Quick pause for a milestone: this is issue No. 0010. Ten essays. Sixty pics. Double digits, baby. I can't overstate how much fun I'm having here, and not just the writing. I sign in to work on my own post and lose an hour to all of yours, in the best way. Fourteen open tabs, zero regrets.
If you're one of the writers I've been reading: hi, you're the reason this is fun. And if we don't know each other yet but clearly should?
Comment below. I'll come clicking.
Read on to reveal:
My photo book system that starts before my au pair even arrives
What hosting an au pair is actually like, a POV from the last morning of our second year
A mouse in a party hat. You’ll see.
The 5 AM I Didn’t Know I Needed
I don't do 5 AM. I know, I know: my literal first issue was called I Woke Up at 5 AM and Didn't Hate It. For the record, that ritual lasted exactly five mornings, which longtime readers will recognize as extremely on brand. As a general rule, if the sky is still doing its overnight thing, I am doing mine, which is sleeping.
But last night, our au pair, Emi, on the eve of her very last day in Sag Harbor, came to me with an idea. She wanted to see her last Hamptons day begin, from the sand. I said yes before I could talk myself out of it.
Sagg Main Beach, Sagaponack
The alarm went off at five. The light was already blooming, making leaf shadows on the lowest few inches of wall in the hall. Canada’s smoke had been drifting through all week, but the air had cleared just enough to make the outdoors feel safe again, like the day was giving us permission.
We drove to the beach with my son, Beau, my early riser, who has apparently been living his best life at this hour for years without telling me.
One other car in the lot. That was it. Just us, a stranger’s headlights, and the dunes. Beau trotted ahead. We found a horseshoe crab, and drew some shapes in the sand. We marveled at the crazy beauty of this place, which she was seeing for the last time. Neither of us said that part out loud.
I never would have done this field trip on my own. It took someone else’s ritual, her last-day-in-this-place insistence, to pull me into a version of the morning I didn’t know I was missing.
Or maybe a version I’d met once before. This newsletter was born at 5 AM, ten issues ago, in a pitch-dark December kitchen. It took Emi to bring me back for issue ten.
Puff. Forward.
I build my whole life around small, deliberate markers of time. But I think I forget sometimes that discomfort is often the price of admission. Getting up before the sun, driving to a beach in the dark, doing something slightly inconvenient for no reason except that it mattered to someone I love? Worth it.
After the sunrise, the departure got real. She gave back her keys, pink pom-pom still attached from her arrival a year ago.
An au pair is a young person, around 19, from another country, who spends their gap year living with your family and caring for your kids in exchange for an American cultural experience. They get to hang with a cool American fam; we get way more than a babysitter; we get a third trusted adult in the house.
We’ve now hosted two au pairs, and I would do it forever. It really is a cultural exchange; incoming au pairs are prepped to expect that Americans will be ridiculously friendly, and to “brace yourself, Americans will hug you a lot.” (Hahahaha) GUILTY.
And we adopted things from Austria, where Emi is from, too. We learned about soccer just in time for the World Cup, and my baby now goes to sleep to the sound of a German lullaby. My big kids can count to ten in German. And together, across borders, we all irrationally love Diet Coke.
When you agree to host an au pair, you accidentally sign up for a love with an expiration date printed on it from day one. And yes, it’s grief with a known date, but that looming departure day is also the gift, because it makes you pay attention all year.
The Books
Since Emi spent a year of her life with us, her send-off should be an artifact, not just a party. As it turned out, we made surprise photo books for each other! She made hers by hand, old-school photo slot style. I love it.
And at the end of her book, she had one more surprise: a time capsule, meant to be opened in ten years. The shows, the songs, the games each kid loves right now, logged at ages 8, 6, and 1.75. I gasped, obviously. I make memory artifacts for a living, and I’m delighted to say that the nineteen-year-old out-memory-made me.
How I Make the Au Pair Photo Book
My photo book is from a favorite of mine, Blurb. Blurb.com makes the easiest book if you have to juggle a lot of iPhone photos, because it plays nicely with Lightroom (which will sort by date or location!).
I start the iPhone album that will become the au pair book before they even arrive! I screenshot the acceptance message, and I screenshot our first FaceTime.
When thinking about making the future book, I recommend choosing remnant-y candids over posed shots: the random, badly lit breakfast, the frame where something funny had just happened. If it’ll still make you smile in ten years, it’s in.
Of course I have a zillion beautiful photos from my big camera, but the book is for the ones that pass my Gasp Test. This is the Gasp Test applied to a full year of pics.
The Party
We also threw her a party! Inside jokes required. I pasted a party hat onto a photo of the mouse that lived in a rental house we shared this year, a mouse we shrieked about together, memorably. Ha!
The kids contributed too. There’s nothing better than a handmade card from the kid who loves you.
And the inscription. We’ll miss you, Emi!
The Kids: Navigating the After
The conversations. We told the kids that we’d always have Emi with us, available on FaceTime any time, and in the memories we have of her. Beau asked if he could go with her. He said he’d miss us, but that we could always call him on the phone.
Keeping her present. Our group photo of the six of us is displayed in the den, a room we use every day. When her name comes up, we stop and wonder out loud what she’s doing right now, and whether she’ll have dessert tonight. (She doesn’t like ice cream. An unfathomable position in this family! But if not ice cream, I wonder what she IS having?)
Letting it be sad. When Emi’s car pulled in (with someone else behind the wheel) the baby cried out, “Emi, Emi!” and I made myself not fix it. We stood in the driveway and let it be sad. She was easily distracted that time, but the next time might sting more. That is okay. I hope I have the wherewithal to explain that bad and sad feelings don’t last forever, and that loving someone doesn’t stop when their shadow is no longer in the doorway.
For the mom wondering about hosting
If you’re curious about the unglamorous logistics (agencies, matching, what it costs, what the contract actually says), ask me in the comments. If enough of you do, I’ll write the whole guide.
The Remnant
A letter came in the mail a few days too late, from a friend in her hometown. I do love making a care package, and I’ll get started on that tomorrow. I bought this for you with my eyes, except this time I'm actually mailing it.
She left her Birkenstocks.
How do you mark the big goodbyes at your house? And host moms: what do you want to know? Tell me in the comments.
Since you made it this far: heart the heart if you loved this post! Or, send it to a friend.
Squeeze your people!
hugs!!
Ana
I love you guys soo much !! Such a beautiful post, I truly feel honoured!! (Btw. I am having chocolate dipped fruits for dessert today) :)
Beautiful post! Great ideas for making important books like this one. So maybe Beau should do a book about what he does at 5:30am?