Nat is here from Thailand to help us out with our childcare needs for a year. We hire au pairs to be Edda’s childcare (Vince is now too old to need a babysitter, heck, I think next year he could be a babysitter himself!) – I depend on my au pairs a lot to allow me to keep the schedule that I keep which is not insanely busy, but having flexible child care allows me to have some time for myself and basically not go totally insane. We pay a lot for child care, but it allows me not to be too resentful of Edda’s disability because I’m not always “on call” for her needs.
Every year, the au pair agency requires the host family to attend an au pair meeting. Usually they try and make it fun, I’ve been to a pizza fundraiser, a shopping spree/tea, and I forget what else. This time, I went to downtown Bethesda for some sort of kid fair, face painting, balloons, and arts and crafts. My kids are getting too old for such things, we were surrounded by a bunch of toddlers, but that didn’t stop us from having fun.
We got a bunch of balloons, ate a bunch of pizza and ice cream. Heard toddlers crying about not having a balloon and gave all our balloons away. A good day.
I heard from the news that the newly proposed immigration laws will classify the au pairs as employment instead of cultural exchange. If passing, au pairs program will run by Labor Department instead of the State Department. Since it is a employment, it will become more difficult to get au pairs into the country.
With twins, I have found that the free super savers shipping on economy size diapers is a godsend. The diapers seem a little thinner but I have never had a problem with leaking. They have the same stretch tabs on the sides that I liked about honest diapers. I love having these shipped right to my door & always having so many on hand. It's one less thing to worry about carrying when shopping with the kids. They always ship within a couple of days so I just make sure that I order them a few days earlier than when it looks like we'll need them.