Yet Another Decision Point
Sep. 14th, 2008 02:03 pmCan I say how much I hate these?
So the agency has given us the info for another au pair. She is in the country, and unhappy in her situation. Her visa is up in January, she is applying for a one-year extension. She's a native English speaker, which is kind of a plus for us. She seems very outgoing. The excuse given is that she just can't keep up with the 8 month-old twins involved, now they've started crawling. On discussion, it appears that the situation was much more complicated. The parents sound pretty controlling from her description (grain of salt taken, applied) - she explains that she wasn't supposed to take both babies out at once (the mother was working from home during the day), that she was expected to write down when they ate, how much, how much they spit up, when they slept. In addition to childcare, she was responsible for household cooking and cleaning - not the "let's try and corral the toys so we don't trip" thing we do, but full, weekly housecleaning. The kids needed physical therapy for various things. She never got to go out, she says, by which she means she never got to leave the house.
She's very sympathetic on the phone. She asked about things to do with Danger Lad!, places to take him, playgroups to participate in. Boy oh boy does my kid need to participate in playgroups. He needs to participate in *something*. He needs to run around until he's tired.
So we could get this person in, and orient her and all that, and throw over the daycare again. But what if it all falls through a second time? The daycare took us back once, I don't know that they'd save our asses again. It would be much easier to set up backups and contingency help with someone in our house, which was kind of the idea in the first place.
My head is all a-swim. It occurs to me that I could have let the math institute buy me back, and then I'd have different problems.
ETA: On discussion with![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
danceboy, we are sticking with daycare, and the patchwork of pickup and contingency arrangements we are working on constructing. We are gun-shy, and we are very worried that we can't have this au pair at all unless we commit to her (probably full-time, even), and then if it falls through, there is no safety net anymore. Daycare took us back once, but they took us back instead of selling our slot to some other kid's parents, and if we drop them again, we are unlikely to be able to get back in. We do not have an alternate safety net.
It also looks like our demi-cooperative household is about to get a lot more cooperative than it has been to date, which helps some, and complicates some. I think it does more help than complication.
So the agency has given us the info for another au pair. She is in the country, and unhappy in her situation. Her visa is up in January, she is applying for a one-year extension. She's a native English speaker, which is kind of a plus for us. She seems very outgoing. The excuse given is that she just can't keep up with the 8 month-old twins involved, now they've started crawling. On discussion, it appears that the situation was much more complicated. The parents sound pretty controlling from her description (grain of salt taken, applied) - she explains that she wasn't supposed to take both babies out at once (the mother was working from home during the day), that she was expected to write down when they ate, how much, how much they spit up, when they slept. In addition to childcare, she was responsible for household cooking and cleaning - not the "let's try and corral the toys so we don't trip" thing we do, but full, weekly housecleaning. The kids needed physical therapy for various things. She never got to go out, she says, by which she means she never got to leave the house.
She's very sympathetic on the phone. She asked about things to do with Danger Lad!, places to take him, playgroups to participate in. Boy oh boy does my kid need to participate in playgroups. He needs to participate in *something*. He needs to run around until he's tired.
So we could get this person in, and orient her and all that, and throw over the daycare again. But what if it all falls through a second time? The daycare took us back once, I don't know that they'd save our asses again. It would be much easier to set up backups and contingency help with someone in our house, which was kind of the idea in the first place.
My head is all a-swim. It occurs to me that I could have let the math institute buy me back, and then I'd have different problems.
ETA: On discussion with
danceboy, we are sticking with daycare, and the patchwork of pickup and contingency arrangements we are working on constructing. We are gun-shy, and we are very worried that we can't have this au pair at all unless we commit to her (probably full-time, even), and then if it falls through, there is no safety net anymore. Daycare took us back once, but they took us back instead of selling our slot to some other kid's parents, and if we drop them again, we are unlikely to be able to get back in. We do not have an alternate safety net. It also looks like our demi-cooperative household is about to get a lot more cooperative than it has been to date, which helps some, and complicates some. I think it does more help than complication.
