As a few of you know by now, we’ve settled our “Au Pair vs. Daycare” dilemma for 2011.  Last weekend we asked Anamaria to join us next January, and she accepted.  Anamaria is 22 years old, and when she joins us she will have just completed the 4th year in her 5-year early childhood development teaching program. She’s a lovely girl, who obviously loves children, and seems very eager to help us challenge and develop our boys.

Anamaria’s from Colombia, and lives a short distance North of Bogota.  This might explain the hits on the blog from Colombia recently.  The Chilean hit was from a previous Au Pair candidate, and we have no idea who the hits are from in Oman.  And it means that next year we’ll be hearing Spanish in our home, after a year of Swedish, and before that, the nearly-impossible-to-understand vernacular of the Australians (just kidding, I always understood what Laura was saying – it’s just that she was usually making fun of me so it was easier to “play” dumb…)

Part of our mind was made up for us when Boeing decided to end their subsidy of the daycare center.  The ever-rising prices mean that an Au Pair is a much, much more affordable option.  We’re hoping to instead enroll the boys in a 2-day a week co-op pre-school program (we’re numbers 2 and 3 on the waiting list right now, so cross your fingers for us – and thank you, Andrea, for the suggestion! – and see, we DO read all the comments, and even listen to them!), to continue to arrange regular playdates for the boys, and to pursue a few more memberships in local attractions.  We currently have memberships to the Imagination Museum and the Woodland Park Zoo.  We’re thinking of adding a membership to the Pacific Science Center, and signing the boys up for swim lessons at the Mountlake Terrace pool that we’ve been having so much fun with.

It will, of course, be very sad to see Malin leave us, but we’ve had a great time with her these past 8 months, and the only thing worse than saying goodbye would be never having said hello.  We’ll still be expecting her to visit, of course, as per her legally-binding contract.  In fact, we’re hoping that Laura might be visiting us this January as well!

Welcome, Anamaria!

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