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House & home

Temporary Eviction: Would you make your Au Pair stay somewhere else while you are on vacation?

by cv harquail December 17, 2009

Host parents, we got a request for advice from an au pair who is facing temporary eviction while her host parents are on vacation. The situation is a bit of an emergency, since the family is slated to leave within the week. Your ideas? Here’s the situation: Dear Au Pair Mom readers, I am an [...]

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If you have a housecleaner, does s/he clean your Au Pair’s room?

by cv harquail December 14, 2009

I admit, I was a little surprised to learn that some of us who pay to have our houses cleaned include the au pair’s room in the housecleaner’s duties. Probably it’s because I’m always trying to save money and have needed to have the housecleaner’s energy all on the main parts of the house, but [...]

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Your Au Pair’s Room: How much mess can you take?

by cv harquail December 14, 2009

A host mom sent me a few photos of her au pair’s bedroom (taken with the au pair’s permission). The host mom was agonizing, because the room was a freaking mess. This family’s au pair was following the two most important bedroom-related rules: No dirty dishes and no candles/incense. But otherwise the place was a [...]

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“No Room at the Inn” because AP changed her plans. Now what? (Poll)

by cv harquail August 22, 2009

My au pair’s vacation is coming up. To cover for her, we’re having both sets of grandparents come stay over. They’ll be here for a month, but will overlap for a little over a week. The overlap will occur while the AP is on vacation. We have a smallish house – 3 bedrooms. Our “guest [...]

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Hello? Your Au Pair needs good “phone manners”

by cv harquail June 25, 2009

I just got off the phone with the au pair of one of my friends, and I had two serious problems during the call. Neither problem was caused by the au pair’s still-limited English. Both of these problems were cause by bad phone manners. Said another way, the problems would not even have occurred if [...]

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What skills has your Au Pair learned… from You?

by cv harquail June 20, 2009

I was downstairs early this morning, in quiet reverie folding laundry. When I dragged the fitted sheets out of the dryer and started the elaborate and effective semaphore choreography that gets them folded into tidy piles, I was reminded of all of the crazy little things that I have taught my au pairs over the [...]

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Your Au Pair’s Guests: A few guidelines….

by cv harquail June 17, 2009

I just love reading all these posts nodding my head knowing I am not alone in my feelings! One topic that I think may have been covered lightly is Out of Town Guests. Our Au Pair is having A TON of guests! She has her Step Father coming, a single girlfriend, a married couple, her [...]

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If you were an Au Pair: Agency or Website?

by cv harquail May 18, 2009

On the heels of our conversation about whether or not we as host families prefer agencies or websites to find our au pairs , comes an email from a potential au pair on the same topic: Next year I plan to get experience as an Aupair. I’m from Australia, and it has been very hard [...]

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Extra Umbrellas and Hidden House Keys: The beauty of redundancy

by cv harquail April 30, 2009

In my household, there are 7 sets of house keys. My husband knows about 4 sets, my au pair knows about 6 sets, and only I know about the 7th set. Similarly, we have: at least one umbrella in each of 3 cars, two or three umbrellas in the hall closet, one umbrella in my [...]

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Setting Guidelines when your Au Pair has guests

by cv harquail April 23, 2009

When an au pair has guests come to visit, it is tempting for the Host Parents to give the au pair lots of ‘extras’– extra time off, extra flexibility, extra food and space, and basically to try to accommodate their au pair’s expected desire to spend time with the visiting friend or family member. This [...]

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