Au Pair of the Year - One of the finalists

When we made the decision to host an au pair a year ago, it was at the culmination of a difficult journey.  Our family consisted of a three year old with significant health problems who had already undergone open heart surgery before taking her first steps, a father who travels every week for work and is active in the Massachusetts National Guard with the responsibilities that come with 20 years in the Army, a very pregnant mother, and a baby who would be induced pre-term due to health conditions. This is the story of how one au pair made a huge difference in the lives of a regular family.

Our au pair, Nina Heidenescher, arrived 11 months ago, just two weeks after my second child, Cara, was born. At first I was apprehensive about having a stranger live with us, but Nina quickly became part of our family. She took to caring for a newborn like she was a natural, and was extremely flexible with us about her hours, even doing some overnight shifts (never more than 10 hours in a row, of course!). She also quickly formed a bond with our three year-old, Abby. Nina’s never-ending supply of patience, for both adults and children, made a huge difference. She greeted Abby with warmth and tenderness, enforcing boundaries but also gaining trust, and treated both Abby and Cara with love from day one.

In addition to her warmth, Nina is also incredibly creative and resourceful. She comes up with special outings to take the girls on, helps Abby make “art” for Cara, and teaches them German songs and stories (Nina has done a great job of teaching Abby German, to the point where Abby will select German books for her bedtime stories and then look at me forlornly when she realizes I can’t read them!). Nina is able to maintain this loving relationship with my girls while also being fully viewed as an adult authority figure. If Nina says a behavior means a time out, Abby knows this is the same as if it was coming from Mommy or Daddy. I think there are many au pairs who can be fun and loving, and many who can be firm and in control, but there are very few who can do both at once. Nina is unique in that not only does she do both, but she helps our girls become better people all the while.

An example that I believe demonstrates all of Nina’s best qualities is as follows: While Nina was here, Cara started receiving Early Intervention services from the state because of some developmental delays. Complex exercises had to be performed multiple times per day. Nina sat with the PT and I to learn what to do, and went through the exercises with Cara on a daily basis, encouraging her with smiles and baby talk. Nina even made a game of it to involve Abby, with it being the important big sister’s job to demonstrate rolling over and the other movements Cara was working on. Nina was able to help with child development, no easy task with a cranky baby, while creatively involving the older sibling and making sure both girls felt loved and cared for all the while.

We feel incredibly lucky to have Nina – she is caring, wise, flexible, loving, creative, and of course extremely competent. Nina is our au pair but she is also a part of our family. While these could be taken as mere words, let me conclude by providing irrefutable evidence of how much we love and value Nina: a month ago, when we had to select godparents for baby Cara, we asked Nina to be her godmother. There is no one that we trust more.

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