Babysitters

Before moving to Krakow one of my big concerns was finding a babysitter as soon as we got here since the kids were home with me all summer and I knew I was going to have to be out doing a lot of errands.  We really didn't know how to go about doing this before we moved here and in reality I didn't even have time to think about it before we moved. So once we got here and we were staying at the Sheraton Hotel we asked them for some leads. They gave us the name of two agencies and we used one of them during that first week, so we could go out and pick up the rental car. They charged 60pln/hour - that's €15/hour (or about $18), a lot more than we paid in Dublin - our sitter there was €8/hr, and the older one who cleaned our kitchen was €12. We really didn't have a choice though. After we got settled into our house I asked around more, and Michal the Relocation Guy gave me two names. One of them said she would be in Ireland until September, and the other one responded so we had her over to the house to meet the kids and they really liked her. She is Polish and she was so excited to be around people speaking English because she said she doesn't get to practice it enough. We used her a few times (she cleaned our kitchen too!) and I was all excited to bring her grocery shopping with me one day to help me out, but of course she ended up getting a new job so she would only be available in the evenings (except Saturday night) and the weekends. Figures! We didn't have any other options, one day I was desperate because I had to go to the doctor during the day so I hired the Sheraton agency but I didn't want to get into a habit of doing that. During all of this a woman that one of my Dublin friends introduced me to sent me a list of babysitters - she is German but lives in Warsaw, I am not really sure where she got the list from but the other day I finally got around to texting some of the girls. I ended up interviewing one, she is Polish and doesn't live too far from us (she's studying in Krakow). The kids liked her and she seemed responsible enough. I used her one night to go for a run (BBH is participating in the Krakow Business Run, a charity 20k relay through the city) so I am doing it with them. When I left I asked her to head upstairs to get the kids ready for bed at around 7-7:15, and that Jack was really tired so he would probably be asleep by 8:00. When I got home at 8:30, the kids were still downstairs playing on the computer and coloring. I was so annoyed!! I mean, maybe if they at least were in their PJ's with their teeth brushed I wouldn't have been so mad. I asked Ava after the sitter left if she had even attempted to bring them upstairs and she said 'yes, but I told her I had one more picture to color so we stayed downstairs'. I know Ava has a tendency to try to get away with things with the babysitters so I need someone who isn't going to let Ava walk all over them. The time we used the sitter at the Sheraton the same thing happened, except we got home at 11pm and both kids were still awake, watching TV.  The sitter said she asked them if they were tired and they both said no so she let them stay up...?! Funnily enough both of their names were Madga, so we won't be using anymore sitters named Magda.  I went back to Michal who gave me the name of another agency but I was hesitant to call them since I figured they would be expensive. Finally I called and it turns out the girl she found us is only 20pln/hour ($6), so a bargain but she doesn't have a car so we have to pay for her cab home (which turned out to be over 100 pln ($32) after we took the cab back from town). When she showed up for the interview she asked me where I kept the first aid kit so I was happy. The kids seemed to like her, they were both asleep when we got home, and she even left little notes of when she brushed their teeth and put them to bed so we were happy. She is a student as well and college starts back up on October 1 so I am not sure how available she will be after that, but hopefully between the 2 we will always have a sitter when we need it. Now if I had only found them months ago, life would have been a little bit easier. Oh well!