I'm still into you. (Book 2)

Au Pair

Emily was turning out to be as difficult as we imagined, she screamed all night and slept all day. She threw up her food and spat out her milk, she pulled my hair and slapped my face. She shit her pants just after I changed her and pulled off her clothes just after I dressed her.

I was exhausted, tired, sleepy, moody and I wouldn’t change a single moment of it at all. I loved her more than I ever could have imagined even though she was a little tinker. Domingo was in his element, he cared for her as if he had done it a million times before and whenever I struggled at something he was right by my side to help.

Yet despite how much we loved her we were in way over our heads, we were beginning to realise that we would never be able to juggle both of our demanding jobs and care for Emily all on our own. We had discussed Domingo giving up his job and relying solely on my wage but even though he suggested it I could see the pain in his eyes.

So I dismissed that idea. We discussed reducing hours but there was times of the year Dom couldn’t do that such as examination times and I just couldn’t do it full stop. As a doctor I had to be on call constantly in case a child’s life needed saving and I couldn’t change that. We needed help.

Our mum’s were still trying to convince us to go back to the US but we both refused. I know it would be nice for Emily to be around her family instead of a sitter but it wasn’t going to happen this was our lives and our jobs were an important part of that.

We decided that the best course of action would be to hire a long term sitter for Emily someone who she could be stable with and who would help teach her when Dom and I weren’t around. So I asked around at work and was given the number for a highly recommended agency who put their ‘Au Pair’s’ as they called them through several security checks.

We set up a meeting and were given the choice of three woman and one man we asked if we could meet them individually because credentials weren’t the only important thing to us. We wanted someone who had personality, someone who had discipline but wouldn’t be too strict with Emily and treat her unfairly.

I wanted them to almost be a friend or like family to her but at the same time remember that they were still an employee so that they wouldn’t take the piss out of us. Domingo reminded me that I was asking for a lot but I had heard some bad stories about sitters and I didn’t want anyone near Emily until I trusted them.

Dom and I couldn’t decide out of the candidates who would be best. We both loved James’ personality but we wanted a female in Emily’s life so she didn’t miss out on anything and also as she got older hopefully she would have someone to turn to for girl talk.

I wanted her to be able to trust us with anything she had to say, after all I had seen it all and I know full well what girls go through. Although I may not have experienced it I still wanted her to be able to come to me if she needed too. Having said that I know that she will need a female influence in her life and her female family members are just so far away from her.

It was such a hard decision but in the end I just thought that it would be best for a female to be around Emily and help her with things that she would prefer to keep from her dads. So we chose a lady around our own age, she had her own kids so she was experienced but hers were older now. Her name was Lena and she had a lovely personality and understood completely what we wanted from her.