Lenja Böttcher - July 2017

I nominated Lenja for Au Pair of the Month a couple of months after she started with us almost a year ago…..with only one month until she leaves us for good I have a million more reasons to nominate her, she needs and deserves to be Au Pair of the Month.

Where to start…

As a family we are "pretty special"… maybe even a little dysfunctional. We have a BIG very passionate family with heavily involved mother in laws and a fair few siblings and their respective hangers on - fair play to Lenja, she dived right in, embraced the dysfunction and very quickly became one of us (she's even down as Lenja Haslip in my husband's phone contacts list). She has never been treated like or acted like a guest in our home, she is our family - she spends meal times with us and even cooks (she's much better than she used to be - no more lettuce in the stir fry instead of cabbage), she hangs out after dinner, comes to weekend sports practices and is more than happy to put her 2 cents in during family banter sessions, awkward was never a factor with Lenja in our family. I love our girly movie nights and hearing all the au pair goss (yes I am living vicariously through her) and appreciate that she knows how much I HATE grocery shopping by myself so always comes with me and helps me choose what we want in our weekend junk food stash.

My husband and I both work big hours and I'm pretty sure she works the most hours out of all her friends, she has never once complained even with communication break downs between Craig and I on who will be home on time. She is our lifeline and I will be eternally grateful to her for helping ensure my transition back to work after having baby number 2 was seamless. I trust her with my kids implicitly and can only do what I do knowing they are safe and loved at home with her (she genuinely loves them as if they were her own brothers). Seeing the love my boys have for her is beautiful, when they are hurt they run to her, when she has been away for the weekend exploring and returns home they both run to the door for Lenja cuddles. This is incredibly hard for me to write as it means I have to face the fact that she is leaving in just over a month and we genuinely feel like one of our family is leaving us for good - there have been more than a few tears shed in the last few weeks on both sides.

I could literally send you a list of reasons that Lenja needs to be Au Pair of the Month but I'm hoping that by sharing the above telling you that we love her with all our hearts will and will miss her horribly when she leaves will be enough for her to be recognised.

- The Haslip family