Au Pair: Maria Ramirez from Mexico
Host Family: Wood family in Michigan
With both my husband and I active duty Coast Guard, we are not your standard family. During the week, Tim lives five hours across state and comes home on weekends. The nearest relatives we have are 14 hours away. When we became pregnant with a second child, the thought of an au pair with our crazy lives was at first a tough pill to swallow. Tim reluctantly signed on. We started the process hoping for the best. Going through the first few applicants made us nervous. We read Maria's resume (Lola as we call her) and she was a strong contender. We skyped for her interview. After that first meeting I knew she was the one and we had no reason to look any further.
She has quickly grown to be a member of the family. Being a part time single parent, honestly do not know what I would do without her in our lives. She is a loving individual that truly cares about doing the best job possible. She is devoted to my children unlike any other caregivers I had had in the past. She exudes this level of excitement and anticipation when she plays with my daughter and still balances her time to tend to the ever growing needs of a baby. Josie begs me to play with her at night when Lola is officially "off the clock" and Oliver lights up like a Christmas tree when he sees her when she relieves me in the morning. Both of my dogs have taken quite a liking to her as well and seek out her neck scratches.
The ease of mind that I get from having Lola care for my two children in indescribable. In my already stressful career in the military, the stress of taking care of two children by myself is minimized with her in our family.
Lola is beyond exceptional. In less than 3 months, she's absolutely raised the bar so high that I debate on asking her if she will stay another year. And I worry that if she will say no because she would like to get back to the life she left behind. If that is the case, the next au pair will have extra large shoes to fill.
As Josie has said "We love our Lola!"
She has quickly grown to be a member of the family. Being a part time single parent, honestly do not know what I would do without her in our lives. She is a loving individual that truly cares about doing the best job possible. She is devoted to my children unlike any other caregivers I had had in the past. She exudes this level of excitement and anticipation when she plays with my daughter and still balances her time to tend to the ever growing needs of a baby. Josie begs me to play with her at night when Lola is officially "off the clock" and Oliver lights up like a Christmas tree when he sees her when she relieves me in the morning. Both of my dogs have taken quite a liking to her as well and seek out her neck scratches.
The ease of mind that I get from having Lola care for my two children in indescribable. In my already stressful career in the military, the stress of taking care of two children by myself is minimized with her in our family.
Lola is beyond exceptional. In less than 3 months, she's absolutely raised the bar so high that I debate on asking her if she will stay another year. And I worry that if she will say no because she would like to get back to the life she left behind. If that is the case, the next au pair will have extra large shoes to fill.
As Josie has said "We love our Lola!"
