Before the boys were born Katie and I were still trying to figure out what we’d do about daycare.  Katie was a bit ambivalent, some days thinking she’d want to stay home, and other days thinking that she’d go crazy and ought to work.  We put in an application for the Boeing Daycare Center, which by all accounts is excellent (with a price tag to match), but mostly this was because there was nearly a year long waiting list and we were still undecided.  When the boys decided to force the issue, suddenly the typical daycare center wasn’t an option.  We had to either stay home with the boys, or get someone to come to our home to watch them.  I’d mentioned the Au Pair route to Katie months before, but the idea hadn’t gone anywhere.

Once we realized that it was stay at home or hire an Au Pair, Katie became suddenly very interested in the idea.  On the one hand, it offered a great arrangement for us – no early morning fight to get the boys ready, no screaming children fighting being dragged into the daycare center, no worries about what horrible diseases or naughty words the boys would become infected with (well, lots of worries about the latter, but now Katie would know EXACTLY who to blame, and it wouldn’t be Laura).  Instead, the boys may or may not be up when we leave in the morning.  If they are, they might yell at us for leaving, but they’re happy just a couple minutes later, and we can rest assured that they are being well taken care of.  And on top of that, we get to learn about a culture we haven’t visited, nor are we likely to able to do so for quite a few years.  We can’t really travel anymore, so we import the experience.

Laura’s been watching the boys for the last 9 months.  She watches them 4 days a week, from 6:30am until 4:30pm, and then on Mondays usually works another 3-5 hours while Katie runs a few errands.  She keeps the boys happy, entertained, and fed.  She sings to them and corrupts them with Aussie culture, but only occasionally threatens them with consuming Vegemite.  The thing about this that’s really amazing to me is that when I leave in the morning, I do so without any worries at all.  I trust Laura completely – the boys will be as safe as they would be if Katie were home watching them, and far safer than if I were on duty.

Last Tuesday, Laura watched the boys as normal.  When I got home, I saw an enormous bruise in the center of Dexter’s forehead.  This picture doesn’t do it justice, because the flash washed the colors out and especially since it was only taken 3 or 4 days later.

Still, the bruise was a doozy.  Laura had been helping Dexter walk through the kitchen, holding his hand, when he stepped on a bib that some careless person (and by person, I mean toddler – I have one or two suspects) had tossed out of the only non-baby proofed drawer and onto the floor.  He toppled over forward, out of Laura’s hand, and smacked his forehead, HARD, onto the hard-wood floor.  Apparently that’s when the screaming started.

And then comes the part that reaffirms why we trust Laura so much, and why she’s been such a great Au Pair for us this past year.  Laura told us that Dexter was screaming and crying, and she started crying, and then Nicholas starts crying.  Laura got some ice and held it to his head for 30 minutes, which Dexter didn’t like one little bit, but she persisted.  And she was so worried that he’d hit the floor hard enough that maybe he had a concussion, so she made him even madder by keeping him awake for several hours just to be safe.  By the time we got home it was all a distant memory, except that Laura looked like she could have used a very stiff drink, and Dexter looked like he had some smeared make-up, and didn’t perk up to his normal chipper self until he had a dose of tylenol.  He was acting fairly happy as soon as Laura took the ice off his head, and later took a nice nap.  He was fine, if with yet another battle wound that causes his many female callers to swoon.

So basically, Laura rocks.  And Katie and I can go off to work in the morning, slightly sad that someone else gets to play with the boys, but utterly confident that if anything goes wrong, Laura will be just the person to take care of it and keep our boys safe.

Thank you, Laura. (Yes Laura, thank you!  You are an Amazing person and we are so glad you spent the first year with us, helping raise the boys. You’ve also helped Joel and I stay on track as parents.   We appreciate you. – Katie)