Well goodbyes suck, I can tell you that much.  This morning we woke up extra early, got the boys out of bed, sort-of fed, and we all drove with Laura to the airport.  After a year of keeping our boys alive and entertained, happy and healthy, she’s heading back to Australia, by way of a couple of weeks in Denver and another week in Hawaii.

None of us slept well last night.  Dexter and Nicholas were restless, and didn’t fall asleep until nearly 9:30.  They usually go to bed between 7 and 8.  I don’t know what was up with that, but maybe they knew something wasn’t quite right.  I couldn’t fall asleep, or stay asleep.  Neither could Laura, but on the plus side at least that meant she didn’t fall out of bed in the middle of the night, so at least we had that going for us.  We stopped off at an espresso stand for Chai teas, and then we took Kanga down to SEATAC.  We helped Laura lug the body-building weights she calls her luggage to the counter, and walked around with the boys for a little bit, trying to delay the “good bye” as long as we could.

I already miss her, and not just because of the incredibly nasty diaper that Dexter woke up from his nap with that I would have loved to have delegated to Laura’s capable hands.  When we were first looking for at the possibility of an Au Pair last year, our boys were just home from the hospital, on more medications than we could keep track of, with weekly doctor’s appointments, special formulas, and even oxygen for Dexter.  It was hard to imagine that we could find any young Au Pair candidate that we could trust with our two little boys.  The first application we saw was for a Dane whom withdrew from the program the moment we e-mailed her (we tried not to read too much in to that).  The second application was Laura’s, and we didn’t need to look any further.

We had no doubts that Laura would prove the equal to any challenge the boys would throw her way, and that if they needed more than a normal nanny could provide, well, Laura would be able to do that, too.  Fortunately, many of the special needs fell away before Laura arrived (she must have breathed a sigh of relief when she learned that Dexter had stopped his thrice-daily puking habit just days before she arrived, though perhaps she was a little terrified by the charts I showed her to demonstrate the fact), and the boys grew fairly normally.

That didn’t make Laura’s job any easier, just a little less complicated.  The boys learned to lift their heads, crawl, walk, run, and climb on her watch.  They went from sleeping 18 hours a day with 8 bottles, to eating three main meals, a couple of snacks, and no bottles at all.  They’ve doubled in size, and grown very full heads of hair (in marked contrast to their father, but apparently it’s a quid pro quo relationship – if they get hair, I lose it.  Fair trade, if you ask me.)  We were in strict quarantine when she arrived, praying that we didn’t catch even the slightest cold for worry of Dexter’s lungs, but we ended the year with playdates and even taking them to the Children’s Musuem.  Laura helped us take them camping and to swim lessons, to get baptized and play in the park.

For our part, we’ve learned more about Australia than we thought there was to know.  Apparently they don’t all carry large knives, for example.  Coolers are Eskis, diapers are nappies, buggered just means tired, Cathy has forgotten more tricks to parenting then we’ll ever learn (apparently if you’re lying there will be purple polka dots on your tongue, but only mothers can see them – you don’t believe me?  Want me to stick out my tongue?), and Karl is well known in every pub within a hundred kilometers of his home.  Thankfully, we learned that Australian food was markedly better than English food, and Laura had mad skills with the grill, despite her obviously false claims that Vegemite is edible.  I’m still not convinced that Australia is habitable, what with the deserts and firestorms, the spiders and snakes and sharks, and perhaps most dangerously of all, the Australians.  Still, we’ve learned enough that it’s at the top of our travel wish list.

We earnestly hope that Laura got what she wanted out of her year with us, or what she needed.  We know she’ll do well.  She has a strength of character, resilience to deal with almost anything no matter how stressful, an unmatched ability to spin a story – wherever she chooses to go, we wish her well, and look forward to hearing about it.

Thank you for keeping our boys alive, Laura, and for loving them so well, and for joining our family for this year.  We deeply and sincerely appreciate it, and we’ll never forget it, nor allow the boys to do so.

Thank you for loaning us your daughter, Karl and Cathy.  I hope we’ve returned her to you in good working order, none the worse for wear.  Most of the spit-up stains will come out of her with time, though the fear of peanut butter may last a lifetime.

Good bye for now, Laura.  We’ll see you again.  Maybe not too soon, but someday.  The boys will make you proud…

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