An American Au Pair!!!

Well - I have been torn in my childcare choices up until now. Dominik is 3.5 months and I need to spend a bit more time helping my husband focus on our business. So . . . it was either put him into day nursery for a couple of days a week (expensive), but this means I still need to pay extra for help around the house, or get an Au Pair who will help with both looking after the baby and help me with household tasks - and, quite importantly, be someone we can develop a good friendship with.

I was looking for a Polish Au Pair, as that is my ancestry. However they were all WITHOUT EXCEPTION, completely unreliable. I then came across this girl who is from Texas and has just lost her Au Pair job here in the UK and was looking urgently for a replacement.

I had a long conversation with her yesterday, and she's coming to see me on Friday.

Guys - keep your fingers crossed that she works out! She sounded so nice on the phone, I think we'll all like her very much. It will be great to have an American girl living with us!

Good luck! Hope it works out.

That's funny, what you say about Polish au pairs, because I have a Polish friend here in Canada who says exactly the same thing! I feel sorry for the (apparently) rare Polish girl who is reliable!!!

Good luck, Yola. I was in Texas a few years ago, and everyone was sooo nice. Hopefully this girl will be what she seemed on the phone.

Good luck! I hope she is the match for your family!

Good luck with the american girl , I hope it works out for all of you .

Good Luck

I really really hope this works out for you! And I would love to see more pics of the baby!!!

Wishing you the best of luck - hope it work out for all!! I know how hard it is to find someone reliable. A friend of mine is already on her 3rd Nanny within 6 months - ughhh.

Yola - I really hope it works out for you! I hope that she is everything you could wish for as a child provider! Plus I hope she isn't allergic to cats!

OMG Ady - I didn't think about the cats!!!!!

I haven't even mentioned it to her, must do that tomorrow!!

Debby - I'm still working on getting my photoshop installed (can't get it to load), once I do, they'll be no stopping me as I have a whole gallery of Dominik pics. Thanks for asking tho . . .

Does anyone know of any free downloadable imaging software that will enable me to resize and also to edit colour intensity?

Yola, I hope the au pair works out for you!

Try www.irfanview.com for free software that does most everything you need it to for now, until you can get Photoshop installed again.

Originally posted by Yola
Does anyone know of any free downloadable imaging software that will enable me to resize and also to edit colour intensity?

Click to expand...

Irfanview is good for resizing but much more limited than Photoshop for color adjustment. Although the author asks for a small donation, it's essentially freeware: www.irfanview.com

Paint Shop Pro is a popular alternative to Photoshop - most of the features at a fraction of the price. A 30-day trial version is available: http://www.jasc.com/products/paintshoppro/

Good luck,
b

Good luck, Yola! I hope the American girl works out!

That´s great! I hope everything works out very well!
It is such a lottery with Au-Pair - both ways, I was an Au-Pair in the US and had a bad experience with a family - twice!
Then much later I was a nanny in Scotland and had the most wonderful family I could think of.
This one will be so lucky to live with you, so I hope she will turn out to be the perfect match!

Here's a pic (resized) of Dominik. I'm still trying to get the hang of this (btw, Heidi the link you posted does't work), so bear with me!!!

This one might be a bit small . . .

OMG Dom is beautiful!

What a gorgeous baby Yola!!

Yola - he is stunning - he is going to be a heartbreaker in just a few years!

He's stunning! So darn cute!

Lots of luck for the Au Pair, Yola!