Jana & George. Photo by Jana.

As it happened, when Jana arrived, I was away on business and it was my husband and our daughter Clara that collected her from the airport. Jana’s knowledge of English was quite basic at the time and the meeting at the airport and consequent journey to our home was apparently somewhat subdued. My husband does not speak Czech, Clara has a few words and I guess Jana was overwhelmed and a little shy. Luckily my mother was still with us and once they arrived home, she was able to ‘take over’ and settle Jana in. It was great that they had a few ‘overlapping’ days and my mum was able to explain to her in Czech all about George, his daily routine, about Clara, the village, our house etc. When I arrived back from the business trip a couple of days later, my mum and Jana were getting on like a house on fire.

Jana was almost twenty two and even though she did not have too much experience with small children, she got on really well with George right from the start. She used to mind him 4 days a week while we were both at work, as well as minding Clara in the afternoon when she came back from school.  She was very patient with George who was just starting to walk on his own and that requires a lot of hand-holding, catching, bending (and she is very tall!). She was fair but firm and she also had fun with him. And that’s the advise we have given all our au pairs ever since - our ‘3 Fs rule’ - Fair, Firm & Fun. Jana was truly great with him; I remember that George was very fond of his soother and insisted on having it while we, the parents, were around. But for Jana, he would listen to her and hand over when she asked him for it and do without it (he used to even fall asleep without it!). So slowly but surely we managed to get rid of it and Jana had to encourage George as much as us (because it was sometimes easier to give in  for peace sake - I agree with you, not the best parenting example!). When he was 18 months old, we put it in an envelope with his new cousin’s name on it and we told him that he should post it to the new baby. He somehow understood that it meant the end and that was the end of the ‘doodee’.

Jana helped us with a bit of housework, just general tidy up as you go along during the day. She also helped me sometimes with preparing the dinner in the evening. She had the majority of evenings free, all weekends free and extra day during the week. Au pair duties should not take more than 35 hours a week and we always try not to exceed this.

The one disadvantage was Jana’s level of English as it was rather limited at the start. This made it hard for her to communicate effectively with the Irish-half of my family and therefore it took a little while to build up rapport and understanding. The fact that she and I spoke Czech of course did not help her in learning English! On the other hand there was no room for misunderstanding and misinterpretation when it came to explaining things about the children, the routine, the country etc. And I was happy that Clara and George were exposed to my mother language.

Jana has a lovely personality and she made an effort to meet new people, improve her English skills, and explore Ireland in her free time. She has stayed with us for one year, which was fantastic as it provided stability and consistency  in George’s second year of life and of course in our life too. We are still in touch and all the lovely photos attached on the posts of my blog so far were taken by her while she lived with us. If you read this blog, Jana, thank you for the great time you have given our family!

When our second child was born in April 2005, I was well used to the ‘Irish’ way of having children and raising children. It certainly did not mean 3-4 years of maternity leave! I knew right from the start of the pregnancy that in order to keep my job (which I really enjoyed) I have to return back to work six months after the birth. I have truly enjoyed the first six months of our son’s life with him at home.

We were extremely lucky then to have my mother to move over from the Czech Republic for 6 months to help us to raise George till he was one year old. We are really grateful to my mum for deciding to take an early retirement and coming over to help us and to spend time with her grandchildren. It gave us great comfort to know that the first year of our son’s childhood was spent within a very close family circle. The question was: “What to do next?”

As both of us work full time, it was hard to decide what kind of child care to choose next as the one thing we knew for sure was that we did not want George to go to a crèche for 9 hours a day 4-5 days a week. We wanted George to get a lot of one to one attention in a familiar setting till he was at least two years old and despite how well a crèche is run, the opportunities for one to one interaction are limited. The price of full time care in a crèche and also having to secure minder for our then seven year old daughter was also a big factor.

We have looked at various options. Finding one of the local childminders that look after children in their homes was one option. These childminders are usually women with their own young or teenage children or older ladies that have raised their family and now want some extra income or/and something to do and maybe to have company too! The problem with this was that we did not know anyone suitable and it was also not the cheapest option (which is fair because these people deserve to be paid appropriately for the responsible and sometimes stressful job). And it was also not going to help us with one more ‘problem’ we had and that was that occasionally I have to travel abroad on business and my husband works a few evenings a week. We needed someone reliable who was able to stay in our home some evenings. The most favourable choice was to get a ‘live-in’ help and hosting an au pair fitted this requirement quite well. As I have been an au pair myself, I knew what being an au pair involves and now I was about to discover what it is like to be at the other side.

A friend of my sister was interested in learning English and spending a year abroad and she liked children too and that’s how we got our first au pair Jana.