Posts tagged as:

saying goodbye

The 2nd Best Goodbye Gift You Can Give Your Au Pair

by cv harquail May 15, 2010

Last year one of our most active and committed community members “Taking a Computer Lunch“, casually mentioned something that she does for all of her au pairs shortly before they depart. She gives them the gift of “The Box“.
What is “The Box”?
We give our APs the biggest box their home countries permit, either for their [...]

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Recent Widower / Single Host Dad: How to find the right au pair?

by cv harquail April 21, 2010

Readers, Here’s a specific question about choosing the right au pair for a family that has lost their mom through tragedy.
We had one host dad comment on our earlier post about single parents, and I know that there are at least two other host dad-readers who have lost their wives and who have hired au [...]

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Au Pair Abruptly Quits, then wants to come back to see kids. Really? (poll)

by cv harquail January 28, 2010

Here’s a painful situation, about which this host mom could use some good advice. I’m sure that this kind of situation has happened to other families who’ve gone into rematch [Something similar happened to us with our flame-out au pair, and so reading this mom's email got me all mad all over again. What went [...]

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Checkout Task List: Back by popular demand

by cv harquail August 26, 2009

(Several readers have asked to see this list again… turns out it’s been hard to find, probably I need to use more & better tags. Until the rainy day when I get to play with the folksonomy, here’s the Checkout Task List! originally posted Aug 25, 2008)

When your aupair is getting ready to leave [...]

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Saying Goodbye to an Au Pair you Parents really love

by cv harquail July 8, 2009

Last year I wrote a post about "Her Next Adventure": Telling your kids that your Au Pair is leaving which elicited a lot of good advice for helping the children say goodbye to their au pair.
We just got a request from a mom with a different version of the problem– a version which, [...]

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Goodbye Gifts

by cv harquail September 4, 2008

Every year about a week before our au pair is set to depart, I realize that the scrapbook/ iMovie/ slideshow/ MixCD that I’d been fantasizing about making her will remain just that– a fantasy. I think that, because I dread saying goodbye to our au pairs, I put off until the last [...]

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Phases of the AP Year

by cv harquail June 2, 2008

To everything, there is a season.…. this was true of your relationships with your college boyfriends, and it’s true of your relationships with APs.

Every AP relationship follows a predictable pattern– the anxiety of selection, the celebration of finding someone, the anticipation of her arrival, the chaos of orientation, the ease of the cruising time, [...]

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