Yummy Nanny
 

Since you guys have brought it up, does anyone have any experience with au pairs? The literature I've received implies a pretty strict time limit per week (45 hours). Is there some flexibility there? Would we have to provide a car (as a practical matter, not as a program requirement)? Can I use that as an excuse to get myself out of the SUV I hate and into the convertable (or sports car) I've always wanted (and hand down the SUV)?

Obviously, with an au pair a lot of such things would be highly dependant on the actual au pair, and so the luck of the draw, but anyone have experience? Besides Wonks suggestion, is any country better than another, for any reason besides appearance (NTTAWWT)?

Yummy Nanny
 

Lots of friends did. Once. Too high-maintenance, and too high of a chance of getting Ms. PartyGrrl. And then, boy, are you stuck. ("I know I'm supposed to make breakfast, Mr. Baggins, but my new boyfriend that I met at First Avenue is in jail again, and I just HAVE to find a way to get him out, or I'll just DIE! Oh, and I think I'm pregnant.", all in a cute french accent.) The agency that sets them up will find you another, eventually, but you're stuck with who you get for a good amount of time. (At least, you're paying, and you're providing the room and board.) I know six families who did this, and they now recommend it to no one.

Best thing we ever did was, hire a nanny. The kids were in a corporate-type daycare, and that was really very good. Lots of activities, kids were stimulated and had fun, staff turnover was fairly low - a good experience. But, when we hit three kids, we figured out that someone who came in at 6:00am and left at 6:00 pm was about the same price. Plus, the kids didn't have to get up, eat a fast breakfast, and get loaded into the car early in the morning, they got to play in their own neighborhood with their own friends, using their own stuff, they got more individual attention, things were much more relaxed at the end of the day (no quick whisking kids away from whatever activity they were involved in at daycare, no rush to get home, get settled, and get dinner), they could play together if they wanted to (no age separation into classes like at daycare), or not, if they didn't, fewer colds/flu/whatevers, . . . .

It was just a ton better. It does all depend, of course, on finding the right nanny. We lucked out on that, to a great degree.

Daycare Deadlines
 

Well the two professionals in this house are me and myself but same daycare deadline issue. I work part time but obviously will sometimes be working past the daycare closing. If I'm working from my home office that day, it works out great b/c I can pick up Vietbabe and hang with her for a bit, and then return to working when she is asleep. The tough one is when you are simply not able to pick up the child when daycare is closing.

This is the way I used to handle it, which you might consider: hire someone to pick up kiddie from daycare and bring them to your home till you get there. You will probably need to guarantee her some form of employment other than "we'll call you when we need you; usually 1 hour frantically before the center closes and you better be available right away". So I hired her to work 15 hours a week (at 15 bucks an hour). The "default" if she didn't hear from me was to pick up Vietbabe at daycare and babysit till I got home. I installed a car seat in her car and showed her where the center was, etc.

If however, I was able to pick up Vietbabe, I'd call her on her cell phone and send her shopping (to get food; or to even pick up little gifts I needed to get for people; one time to return for me some clothes I bought that I changed my mind on). Or, she'd come to the house and clean and do laundry. Or....she'd do next to nothing during the week and I'd "save" her hours till Friday and Saturday night and she'd babysit then.

You could actually have fun with this. One night there was nothing for her to do so I had her cook me a gourment meal and then handwash some of my colorful items. I found I was able to save a little money because I'd have her cut coupons and she'd also go to a Costco or BJ's wholesale discount place. You could have her do anything you want in the hours you don't need her. (OK knock it off smut minds).

If you don't want to do that -- do what I do now. Keep a car seat at the daycare center, give a few people a key to your house and call the different people and see if they can go to the daycare and pick up your child and car seat and take both to your home. Sometimes, you can make an arrangement with someone at the daycare (like a teacher) who will do it gladly for the right price.

