Most of us teach our kids to say please and thank you from a very early age. It's polite. It's good manners. It helps them pass the preschool interview, and it gets us invited back to friends' houses. Gratitude shows that you value the people in your life and the effort that they make to be kind and generous toward you.

A few years ago, TED Talks posted a Laura Trice talk on saying thank you and giving praise to people who need to hear it, most especially our families. She found it interesting that we tend to be liberal with saying thank you to grocery clerks and office staff, but withhold gratitude and compliments from our family members and close friends. This can be a big communication snag in cross-cultural relationships, since newcomers to this country often have different customs when it comes to expressing gratitude.  

Trice says if it's genuine, it's always a good time to say it, and a simple thank you can:

- Strengthen a friendship

- Repair a relationship

- Let a person know they mean a lot to you.

Americans are casually grateful. We say thanks, but usually we're not very specific or deliberate about it. We're also a little inhibited when it comes to telling people that we're grateful for them and what they do. 

I have a hard time thanking my kids for doing their chores because I think they should just quit complaining and do them. But, when they put in a good effort with a good attitude, of course I'm going to thank them... and silently hope it's the beginning of an upward trend.

So... do you have someone in your life you need to thank? Maybe an au pair or a spouse or a friend? Don't wait. It's easy, and they might really need to hear it from you.

"But a stranger? In your house, with your kids? You don't know them. Aren't you worried?" I get this a lot. And not just because we've hosted au pairs, but since my kids are all in school now, we host people who want to learn English, cyclists from Australia who want to train in the CA weather and terrain, and sometimes just friends of friends who need a place to stay for a few weeks. Our guests are all referred by friends. It's evenly split between men and women, and all but one have been international.

I'm rarely asked if our guests are nervous about staying with us, as if I'm the only one taking a risk. When I think of what it would be like to meet my family and get stuck living with us for months at a time, I'm surprised that some of our guests are as gracious and patient as they are. My three kids are loud. Sometimes they fight, talk back, complain about homework, and sneak onto the computer. Our schedule is hectic, the house definitely looks lived-in, and usually, there is something crazy going on, like a hose hooked up to the zip line or a soccer game on the trampoline. 

But the truth is that each guest who walks into our house is taking a risk too. Are we a safe place for them? Will we overlook the social foibles that are inevitably lost in translation? How well will we cope with the full-impact proximity of six or seven people living under one roof?

Au pairs are a terrific gateway guest because they are qualified, trained, and you can select one that is a perfect match for the age and stage of your family. But be careful. Guests are habit-forming. You might get so accustomed to the community, the extra spark in your family dynamic, the lessons you all learn from an outsider's perspective, that the worst part is not the risk, it's saying good-bye.

And then you'll wonder who's coming next, what you can bring to each other, and when you can take that trip to France, Japan, or Italy to catch up with the foreign family members who have gone back home.

With all the access we have today to cells phones and email, you would think it would be easy to stay in touch and connected with my au pair.  We use our Daily Diary to stay on top of kid schedules and activities, but I find it a bit harder to make sure my au pair knows when important family events are happening.   Luckily, our family uses Google Calendar to keep our lives organized.

My husband found this tool about 5 years ago and we joke often that it gave us less to argue about.  At our house, Google Calendar is law, so if you forgot to put it in, you deal with the fallout – finding a sitter, taking the time from work, etc.  With the addition of Mia to our family, we knew we had to bring her in on the calendar.  

When she arrived, we ‘invited’ her to the calendar and assigned her a color.  Next we asked her to put in her important events – family birthdays, Brazilian holidays, au pair events and other things she wanted to do.  This way, we could be connected to her and know what was going on in her life, and for her family at home.  We then started scheduling her work on Google Calendar.  We found it easy to ‘see’ where we needed her, and could try to schedule around things she had going on if possible.  Once Mia’s schedule is complete for the next week, I ask her to take a look to make sure I’ve counted hours up correctly, and then she can print the calendar or view it on her smartphone.

I’m happy to report that our system so far has been a success.  Mia put into the schedule her last au pair event about 2 weeks in advance.  Though I had been told the date, I had forgotten and would have scheduled her to work if I had not seen it in the calendar. Crisis averted!

Try it out for yourself and share with me how it worked for your family.

Marlene Cox wrote that parents are often so busy with the rearing of children, that they miss the glory of parenthood, just as the grandeur of the trees is lost when raking leaves.  

There are so many obligations that parents shoulder with kids. We have so many things we feel we HAVE to do, plan, organize, and manage, that we forget to be knocked over by the wonder of it all. We don't have time because our minds are always on what's next, what we failed to do an hour ago, etc. Our kids have time though ... something they remind us every day when we're trying to get them to move because we're already fifteen minutes late.  

But as March rolls into April, the weather warms, and the first evidence of spring is visible, in the spirit of wonder, I thought I'd recount a few of the magic moments I'm glad I didn't miss.

1.  The first time my kids touched snow. How surprised they were at the cold and how delighted they were that they could slide on it, play with it, mold it, and throw it.

2.  How the wind rustling tree leaves made my four-month-old son laugh.

3.  Counting toenails on a newborn. They are so small, it's hard to believe they are real.

4.  How they all shoveled sand into their own mouths. Yuck.

5.  My three-year-old son uprooting an entire geranium at the park because he wanted to bring me flowers.

6.  The silly songs they make up and sing to themselves when they're playing alone.

7.  Nothing is more magical than watching your newborn sleep. I still envy their contented abandon (but not the waking every two hours!).

What about you? What little moments do you tuck away as favorite memories? What has caught you by surprise? If you're an au pair, what are your favorite moments with your host children?