We’ve had a request to add some resources to AuPairMom– in the form of a depository of forms. I’m not quite sure how we’ll do this, technically, but– please email me any forms that you’d like to share with other host parents and/au pairs. These can range from preprinted gratitude cards that you include in her or his pay envelope to … who knows? Anything that you use that’s ‘formatted’ and organized to make your host parent/au pair life easier counts!
Can be a word document, a .pdf, a .gif, a .jpg — whatever you’ve got.
just email to me at mom@aupairmom
And, yes, I’m still waiting for more LCC etc websites to list… I haven’t gotten many ;-( cv
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I’ve got the balance sheet for our rematch, prorating what we and she owe, and will send it today.
I also have a daily checklist, if anyone is interested; frankly it was a bit more micromanagement than I cared to do, but my AP asked for it so we created one.
What a fabulous opportunity, AF! a chance to help others by helping yourself. Catharsis!
Hope you find a wonderful replacement. You’ve earned her.
Thanks CM–though I have yet to send my forms (sorry CV!!), we did just select a lovely candidate to match with. Whew! We ended up with 3 wonderful girls to choose from so like all things worth doing it wasn’t easy. We pick her up tomorrow. The whole family is excited.
Now to just get through the minefield of awkwardness of having 2 APs in the house for a week….
Crossing fingers for you all! So glad to hear it!
Don’t give new AP much time, esp alone, with the outgoing. Short-timer will probably disappear of her own accord to spend time with last days with friends, but don’t leave much to chance if you can help it! And try not to dwell on how awful she was; don’t want to make Newbie nervous. It will all be so much better soon…
Thanks for the input–new AP was gracious enough to take a week and go somewhere (which she said she’ll use as vacation but we may just give her). Current AP never even got to see her because new AP was up and out to the bus station by 9:30 AM. The other solution was going to be for my husband to take the week off to help the new AP. We were NOT interested in the outgoing one training the new one even though she tried like crazy to sell us on the idea. Yeah, there’s a reason we rematched.
And we’ve tried to keep it positive with the new AP–the last thing we want is to appear bitter and nasty, and we need some optimism in this house. :)
How about handbooks? I would be willing to share our family’s. Selfishly, would love to see others’; I am looking to revamp ours.
I would definitely be interested in your daily checklist, AF mom.
CV, if it’s a big hassle to get the space/ability to post files on this site, I know that yahoo message groups allow for some posting of files. But that could be an even bigger hassle!
My agency provides each family a daily communication log.
It is a spiral-bound notebook, with a header page for each week (with two lines per day, and space for extra communication from family and from au pair), and then it is a half a page per day, and half a page for the weekend.
In front it has space for photos and all the important info about family, doctors, etc.
It is super useful, I am not sure I can (or even if I am allowed to) scan and share it…
We also use this. We didn’t before but are with this AP and things are better when it comes to planning and ensuring things like laundry gets done.
Both of the Agencies we’ve used provided one too, for me, it was not enough space per day, I want to know more than that…but I also have had a baby and want to know nap times, bottle amounts, and what the German word for the day was, etc. I can see how that could be enough once the kids are older. I liked the idea of having it bound and have considered going to staples to get my pages bound into a nice neat similar book for $3.
I have a basic daily log that I made myself, with reminders as to that day’s curfew, asking whether AP will join us for dinner, if she wants the car (saves her having to ‘ask’ us each time) and letting her answer some easy questions about what kids did, ate, etc., plus she can circle smiley, frowny or neutral faces to show how each kid’s mood is AND her own. I’ll send.
I like the idea of adding car needs, next days start time, as well as the faces!
I would use that.
I don’t use a log myself, but I do keep a cheat sheet of The Camel’s medicine and fluid schedule on a bulletin board for my AP to refer – especially needed on those rare days home from school. My handbook is 3/4 about The Camel and all of her medical conditions, doctors,and things to watch out for. I try to keep my “guidelines” (sounds better than rules – as in follow these guidelines and we’ll have a great year together) to a minimum.
ha! I love that form, but my current au pair would always mark :-( faces because she seems to think that part of her job is detailing for me every minor scrap and characterizing “the afternoon was Word War III”. It’s sad, but in her mind, kids are never good enough, there’s always something to rat on them about. I’ve started cutting her off before she starts rolling with a “okay I get it, there was a conflict. Anyone bleed? Okay, well, here’s the thing: if they’re over it, you should be too. I don’t want to hear about it.”
Yum yum- reasons to look at my email (instead of hiding from it). In addition to posting these on a page as pdf’s and such, it’s also been suggested that I set them up in a public Google Docs folder-in-the-sky…. i’ll look into that, too.
cv
I was going to suggest google docs as well. You can upload or download in mostly any format, make things public or private, just need a gmail account.
I’ll be emailing you our daily sheet (infant with bottles / older girls sheet) as well as my interview checklist.
I like the idea (once you get it up and running) of having another shout out and a place for handbooks too.
We have been using google calendar to maintain the family calendar. Each member of the family old enough to be scheduling their own activities has a calendar, and we also maintain a family calendar for scheduling kids activities or events affecting the whole family.
I just today added a customized map to our google repertoire for our new au pair. Here is a sample map with a few locations mapped out. On the sample I added “home” (a randomly chosen house on the map), a nearby grocery store, a starbuck, the local cinema, the local elementary, high school, and community college, and the swim center. It’s a great way to quickly give your au pair an overview of the area so they can see the relative distances and locations of frequently visited places. It’s also easy to get directions to and from any icon on the map. If you add a placemarker via a google search result, it will automatically fill in data associated with that location (like phone number or address).
What a cool idea!
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