PS - Not for nothing, but at the high school/early college parties in my town, there was always a wildly oversexed foreign chick who was totally hot and would do anything with any gender in front of any body. And they were all au pairs.

Yummy Nanny
 

We have had a lot of experience with au Pairs, from back when we were a two professional family. We had some great experiences, some so-so experiences, and a couple of really bad experiences, but the really bad one's we dealt with quickly and they were over in a week or two (one was an au pair with a fondness for every pharmaceutical in the cabinet, the other simply one with all the get-up and go of roadkill). Interview carefully and check references. We have had better luck with au pairs than with domestic childcare providers, though have discovered that a local grad school with a child-ed program has a lot of good grad students willing to help - if you can deal with high-turnover, the quality of care is often extraordinary.


I think you get a better sense for someone and their strengths and weaknesses when you live with them.

On the hours thing, the agencies can be pretty strict and monitor (though some agencies less so), but you'll quickly get into a network of au pairs and ex au pairs where there will be others available to help out with spare babysitting. (Lot's of au pairs find a way to stick around, much to the delight of any number of 25 year old American males).

Yummy Nanny
 

France. Norway. Switzerland.

Think globally, act locally.

Yummy Nanny
 

Ophelia: Yah, I am Inga, frum Svee-den.

Coleman (confused): But . . . surely you're wearing . . . lederhosen . . . ?

Ophelia (urgently, with a stern look to Coleman): Yah, fur shure, frum Svee-den.

Yummy Nanny
 

I can see that this would be much more convenient for us, but it just doesn't seem fair to the three-year-old. He's a social little guy, and I worry that if he was at home with a nanny, he just wouldn't get the kind of sustained quality time with his compadres that he likes. Maybe if there were more kids his age in our immediate neighborhood, this would seem like a better option.

Yummy Nanny
 

We've got information from the Cultural Care agency (formerly something else, EFS, maybe?), but do you know of any other agencies you can recommend (not just based on the hours thing, but for cost vs. quality)?

Yummy Nanny
 

Yeah, we had a bunch of similar-aged rugrats in our neck of the woods, plus our nanny was big on arranging get-togethers with other people and their kids. That was the beginning of the stage of our lives when, on an average day, we would have ten or so kids in our house. And, no, we don't have ten or so kids of our own.

Jinger???
 

Arkansas Family Celebrates 15th Child

May 24, 7:46 PM (ET)

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. (AP) - Former state legislator Jim Bob Duggar and his wife Michelle are celebrating the birth of their 15th child. Both the baby and mother were doing well, although Michelle was feeling some discomfort because the birth was her second by Caesarean section, said Jim Bob's mother, Mary Duggar.

"She's a trooper. She's just all smiles," Mary Duggar said in a telephone interview Monday.

The baby boy, Jackson Levi Duggar, was born at 10:52 a.m. Sunday. He weighed 7 pounds 8 ounces and is 20 inches long.

"She was wanting to do it naturally," Mary Duggar said. But the delivery was by C-section because one of Jackson's shoulders was presenting first.

"I call him Jumping Jack because he would go in a circle," she said.

Home briefly from the hospital later Monday, Jim Bob, 38, sounded a bit tired but happy. He said his wife and new son were doing fine. He said he leaves the decision up to Michelle on whether to have more children.

"I have always left it up to Michelle because she's actually the one that carries them and does all the labor," he said. "But we both love children. Even yesterday, she said she would like to have some more."

Michelle, 37, probably will be in Washington Regional Medical Center for three or four days, said her mother-in-law, who is taking care of the 14 other children.

Michelle, who home schools her children and is helping to build the family's new home in Tontitown from the ground up, started having her babies when she was 21, four years after she and Jim Bob married. He is a real estate businessman and a former state representative.

Their children include two sets of twins, and the parents have stuck to the letter "J" for their names. There is Joshua, 16; Jana and John-David, 14; Jill, 13; Jessa, 11; Jinger, 10; Joseph, 9; Josiah, 7; Joy-Anna, 6; Jeremiah and Jedidiah, 5; Jason, 4; James, 2; and Justin, 1.

