Au Pair Appreciation

Au Pair Appreciation: Creative Fun

by cv harquail March 16, 2014

We love coming home and discovering what projects AP and our kids worked on during the day. One time it was a cake that they made by taking on the challenge of not using a recipe. It tasted great even though it was only about an inch tall. Another time, AP showed the kids how to make papier-mâché. For […]

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Au Pair Appreciation: Our Feedback Really Matters

by cv harquail March 9, 2014

Sometimes the posts on AuPairMom make it all the way around the world. Recently, one of the post for AuPair Appreciation Week showed up on the screen of the au pair it described. She writes back: Oh Host Mom, I am moved to tears,what a wonderful post about me!! Thank you so much,this article […]

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Au Pair Appreciation: Sharing Her Language and Extending Herself

by cv harquail February 23, 2014

Every morning and evening I am thankful for our au pair, S. She arrived in January 2013 to take care of our son, who was 8 months old at the time. S was trained to be an au pair in a foreign run orphanage for handicapped and other abandoned children and orphans in Zhengzhou, China. […]

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Celebrating Your Au Pair By Creating Experiences

by cv harquail February 15, 2014

Often when we want to celebrate a milestone with our au pair, our thoughts turn to gifts of things. We don’t feel embarrassed turning to gift cards and cash, because we know that our au pairs are often saving money for travel or for some special item at Urban Outfitters. We tend to recommend […]

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Au Pair Appreciation: Rescues Trapped Hamster!

by cv harquail February 8, 2014

There are some Au Pair Appreciation stories that we could never anticipate, not in a million aupairyears. Such as this story of an Au Pair with real ‘derring do’, as my grandmum would call it. Courtesy of our own TakingAComputerLunch: Crazy stuff always happens in our house, but because we have a child with special […]

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Au Pair Appreciation: Listening Becomes Inspiration

by cv harquail February 7, 2014

I am writing to celebrate our au pair from last year, “L,” for her kindness, her thoughtfulness, and her patience. She was new to us in the fall, just as our then-10 year old daughter was beginning to play the viola. After the initial fun of a new instrument wore off, the first few weeks […]

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Au Pair Appreciation: 3 Ways To Make Your Words Matter

by cv harquail February 6, 2014

“Why”, “Because”, and “For Example” are some of my favorite words. As a trained social scientist, I’ve been taught to hunt down the reasons, the connections, and the proof behind every claim I make in a research paper. In research papers you have to persuade people that what you’ve found is real. And it turns […]

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Au Pair Appreciation: Cross-Cultural Connections with Our Children

by cv harquail February 5, 2014

It been a year and a half since our beloved Educare AP, R, left us to return home for university, but she remains a strong presence in our lives. She is present through her letters, and especially through the lessons she taught the children. Our children were in third grade and kindergarten when she was […]

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Au Pair Appreciation: Wonderful Right From The Start

by cv harquail February 4, 2014

…. So wonderful, in fact, that she set a standard that’s been hard to match. After months of struggling with the daily grind of the two-working parent household, we heard from friends having success with the au pair program. I was intrigued at the prospect of having extra help, particularly as I grew up in […]

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Au Pair Appreciation: Life is Simply Better With Au Pair as Part of Our Home

by cv harquail February 4, 2014

We should all have the challenges this host mom faces, as she aims to describe what she appreciates about her au pair! I am having a hard time writing this appreciation for our current au pair not because I can’t think of what to celebrate him for, but because once I start, I don’t think […]

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