knows how to change a diaper. 

What was even more special was watching Marcel learn about himself over the course of a year.  Like so many au pairs, he had chosen to "take a year off," as if he were putting his life back in Germany on pause.  The reality is that living away from home in a new country and speaking another language will change a person.  No longer able to rely on his soccer team for his social circle, he learned how to make friends and met people from all over the world.  He had left behind his family in Germany, but he discovered he has family in Minnesota.  He came here with clear plans of what he was going back to when he returned to his hometown only to decide he wanted to do something different with his life.  He had changed, and it was clear before he left that the course of this future had changed as well. 

Farewell Dinner

Marcel didn't want a big goodbye party and he definitely didn't want anyone to make a fuss over him.  Instead he would have preferred to quietly slip away.  Of course we couldn't actually let him do that.  Even if he didn't need to officially mark the end of his year with a party of sorts, I needed that type of closure. So we did something we rarely do as a household of seven and that is go out to dinner.  Chris' mom, brother and sister-in-law were able to join us too, which was special since they've been an integral part of Marcel's extended host family.

While we waited for our dinner to arrive, we surprised Marcel with a video a friend's son made for him.  We all watched together in disbelief as Marcel's year flashed before our eyes.  Chris for how much Marcel did in just one year, me for how we really were going to have to say goodbye to this guy who's been part of our family for the last year and, and Marcel for how quickly a year could go by.

Marcel even had a surprise for us.  He had made a scrapbook of pictures of his year with the kids.  In a nod to having taught me how to use Instagram, many of the captions were hashtags. My favorite was a recount of Marcel's first conversation with Chris during a Skype interview. I had conducted all the e-mail correspondence, set up Skype interviews and vetted candidates, and when I had finally found our au pair, I told Chris he couldn't just trust my judgement and needed to at least Skype with the guy I was asking to come live with us for a year and take care of our children.  Even when I got Chris in front of the computer to talk to Marcel, he had exactly one question. I had forgotten about this brief exchange until I turned to the page in Marcel's scrapbook with pictures from the winter.

Chris: Do you care about a cold winter?

Marcel:  Of course not!  We also have a cold winter. #Ihadnoidea

The funny memories didn't end there.  Chris had given me the book Reasons My Kid is Crying for Christmas and while I got a kick out of it, the book had clearly resonated with Marcel.  Three whole pages of the scrapbook were dedicated to reasons my kids were crying! Although Marcel had consulted the moms at the playground to make sure I would think something like this was funny, he had nothing to worry about, because I laughed so hard I had tears streaming down my face.

Marcel printed the text in the scrapbook in both German and English. He signed the last page with, Es ist kein tschuess fuer immer, es ist ein bis bald!  It's not a goodbye, it's a see you soon!

Male Au Pairs

Our au pair, Marcel, gets a lot of strange looks and questions when he's out with our four kids.  Strangers recognize that he's not the kids' father, because that would be a lot of children for a guy only in his early 20s.  But if he's not their dad, then they can come up with no other explanation for why he would have four children in his care.  Given how close in age my kids are, I'm often asked whether I'm running a daycare.  Marcel thought it was odd that no one has ever asked him this and that's when I explained that the reason is probably because so few people think of men as caregivers.  The male caregiver concept is literally not among the array of possibilities in strangers' minds. 

Having a male au pair solicits a lot of intrigue and questions.  Male au pairs are admittedly in the minority, with only one in ten au pairs through our agency being men. Not many people even know what an au pair is, let alone know one who happens to be a guy, so I get that it's a new concept for people. When others learn that we have an au pair, one of their first questions is to ask where she is from and I correct them that the she is actually a he.  Some admit they didn't realize that men are allowed to be au pairs, some think it's really awesome and others, in an attempt to rationalize why anyone would choose a male au pairs, say they're probably a good option if you have only boys.  And as curious as everyone is about having a male au pair, many end the conversation with a declaration they could still never have a male au pair. 

Sadly male au pairs receive not only a lot of unwanted attention, but they face A LOT of bias.  People think they're all gay, or if not, then they must be cold and not capable of being affectionate with kids.  Even that being affectionate part raises suspicions because in my conversations with other parents, worries about pedophiles comes up every single time. 

This worry comes from parents whose female au pairs have crashed the family car with their children in it, driven without their children in car seats, dated sketchy men, had those sketchy men around their children without the host parents' knowledge, lost their temper with their children and hit them. Of course those are the horror stories.  But my host family community is full of stories of au pairs who clearly do not like children or have no idea what to do with them, who spend the majority of their time on their phones, while ignoring the children, or nap on the job or who have left their young charges unattended in an unfenced-in backyard.  Women who can't cook, who are slobs, who lack common sense, who arrive back to their host family's house falling down drunk. Women with eating disorders or insecurities who have body image issues they are displaying in front of their host children.  The host parents complain to other host parents, and we all cry "Rematch!" and yet some host parents still give second, third or infinity chances. 

