Week one: Nappies, Terrible-Twos and Thomas the Tank Engine.

HELLO!

Here I am, back by popular demand! (Yes, my mother, who fears that spending all my days chasing children around the garden and collapsing on the sofa at 8pm to watch Australian X factor will turn my brain into mush, and should therefore blog in order to prevent such horrors)

Week one into my crazy adventure's as an au-pair in Melbourne, and I am utterly convinced that this is possibly the best decision ever. I get to spend every day playing tag, eating Vegemite sandwhiches (crusts off, of course) and playing on the swings in the park. It certainly beats moving in with the parents struggling to get a job in Tesco's! My 'host family' as the au-pairing world call them, are absolutely wonderful. They are full of life, love and laughter and after just five days, I feel utterly at home. Except for the fact that I am no longer the youngest, and I have to act with a certain level of responsibility (shudder) and maturity (shudder!) 

Host-Mum (HM, from here on) and Host-Dad (HD) are fantastic people, who have made me feel so welcome and the kids are full of energy and life, sometimes with a little too much energy for my liking! I blame it on jet-lag, but I think the transition from spending everyday slogging my guts out in the library to running around in the garden playing helicopters is a little bit of a shock to the system. On the plus side, running around all day after them is burning billions and billions of calories. Theoretically, I should be a size zero when I return to mother England. 

This is possibly the first time I have had the opportunity to sit down and contemplate my first week in Australia. Life as an au-pair for three children under the age of six is full on! However, the family have gone to Noosa, Queensland for two weeks and I am free to explore what Melbourne, and the rest of Australia has to offer. The house feels eerily quiet without Justine Clarke playing in the background (if you have young children, you will know who I am talking about!) and without one, two or all three of the little munchkins wanting a piggyback/Vegemite sandwich/nappy changing. Yes, I have, for the first time in my life, changed a very smelly nappy. I don't know what all the fuss is about. I had geared myself up for this horrible explosion of poo everywhere, baby screaming her head off, me up to my arms in Sudocream, antibacterial gel and talcum powder. It was fine! How is it that men make such a fuss over changing a nappy? Maybe I have been very lucky with this child, but now my biggest fear has been overcome, I feel a fresh wave of relief flowing over me. Just don't give me a new born. Green poo is just a step too far. 

So now I have the house free, I am suddenly wandering what to do with my time. There are no children to entertain, no washing up to be done and little laundry to do. I guess I'd better go sit in the glorious sunshine and read Bill Bryson's 'Down Under' and enjoy the quiet, because who know's how long it will be until I get such tranquility again when the family return from Noosa! 

xxxxxxxx