June was an amazing month. I’ve gotten quite attached to the kids and finally feel comfortable with them. At first, I had trouble with Frederik mainly because of the language barrier.
Conversation with his mom four months ago:
Mom: Oh, I forgot to tell you. Frederik only speaks Dutch and German. But don’t worry, Eleonore is too young to speak at all.
How do you take care of a kid when you don’t speak the same language? I’ve been working on figuring that out.
It’s pretty cool how much Dutch I can understand with the help of context clues and my knowledge of English. For example, ladder in Dutch is ladder. Many words are similar enough to where I infer they mean the same thing.
When the parents are home, I speak to the kids in English. However, on Mondays and Tuesdays when I have them home alone, I talk to Frederik in my rudimentary Dutch. I have started having “conversations” with him. He typically speaks in Dutch (and sometimes in German) and I speak in Dutmanglish (Dutch-German-English).
Thank goodness silliness and laughing are universal. We always manage to have fun even if we don’t exactly understand each other.
Eleonore has been a calmer and happier baby. She loves to try to eat her fists or anything else she can get her hands on (ha!) She’s usually flailing her arms or kicking her legs. The other day, she wiggled around her parents bed and fell onto the floor. (Not that it matters, but it wasn’t my fault! The dad was in charge of her at that time).
She is such a long baby. I think it’s funny that we describe babies as long and not tall. It makes sense because they can’t stand yet but if you were to describe an adult as long… anyway…
I love my job and I can’t believe how lucky I am. I get to play with cute kids and travel in my free time. I live in Europe for free and only pay for my travel expenses. Since au pairs in Den Haag legally have to get a stipend of €350 a month, I have yet to spend any of my own money.
I want to post pictures of the kiddos but out of respect for the parents and the kids, I need the post or blog to be password protected. Email or message me if you want the password. I’m off to pick up the kids and then I’m going rowing in the sea.