As awful as the thought of sexual abuse is, what's even more awful is when you think about all the other ways your children can be neglected, abused, ignored or have their lives put in danger.  I know that sexual abuse is most likely perpetrated by someone known to your children, but I also know it's still rare.  It's all this other stuff I worry about, the exact things host parents who have said they could never have a male au pair because they don't trust a person with a penis around their children, (yup, one host mom told me that) have reported their female au pairs having done to their children. 

Whoever you decide to have watch your children, there's so much trust you put in them.  You trust they'll keep them safe by properly buckling them into their car seats, holding their hands when they cross the street, never taking their eyes off them when swimming, not letting people you've never met into your house, not hanging out with people you wouldn't want around your children and the list goes on.  Thankfully, I've never had once iota of concern about my children's safety in Marcel's care.  

I don't know if I ever explicitly told Marcel that for anyone he meets, he becomes the poster child for all male au pairs, but he's probably figured it out given how often I tell him how often people ask me what it's like to have a male au pair.  He probably doesn't realize how much I sing his praises from the rooftops.  I brag about how he active he is with the kids and how he gets four kids packed up and picnic lunches made to spend the day outside somewhere.  In the winter when others were complaining their au pairs were spending too much time at home cooped up in the house, Marcel got my kids out of the house every single day, whether it was just to drive down the street to tot time at the local rec center or to really spend time outside with them by taking them sledding.  I talk about how calm and flexible he is.  No matter how often our plans change at the last minute, he cheerfully changes course.  I've never heard Marcel yell or lose his temper with my children, despite how I as the parent have not modeled the behavior I expect out of him.  He can be affectionate and silly with the kids, but will also discipline the kids according to how we taught him. 

My praises are preaching to the choir though.  So often friends report back to the positive encounters they had with Marcel, like how they saw him and the kids at the park and that he was playing with the kids the entire time.  These stories make my heart swell.

Marcel has been excellent as a childcare provider, but when you have an au pair, that's only half the equation.  Because au pairs live with you, they need to be good roommates as well.  I also sing Marcel's praises as an au pair with zero drama.  I attribute that to his personality rather than his sex, but either way, we have never heard a single complaint from him about how he doesn't like this or that or how another au pair has a better situation.  We have not heard one peep about a romantic relationship gone bad or a tiff with a friend.  He greets us with a cheerful good morning and makes a point of saying goodbye to us before he heads out the door to meet friends.  He's always been respectful of our home and our car and our rules. 

As we went through the matching process again this spring, I secretly hoped we would match with another guy.  Since our one and only au pair has been a guy, that's all I know.  I'm honestly just a creature of habit.  But we go into the matching process looking for the best match - male or female - and this time around, that person happens to be a woman. We are incredibly excited about welcoming our next au pair, but will always be thankful to Marcel who made our first au pair experience a great one, and who might possibly have changed the hearts of countless parents he met this year. 

Family Trip, Not a Vacation

I stumbled across a link to the blog post "A Vacation or Trip: A Helpful Guide for Parents" on another blog I read that talks about the au pair program.  The commenter thought the post would be helpful for those of us host families taking au pairs on vacation with us.  How timely given that we'll be traveling with our new au pair first to the North Shore for a wedding and then to North Dakota for an all-American family vacation.

Even though I laughed out loud at the post, I should probably have cried, because you guessed it, according to the guide, our family vacation in August is definitely a trip.  We will be four young children, a new au pair we first met two weeks prior and two stressed out parents packed in a minivan for what Google Maps assures me is only an eight-hour-and-nine-minute drive, one way.  Even before we set out on our trip, I will have packed for at least four other people before I have a chance to pack for myself, cooked and frozen hotdishes so I have less to cook on my "vacation" (who are we kidding, even on vacation I will be responsible for making sure seven people are fed three square meals a day), and gotten everything ready for Oliver's first day of kindergarten, which occurs two days after we get home from said trip.

So why do we do this to ourselves?  The reality is we don't have much choice at this stage in our lives.  Chris and I do like to travel, but with four young children, the only way we can make a trip happen is if we bring them with us on a kid-friendly trip.  Teddy Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota may sound like an odd vacation destination for those outside the Upper Midwest, but it was a strategic pick.  It's somewhere at least one of us hasn't been (Chris), is less than a day's drive (so no extra expense and hassle of unloading four children into a hotel room for the night), we could rent a place with multiple bedrooms and a kitchen (since eating out with a family of seven is expensive) and the national park is beautiful and appeals to all ages.  We won't be able to do extensive hiking (or maybe even minimal hiking) with young children and we'll probably end up at the local pool on at least one occasion because that will carry more appeal to our children than the petrified forest a nature-loving friend raved about, but such is life for us now.

My hope is that despite how much not a vacation this trip will be for Chris and me, that our kids will grow up to love travel and our new au pair will appreciate seeing a part of the United States she never would have otherwise seen.  And of course, after we've put in our time in a minivan criss-crossing the country on our own little version of National Lampoon's Vacation, Chris and I still hope we will take a real vacation. 

