Child Care and Food Allergies - Chapter 2

It has been quite a while since I updated our child care situation. For those of you who don't remember, check out my fascinating post here about our present Au Pair Jan , our previous Au Pair nightmare, and our search for future child care.

Time has marched on as it always does, and Jan is set to go home in about a month. After much searching, interviewing and reading between the lines, I think we found someone who will hopefully work out. How do I know they will work out??? I have NO CLUE!!! and

I AM SCARED OUT OF MY MIND!!!!

There is only so much interviewing you can do over the phone, so much staring at photos they send, or reading their reasons why they want to join your family.

Sure I got rid of the ones who were obviously not going to work. One applicant emailed me a list of over 20 questions to answer including questions about our social life, and child rearing background. uuuuhhh no. We were interested in another one, but she told us that she could not give us any decision for a month since she was waiting to talk to another family. We decided we were not willing to wait for a month for her to talk to another family, and a month later when she contacted us to tell us she wanted to be our Au Pair, she just could not understand that we were not still waiting for her. I wonder why.........

Of course all this is complicated by life threatening food allergies. I tell the person as clearly as I can that we allow absolutely no nuts in your house. However, I am never really sure whether they understand that this means all nuts in everything, even things made in a facility with nuts. I say no eggs, but I don't know if they understand that means not only no omelets for breakfast, but you get to learn a whole new way to make baked goods. (hey, have you tried this great cake, take a box of cake mix and a can of soda......) I think I did a smart thing when Jan came in taking her to the Allergist with us when Conor was getting tested for his flu shot. It kind of got the point across that this is a serious condition, not an arbitrary hatred of evil legumes. Spending an afternoon staring at a child waiting for a reaction with epi-pen in hand is a learning experience for everyone.

Our new Au Pair is from Colombia, and fulfills my list of things I have decided an Au Pair must have. (must have graduated from college, must have siblings, etc) By the way, I have already heard every Colombian drug joke there is, including one from Nana who when hearing our new Au Pair was from Colombia stated in her little Irish accent "Make sure you check what she is planting in the garden." Gee thanks Nana, I feel better now.

But hopefully she will work out. Everyone will be excited that she speaks Spanish since we are so immersed in it due to the Spanish Immersion Kindergarten program. Maybe she can decipher Natalie's new language, SpaNatalie (a combination of Spanish and gibberish that Natalie makes up and talks in all day long to the frustration of everyone around her).

So we wait. Tune in in a few weeks to see how our story ends.

Child Care and Food Allergies

Unfortunatly for us, our present Au Pair Jan's year is comming to an end, and we are starting our search for another one. We love Jan, and wish she would stay longer, but her grandmother is sick back in Thailand, and she wants to head home.

For those of you who do not know, an au pair is part of a cultural exchange program set up with the U.S. government. Refering to my favorite source wikipedia,:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Au_pair

"An au pair (plural: au pairs) is a foreign-national domestic assistant working for, and living as part of, a host family. Typically, au pairs are girls or young women and take on a share of the family's responsibility for child care as well as some housework, and receive a small monetary allowance for personal use.
The title comes from the French term au pair, meaning "on a par" or "equal to", indicating that the relationship is intended to be one of equals: the au pair is intended to become a member of the family, albeit a temporary one, rather than a domestic servant. In the best circumstances, both parties benefit from learning about the other's culture."

So far we have had two au pairs we have absolutely loved, and we will definitly always consider them to be members of our family. Our first au pair was from Poland, and she stayed with us for 2 years before getting married and moving down the road from our own home. We still talk with her and visit her regularly, and she is now expecting her own little bundle of joy. Jan is from Thailand, and she has been absolutely great also. She makes the best nut free, egg free Thai food ever!!! Everyone loves her and we are hoping she comes back to the area for school in the near future.

The reason this is all so scarey, is despite these two absolutely wonderful experiences we did have one terrible, horribe nightmare in between them.

(we call this one Vicky from the Fairly Odd Parents to protect her identity)

Vicky lasted for 4 days, and that was generous. The final straw for me was when we decided to head to a local swimming pool one afternoon. At that time I had two 4 year olds, and an almost 3 year old, none of who could swim very well. When we got to the pool she looked at it in horror and said "there is chlorine in the pool......I refuse to get into a pool with chlorine" My response was "excuse me...I thought I just heard you say you refuse to get into a pool with chlorine in it. I am sure I must be mistaken" Vicky put her nose in the air like I was asking her to jump into a vat of boiling water while I tried to figure out why it was a bad thing to put chlorine in a pool, and what other options there were to keep a pool clean. Vicky also called all of our food dog food, and once ran off crying because we have crackers here that come in the shape of goldfish. She could not understand whether they were a toy or a food or both. Even after we decided she was just not the right match for us we had to keep her in our home for two weeks, freeze our long distance so she could not make thousands of dollars of calls and lock up our valuables.

Finding an au pair is stressful enough without adding on the issues of life threatening food allergies and asthma. I always worry I am going to find someone out back tied up to the play set while my three little angles dance around her. Then on top of that you have to try and explain the situation to someone whose english may be a bit questionable, and there you have it

STRESS .

I had one person once think I was joking when I said we don't keep eggs in the house. The nuts she could understand, but not eggs!! How could anyone possibly survive without eggs??? (obviously she has not tried Veganaise) The horror!! Then you need to explain the epi pen, emergency protocol and everything else, and hope they get it. And they have to be responsible enough to handle an emergency. Yikes!!





And so my search begins. Wish me luck. I will keep you updated.........