Alignments

One of the realities that I've resigned myself to is that in order to keep working full-time, the kiddos will be subjected to an ever-changing series of caretakers. Our goal will be to find great caregivers and limit turnover, but there's only so much influence we can impart.

After last year, when we tried to make things work with an au pair who I didn't really trust, I decided to take upon the hiring of a local babysitter myself. I specifically kicked Fritz out of the interview process, since I think he rather over-rode my instincts with that particular (bad) au pair. I wanted to see if I could do a better job without his input. I wanted to follow my instincts.

I interviewed about 8 people before I found the right fit. And I really love our current sitter - or nanny - I don't know how to refer to her - I keep changing my mind. She's working for us about 20 hours a week, sometimes a little bit more with holidays, etc.

I trust her. Which is MAJOR in making me feel okay about going to work. My grandmother told me after Noah was born, "What you need to do is find someone you can really trust to watch him. That makes all the difference." And my grandmother was completely right. But at the time she told me this, we were living in Munich and this piece of advice was completely overwhelming. I could barely make friends for myself with my clumsy German: how was I ever going to find someone I trusted to watch my child?

Every now and then I have crossed paths with someone I trust, but the stars don't always align. Or the stars don't align for a very long time. Now we have someone I trust and I am so happy about it. However, she's expecting a baby in March, so we'll be back to looking for another child care solution starting in February, at least temporarily. We MAY go back in the direction of an au pair. It's the same argument I made before: IF we could find the right au pair, I do think that the au pair (live-in nanny) really offers us some much-appreciated flexibility.

Naturally, I'm worried about making the same mistakes. No. That's not true. It's more like: I'm worried about making new mistakes and finding myself unhappy once again. I actually trust myself not to make the exact same mistake.