Having plugged the 'Win a free Au Pair for a year' contest offered by Au Pair Link, to all and sundry - I was slightly embarrassed when I won it!
I even explained to this to Cecilia (the lovely co-owner, along with her hubby James) in our first phone call, but she managed to fob me off and organise for someone to come around to interview us for the final part of deciding the contest winners.
We managed to make it through the interview process and a short time later found ourselves selecting our new Au Pair through the interview process. Having interviewed and employed a lot of people, I considered this bit the easy part, especially as Au Pair Link had culled the prospective candidates to a smaller list of Au Pairs that they thought would work for us.
In the few weeks before our new Au Pair arrived, I flew into a flurry of activity - talking to other people who had had Au Pairs (successfully or not), and organising the room which our Au Pair would live in for a year. Bevin and myself spent a lot of time talking about how we saw this working, and our new Au Pair had already seen a schedule of times to be worked, the jobs required, as well as an assurance the job would never be sole charge with all of our children, in the interview.
We had decided to keep our part time nanny, as she has really worked out well with our family, and the kids love her to bits. So there was a bit of working out and explaining to ensure she would feel comfortable with our new arrival. Nothing major, but I thought it best to be prepared.
It almost seemed unreal when finally after all our preparation our new Au Pair finally arrived in July!
Sadly, our first Au Pair did not work out with us. As always, there are two sides to every story. I am very grateful to the Au Pair Link agency (and especially Michelle the local Waikato rep), for the professional way I felt they dealt with it.
However, the silver lining is that we now have the lovely Aline as our Au Pair. Aline had been in a 'rematch situation' as well as us. Rematch is when an Au Pair and the family do not work for one reason or another. After our initial experience, I was quite happy to have a girl who was being rematched, as I understood that there could be some genuine reasons as to why the Au Pair and family had not worked out well.
In Aline's interview, our eldest Emma did what she had done with our best nannies - which was spend most of the interview talking and playing with them, as well as taking them for grand tours without mum. Saying "Yes!" was not a hard decision.
Aline is the second eldest in a family of four children. Which fits in well with us and our four children, (Emma will be 5 in March, and Alex, Lucy and Victoria will be 3 in February). Ironically, both Bevin and myself are one of four children as well. In short, Aline understands what it is like to be part of a big family. She just slots in with whatever we are doing, and often comes along with us when we do things out of her work hours. We spent Sunday cheering Aline along in her Round the Bridges 12km race. She came first in her age group and accepted her prize holding Lucy who had followed her up onto the stage.
For us, having an Au Pair has meant an extra pair of hands in the home. Bevin can do more work in the morning (he works from home), as he is less involved with getting the children dressed and us all out the door in the morning. Also, he no longer has to be home by 5pm to help me out with tea, bath and bed. We had got to a stage when I could do it all on my own - but then we moved the triplets into beds, and everything went backwards for a long time, as there always had to be someone in the room with the children, else they would get out of bed. At the same time there had to be someone with Emma, as since the triplets were born, we have let her stay up later, so she can spend some time on her own with us. We seem to be turning a corner on this though as Alex is now finally managing to stay mostly in his own bed.
We can also both organise to do more things out of the home. Whether it is something where we take Aline along with us to help, or one of us is away during tea, bed and bath. Taking the kids for a bush walk, the beach or a bike ride is now a breeze!
The big differences for us with having Aline have been:
- This summer Bevin has started to play cricket again on a Wednesday night, and a full day last Saturday (but having been a cricket widow before, Saturdays are unlikely to be a regular event!)
- I have been more involved in volunteer work
- A lot less reliance on the grandparents for covering those 'gaps'
- Outside activities with the kids are so much more easier
- We have a sick baby in the extended family, and Bevin is spending regular nights away helping his family as I have Aline here to help me. There is so much more flexibility
- A LOT less stress!
- Me contemplating a welcome return to some part time work
- I have even managed to kickstart the weight loss again and am now under my 'before baby' weight. As I have osteo arthritis in my ankle, weight loss is more of a health than vanity point
So, there has really been some tangible benefits to our family having an Au Pair, and our whole family is very grateful to Au Pair Link for selecting us. Thank you, Au Pair Link!
Coley Family