LINK

Jinger???
 

Cf. children of Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokel: Tiffany, Heather, Cody, Dylan, Dermot, Jordan, Taylor, Brittany, Wesley, Rumer, Scout, Cassidy, Zoe, Chloe, Max, Hunter, Kendall, Caitlin, Noah, Sascha, Morgan, Kyra, Ian, Lauren, Q-bert, and Phil.

Jinger???
 

I just can't imagine. We can barely handle two. 'Course I agree with the idea of needing a naming scheme. That's why we named ours baltspawn A and baltspawn B.

Jinger???
 

it one reason why Jewish people don't have 15 kids.

Jinger???
 

We toyed with Thing 1, Thing Two, and so on to reduce the arguments about names. But in the end I got the name I wanted. I mean - I did all the work, right?

-TL

Quandry
 

So, middle son (Nature Boy) finds a blown-down woodduck house in the woods, with eggs scattered all over the ground. He picks them up, brings them home, rigs up a warmer, and, one week later, the damn things all hatch.

Five days later, they all follow him around his room in a group, cheeping madly and trying to crawl up his pants leg. If he sits on the ground, they all hop onto his lap and settle in contentedly and sort of quietly do a bird-purr. He has named them all, and I think they respond to their own names.

My cursory research with my field guide tells me that these are baby loons. With the combined penalties from the Migratory Waterfowl Protection Act, and the Minnesota State Bird Designation Act, I'm thinking this is good for about a $5,000 fine.

This can't turn out well.

Quandry
 

Would it be insensitive to suggest several recipes, I mean, solutions to your predicament?

Quandry
 

There was never any question you'd be raising loons. I just never would have guessed it would skip a generation.

Quandry
 

Softballs. I gotta watch the softballs.

Quandry
 

surely there is an amnesty program. you can teach your kids that, while it's important to care for wildlife, it's even more important to be trained in ass-covering.

Quandry
 

You can watch that last one soaring over the fence if you look quickly

Quandry
 

I can't even get past the "which wine with loon" issue. I mean, they're poultry, sort of, but with a strong fishy taste, plus they're the State Bird, which pretty well mandates a Minnesota wine all by itslef. And, if you know "Minnesota wine", you understand my problem.

Quandry
 

That's the stuff made to soften lefse and be served with lutefisk, right?

Quandry
 

It comes in a different bottle, but the taste is pretty much identical.

Takes tar and sap off of car paint, too. But you have to work fast, or the paint dies.

Quandry
 

You'd have to go outside of Minnesota, but perhaps this would be appropriate:

http://www.bevmo.com//115images//63470.jpg

Mmmn....Loon...The OTHER White Meat
 

Wow. That is the sweetest boy you have. *sigh*.

I think it can turn out well. If this were me, I'd probably waste money on some sort of comfy loon house (a loony bin perhaps? um...hardy har har and what not), spend too much time learning about the wants and needs of growing loons and to make sure the little loonies are fully entertained, I'd hire and overpay a Loon Nanny who'd end up, for $600 an hour, watching tv while the little loons run amok about the house. But that's just me.

If you really don't want to raise these things, even to the awkward teen years, then you could be creative about how you break the news to nature boy. Try this link and
this one too to find places to call about a potential new home. The one site suggests that folks get permits to rehabilitate various wildlife and I'd be surprised if there weren't some crazy Minnesotan specializing in loons. Then, you could make it a nice learning experience by having your son check out the new home for his little loons, and he could maybe "volunteer" with whatever wildlife rehab project is going on to make him feel included. If the new loon home is close, he might even get to visit them. At the least, I'm sure folks would be happy to send him pics of the loons as they grow. And if the place is too far away, maybe the whole thing sparks an interest in wildlife rehab and he could do cool stuff as a volunteer more local to you.

http://www.learner.org/jnorth/images...on_hagge06.jpg

This is what you have wandering around your home? They're so cute!

