"My perfect Au Pair"

I am sat enjoying the last week of my holiday in my back garden with the sun shining in my face and a cool drink of Ice-tea in my hand.

At one point last year I thought I’d never be able to relax in my own home with the kids around again. I happen to be a working single mum with 3 boys aged 6-9 and unless I get a helping hand in the house, there is no way I can cope with everything.

Last June, I had just let my nanny of 6 years leave since my boys were at that stage all in school and I didn’t need someone to look after them full time anymore. My mum lives very nearby but it just didn’t seem fair to expect her to look after the boys every afternoon until I got home month after month.

So one year ago, I started looking for an au-pair who could help with the boys, around the house and baby-sit the odd night I started placing ads in local papers, on the Internet and tried a couple of agency’s who all claimed that “they had the best au-pairs”. The whole process was very daunting and not to mention exhausting and after having interviewed about 7 various female/male au-pair with very poor English and no experience whatsoever, I was on the verge of breaking down. All this time and effort and no result, so I decided to place the boys with a childminder up the road until I had figured out what to do.

A few weeks after that I had lunch with a college of mine, who started telling me about her wonderful Swedish au-pair, how well she had settled in and how much their children adored her. She told me about an agency called Cupcakes Childcare that she had used and was very pleased with. I called Sara at Cupcakes that night when I got home from work and I swear I will never look elsewhere after that. She was extremely reassuring, pleasant and helpful over the telephone and even offered to meet me in person to discuss my family’s specific needs. After about 1 week she found us Lisa, who has just left after having spent just over 1 year with us. I had my doubts that the agency would be able to replace Lisa with someone just as good but sure enough, two weeks ago when Suzanne showed up I realised that they’d once again managed to spare me the nightmare of having to find an au-pair on my own.

So the bottom line is, thanks to Sara I am sat here in my garden relaxing, enjoying the hot weather without having to worry about my precious little boys. Just thought I’d let you know how lucky I feel and to pay a tribute to Peek-a-boo for being so fabulous.

I highly recommend this agency to any family who is looking for a Scandinavian or other nationality au-pair or nanny.

- Amanda,  Eastbourne.