Summer in Minnesota

With summer here, we don't see much of our au pair Marcel anymore.  He's got a close group of friends, a new girlfriend, and just a few weeks left.  I chat with him for a few minutes in the morning as I hand the kids off to him for the day and Chris sees him at the end of the day, but by the time I get home, Marcel is already on his way out the door to the gym or to hang out with friends at the lake. We're left to communicate in the best way one can with a 23-year-old and that's through texting. I'll occasionally check in and let him know where we are or when we're going to be home and he respectfully does the same. 

One weekend with particularly gorgeous weather, we didn't see him between the end of his shift on Friday afternoon and until Monday morning when I headed out the door to work.  We had heard him, but he was like a ship passing in the night.  We had just settled into bed one of those nights when we heard our front door open and then the downstairs shower go on, and we'd know he was home, but for just long enough to clean up and head out again for the night. The next morning there was  no sign of him and we assumed he had slept at a friend's house.

I texted him later in the day to check whether he would be home for dinner.  He wouldn't, he replied.  He and his friends were still at the lake, enjoying the sunshine.  Then he texted again.  "To be honest, I love Minnesota.  I have never enjoyed summer so much. :)"

That text made me so proud of my state.  Not surprisingly, Marcel had never heard of Minnesota when we first interviewed him.  A lot of au pairs hold out for California, New York or maybe Florida while interviewing.  Or at least a state they've heard of.  But Marcel had taken the advice that the family is better than location to heart, even if he admitted to us later that he kept having to repeat "family over location" to himself while interviewing with us.  He kept an open mind though and agreed to make Minnesota his home for a year.

I am thrilled Marcel has discovered what makes this state tick and appreciates Minnesota for what it is.  Yes, we have cold winters, but that just means you'll appreciate those hot summers that much more.  Like the rest of the population, he spends as much time as he can outside, with his favorite location being anywhere lakeside.  He takes every opportunity he has to go water skiing and has used our grill to make an alfresco dinner more often than we have.  Although Minnesota isn't a hot tourist destination or doesn't have the California or New York cool factor, Marcel understands why people like to live here and why Chris and I are happy to raise our children here. 

Matching With Our Next Au Pair

It was a sobering realization that living in Minnesota and taking care of four children is not every au pair's dream.  It may be our dream, but when au pairs have one year to live the American dream, they want California or New York and one or two (school-age) kids. I desperately hoped someone would be open-minded enough to look past the number of kids and the location and focus on what we had to offer - friendly, welcoming family, city location, access to a car, steady hours and no evening or weekend work.  Then we found Marcel who was willing to give Minnesota a try and be flexible as we adopted two children midway through his year.  I'm sure his experience has not been what he initially expected, but he's nonetheless having a memorable year.

With this living proof that an au pair can have an awesome experience outside of California or New York, I set out on our search for our next au pair with a great deal of optimism.  I updated our family's profile with adorable pictures of our newest additions and wrote about what a wonderful year we're having with Marcel.  As I proofread our profile, I thought, "Who could say no to us?"

Apparently a lot of people.  Seemingly as soon as I hit send on the introductory e-mails I sent to each au pair candidate, the rejections rolled in.  Many never even responded.  It shouldn't have surprised me that most of the reasons focused around not wanting to come to Minnesota and/or take care of four children, but it was still depressing.  Even the woman who could do a handstand on a moving horse (she competes in a sport I'd never heard of called vaulting; it's like gymnastics on horseback) thought four kids was overwhelming.  Let me repeat, SHE COULD DO A HANDSTAND ON A MOVING HORSE - yet she was afraid she couldn't handle our four children. 

We did eventually find our next au pair.  She rides horses, but as far as I know, cannot do a handstand on one.  But we're not hiring an equestrian.  We're hiring an au pair.  The one we matched with is almost 20 years old, from Germany, and has an impressive application filled with extensive babysitting experience and an internship at a daycare program for children with special needs.  In Skype interviews and e-mail correspondence, she came across as kind, social, fun-loving and family-oriented.  In fact, she started to seem too good to be true.  So I ended up sending her one final e-mail where I laid it all out.  Winters are long in Minnesota.  Our kids are loud and you won't be able to sleep in on the weekend.  The hours are long.  There's a lot about the job that's not glamorous, like driving the kids to school, packing lunches, cleaning, doing laundry and cleaning up potty accidents.  In your country the drinking age is 16; in ours it's 21.  I had to cut myself off and hit send before I completely scared her off.  I knew she was the one when her reply left me feeling confident that she wants to spend the year in Minnesota with our family - four kids and all.

Never Too Old for St. Nick

As he does every year, St. Nicholas visited our house.  He had an extra pair of shoes to fill this year.

In addition to the traditional goodies St. Nicholas brings, St. Nicholas left Marcel the book Twas the Night Before Christmas.  I guess he thought our German should have his own copy of this American Christmas classic.

Oliver and Soren were very excited about St. Nicholas' visit and last night right bed scampered downstairs to select a pair of shoes.  I have to give Oliver credit for his strategy for increasing his haul of St. Nicholas loot by choosing to leave out his snow boots and not his regular shoes.

As is the tradition in our house, Oliver and Soren also each received a book to add to the collection of Christmas books that come out each season.