Anyway, when we rescued the baby ducks we found that there was a bird person who was happy to take them and, when they were ready, set them free. She would put 11 or 12 abandoned ducklings with a mommy duck, get the mommy duck used to the babies and off they would go together.

Everywhere I have ever lived there has always been some bird person willing to help out in situations like this. I tend to just throw them some money when I throw them whatever animal it is I felt the need to rescue.

You have a good boy there.

Call an animal rehabber as soon as possible - you really don't want the birds to become too adapted to people or they will have trouble finding their own food. And if they are anything like ducks, they won't leave! The rehabber can give your son an update on the birds to make him feel better about leaving them, I'm sure. Also, if it is anything like TX, the rehabbers do all this work with some donations and their own money, so a small donation to cover loon chow would be much appreciated. Now, if only someone could help me with my litter of raccoons in the back yard.....

Have the baby loons started asking "Are You My Mother?" yet?

(Is that book still in print?)

Yes. Would you like me to recite it to you? From memory?

(shoot me. please.)

You have no right to comlain until you find yourself humming "Everybody's Fancy" in the shower and answering people at work who bring you good news with "Well, isn't that special?"

At a friends house for dinner last week, I sang "Clean up. Clean up. Everybody everywhere, likes to clean up, clean up. Everybody do your share."

I recently told a friend that I was tie-tie and needed to go night-night.

I know who the celebrity guests were on Sesame Street last week and where Grover went to visit.

I know what the inside of those Shrek toaster strudels look like.

I have every right to complain. I am also the happiest I think I've ever been.

Okay, I'll give your creds.

The Weedlet is in her princess phase (which I think lasts for like, 18 years, I know) and I now know all the words to the waltz theme from Sleeping Beauty, which is actually a decent song and beats the hell out of Blues fucking Clues.

Iron(that gleam in your eyes is so familiar)weed

Parent Creds
 

It only lasts about 7 years. The Princess phase terminates in the "I'm a Princess" phase. At that point, she will announce that she hates you and Mrs. Weed, stomp into her room. slam the door, and play MTV too loud while wearing her iPod and IMing all her friends about how difficult her life is.

Based upon my little sister, I believe this phase ends on the 32d birthday.

The Wonk Monster is now into wearing do-rags and pretending to be a pirate, interspersed with watching the Wild Boyz and Animal Planet at night, while spending all his daylight hours hiding from his parents or tramping in a dozen of his friends to announce that "they're hungry and want a snack."

I'm beginning to consider taking up professional drinking again, or moving to Belize. Alone.

Parent Creds
 

I think Belize sounds good, and you should probably isolate yourself from all forms of modern communication.

You could take MR with you for fun.

Parent Creds
 

Is the do-rag red or blue? I just want to know what set he's rollin' wit so I can avoid the 'hood.

And the Weedlet (almost 4) has already uttered those words every parent longs to hear - "I don't love you anymore." I think it had something to do with a dispute over ice cream. She hasn't worked her way up to "I hate you" yet, but she's a fast learner.

Parent Creds
 

Also soon coming to a child near you, the ever-popular "You're not the boss of me"

Parent Creds
 

That's my line. You have to establish boundaries with your kids early, you know?

Parent Creds
 

It's black. He be rollin' with Captain Jack Sparrow's crew, if ye be familiar with he.

Which reminds me of an old joke.

A pirate walks into a bar with a ship's wheel hangin out of the front of his trousers. The bartender asks him, "Do you know you've got a wheel hanging out your fly?"

The pirate replies, "Aye, and it's driving me nuts!"

Thank you, thank you. I'll be here through Saturday.

I know all the lyrics, too, but that's just because I had the Disney songbook. And of course it's a decent song--it's (bastardized, yes) Tchaikovsky, for heaven's sake.

tm(and I know it's true, that visions are seldom all they seem)diva