I have the most amazing woman (Ivonne, 24yrs from Bogota, Colombia) caring for my 3 young children. We decided to venture into the au pair world with AuPairCare when I was expecting a 3rd baby and my twins were both just over 1 year old! We found it difficult to wrap our heads around how we'd accomplish the following:
A) Find a willing soul to care for 3 very small kids
B) Find that aforementioned willing soul to be qualified and experienced
C) Have that amazing saint also be someone that we "clicked" with.
Our experience has been nothing short of awesome with AuPairCare! We have someone who respects our rules, encourages our children to learn and develop, is extremely tidy, is respectful of our home, is polite, is extremely smart, is funny and who genuinely loves our children as family. There are so many amazing things we love about having an au pair, but I will say that our favorite aspect so far has been the cultural experience and exposing my young children to another language.
When Ivonne arrived, my twins were 16 months old (newborn was 6 weeks) and the toddlers were just beginning to talk. Their vocabulary has been exploding over the last few months and they know almost as many words in Spanish as in English. It is incredible! I studied Spanish in college- I consider myself to be "OK" at understanding and speaking the language, so this has been great because the children hear Ivonne and I converse in Spanish. My husband however doesn't know, or understand very much Spanish. Here's where the fun has been!
Having two 2-year olds, who are non-stop talkers, is quite humorous! Then, throw in another language and it's just hilarious! The kids (who are pretty easy to understand in most cases) occasionally do tell us something that leaves us both scratching our heads. Perfect Example: The other night, kids are eating dinner and our daughter asked for "watermelon" which sounded more like "wailermelyon.” For some reason, since it came out of the blue....we could not figure out what she wanted. It was a guessing game which then turned into a game of "this or that" as we pulled items out of the refrigerator. She kept repeating the word until she thought maybe the Spanish word would make the light bulb go on and she said "No Daddy, I want Patilla." Clear as day!
Thankfully, our AuPairCare au pair, Ivonne, quickly jumped in and translated for us. It just lights up my life to hear our children speak words in another language. There are numerous studies about the advantages of introducing a child to another language at a very early age, and having an au pair has made this possible for us! Not only is AuPairCare amazing because it allows us to have an extra "family" member to take care of our children and it's affordable, but it's giving our children something we couldn't give them- the exposure to another language which is enhancing our children's intellectual development.
We could not be happier!
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