Au Pair Lessons: Be the Good, Better, Best Organized

I pride myself on being a pretty organized person. Depending on how I’m feeling, I even throw in some colour coding for good measure.  However, over the last six months, I have stepped it up a notch. Or five.

Love Me, Love My Camera

I never realized you could miss a habit. Maybe it’s more of an acceptance. Acceptance sounds like it fits better, really. My family accepting that my camera wasn’t just going to stay in my bag, accepting that I wanted to take pictures of things they thought were ‘weird’, accepting that I would possibly get up close and possibly personal for a photograph. Acceptance of the fact that I really loved taking photographs and that they were going to be my subjects.

But I do. It’s been added, more to the top than just to the list, as one of the things that I miss about home. Also on that list is:

• homemade soup that does not get pureed
• brown bread
• the usual suspects of family
• mushroom soup
• picking up a fashion magazine to peruse and not having my brain start overworking because my French isn’t at that level yet
• watching TV with my sister (even though she falls asleep. Every time.).

I’ve realized that most of the things I miss right now are food, which should really just be a testimonial to my mother’s cooking, really.

Though, there are also things that make me feel good here, too. Things like:

• the fact that the other night, the oldest kid put his dishes away and folded his napkin – without me having to ask him
• like how the middle child does his homework without any complaints
• practicing piano without having a fight about it
• ditto with helping to set the table

I’m not going to think that it’s going to last long, because inevitably someone will be playing X-box and nope, they don’t want to set the table, but it’s there. It’s something I’ve helped with, something that I’ve worked on and am seeing the rewards for. That, little by little, they’re accepting me.

Next step is accepting the camera.

Things I’m Loving:

+ This photo – (Because wide shots make me happy.)

+ This interesting interactive – (Migration and change interest me.)

+ A diagram of a photographer’s brain – (Laughing is good.)

+ A new wine for the Clasico on Sunday – (Most people drink beer, me? I keep it classy.)