More errors than comedy

First off, let's just acknowledge that the Nablopomo pledge has already been broken. I am going to choose to view this as taking the pressure off, rather than as some kind of highest order character failing.

Now that that's out of the way...

A few more fun things. As I wrote the other day, our lovely au pair decided a week or two ago that au pair work is really not for her; she'd rather be on a beach in the Dominican Republic. (If there are any mothers of two year olds out there who wouldn't rather be on a beach on the Dominican Republic, please let me know. I'd like some of whatever you're taking. In other words, her decision is entirely sane and understandable, if a bit solipsistic and inconveniently after-the-fact.)

I spent the next weekend emailing prospective au pairs. One, a Danish girl, was really interested, couldn't wait to talk to me, but was in transition leaving her former family. She'd call me, she really would. She disappeared for two days. No one else responded to my emails. Finally, the Dane emailed me proposing a phone interview the next day. We set a time. Two hours later, she emailed again to say sorry, no thanks, she'd taken another au pair job with a different family. Ok....

In relatively short order, I found and interviewed a Czech girl who was already in the States, au pair-ing for another family, but unhappy in her situation and wanting to move. We had a nice conversation, she seemed smart and good with kids and cheerful and entirely committed to being an au pair--this last was important to me, given the experience with B. The H and I discussed it, agreed to give it another shot, and I told her we wanted her to come here. In short order, she agreed. After much buck-passing, travel arranging began. This all happened on Hallowe'en and the day after. Then, yesterday afternoon, I received a terse email from the Czech--she'd changed her mind. She was going home to her parents. Oh, so when I asked her, repeatedly, if she really wanted to do this, and she said, repeatedly, yes, yes yes--that must have just been a passing feeling. I see. Ok.

At what point in life do people actually start to consider commitments they've made to others? My dear friend, who came from north of Boston for the night yesterday (along with her delightful daughter) and I agreed that the magic age of responsibility might be 27. I think that's about when it kicked in for me.

If I believed in destiny, which I don't think I do, I might say that I am, clearly, not meant to have an au pair. The H keeps telling me that now that he's going to be on strike, he'll have more time to help me with running our lives. Stay tuned...