Dear Au Pair/Nanny/Household help,
We would like to present ourselves to you:
We are a family living in Keerbergen (BELGIUM)-just 20 km from Brussels-seeking a helping hand to help care for our 3 children aged 4 years (Florian), 2 years old (Julian) and a newborn (Fabian). I ‘m a marketing manager and my husband Kurt works for the Belgian Post. All children go to school/Kindergarten. We live in a modern house with garden and swimming pool (under construction, but will be ready for the summer;-) in a lovely green area just 500 meters from the bus stop and shopping facilities. Cleaner employed.
We have constructed our house in such a way that you have a separate studio with private bathroom & kitchen (35m2). We will put a car at your service, so a driving license is convenient.
As we have long and irregular working hours, with sometimes foreign travel included, we need you to be the “safe harbour” for Florian, Julian & Fabian when we are not at home. This means: in the morning, waking up, clothing, breakfast, and bringing the boys to school/kindergarten. In the evening or on Wednesday afternoon: picking them up from school/kindergarten, playing, bathing, dinner. Once we are at home, you will be free as we will take care of the kids ourselves. Same holds for the weekends, where you will be free. We think that this will be +/- 20H week.
Our kids love all the things that boys typically like: cars, ball playing, play outdoor, coloring, reading. Besides that they really like eating and helping to cook (cakes, but also normal food…). We hope that you like swimming and that you could go on swimming class with Florian (and also swim in our swimming pool that should be fully operational for next summer). We are actually looking a bit for a younger version of the “ideal grandmother” that gets delighted by creating a warm, cosy atmosphere at home, where you smell the apple pie if you enter the house;-), and where our kids get all the love and attention they need during their plays.
We have a cleaning lady at home, but if you want to take on some additional domestic tasks such as cleaning, ironing or cooking, that is something we can discuss about. Your package will vary based on the tasks we will determine together.
What we value in our life is integrity, honesty, personal development, tolerance, respect & passion for nature, books, nice food. This means that we like to have transparent communication about what we expect from you (and what you can expect from us;). We have lived ourselves in different countries in Europe & South America, so we know how important it is for you to feel at home in our family & country, and how important it is to be open minded about how different you can look at things.
We are a Flemish speaking family, but our sons have been in a French speaking Kindergarten, and in the ideal way, you would speak French or English yourself with our kids so they can grow up bilingual. Languages & books are central in our life as I have studied Roman Languages myself and we have an impressive private library at your disposal.
And as you will discover, most Belgians love nice food, that’s also why our country is well known for a lot of fine foods such as chocolates, shrimps, French fries (yes, they are a Belgian invention;-). We like to spend time in the kitchen to invite family friends (in the weekends), and if you have the same passion for cooking, that would really be an attractive proposal for our family where everybody likes to eat (Florian & Julian are always hungry…and love olives…and chocolate off course…) and my husband is a very good cook (but only has time over the weekend to express his culinary skills…)
In terms of courses you can follow, Belgium has a good reputation for shools/universities, and we have 3 cities within 20 km where you can have access to them: Brussels, Louvain & Mechelen. Off course we would be really delighted if you share some of our interests and are looking for language courses or cooking classes;-)
Our house is located on the countryside in a very green village, where outdoors sports can easily be exercised (hiking, biking, skeelering, horse-riding, golf…), and where some nature reserves are present. If you are passionate nature, our village is a nice place to live.
If you have more questions, please feel free, to come back to us, we will be happy to answer them.
Looking forward to hear from you!
Tine, Kurt and the 3 little ones.