Hello, Future Host Family!
Nice to meet you!
My name is Maria, I'm 19 years and I would like to be your next AuPair.

I'm from Brazil, born and raised in a city called Campo Grande.
I'm currently in college, I'm an Architecture student and I live with my grandma, my mother's mom, since her house is near the university I go to.

Both my mom and my dad live in the city and we are very close, they both remarried and my relationship with my stepmom and my stepdad is pretty amazing, they treat my brother and I like we are their own kids. Even though I love to have meals with them or go to their houses at least once a week to catch up, due to my busy schedule, working during the day and studying at night,it´s hard to see my family often. My crazy hours, going from home to work, from work to college and from college to home, are also the reason why I got my drivers license as soon as I was 18, I didn't want to depend on anyone to get where I needed. Another reason to get my license was my grandma, she is 76 and retired, so I wanted to be able to drive her to her friends' places, go grocery shopping with her and take her out for coffee. I came out to be a very pacient driver, since I spend many ours a day driving by myself, with the kids I babysit and with my grandma I like to organize myself, so I can leave early and have enough time to arrive at the places with no rush.
My first experience babysitting happened when I was 16, I became an exchange student and I lived with a 4 year old boy and after 3 months living with the host family, the little one and I became very close, so my host parents asked me to babysit him so they could go on date nights. It was such a fun experience that when I returned to Brazil, I was about to graduate in High School, so I started to babysit my parents' friends' kids, as almost a part time job. It went so well that I decided for the nocturnal period in college o I could keep doing it. The number of kids increased over time and, consequentially, the experience, today I can work with any kids, no matter their age, from newborns to 12 years old. Currently, I take care of 4 regular kids and once a month I also work with a group of 7 cousins, as a recreator on barbecue partys.
I believe they should choose me because I’m a very responsible and mature person. I’ve had responsibilities and chores at home since I’m young, I started cooking at the age of 10, so my parents always thought it would be nice to be responsible for a meal once a week, at the age of 12 I started doing my own laundry. Maintaining my room clean and organized was always a must at home. Besides that I have a busy schedule since I remember and that was never something that got in the way of my chores, I used to play volleyball, take English and Theater classes and I would still get my chores at home done, my school activities done and study for tests. I think another advantage I have is that I was an exchange student once, so I alredy have the experience of living abroad. I know how it is to live away from family and friends, learning a new language and meeting a new culture. I went to the US at the age of 16, I had responsibilities at home, like prepare dinner at least once a week, do my laundry, clean and organize my room, take care of my host brother, and I still managed to keep straight As, maintained a healthy relationship with my host family and with my teachers and still made friends,who I still talk with. And to conclude, it might sound a little cliche to say it in my application, even though it's true, but I love kids, I really enjoy being around them, and I have a lot of experience with them since a very young age. Growing up as the youngest cousin, I never had kids around me, by the age of 10 some of my cousins married and had babies, so I was always sticking around. I wanted to help with everything, I thought it was super fun to do the chores, like showering, changing their diapers, nap time, and i also thought that they were really cute. Eventually, when they were old enough, my cousins started to ask me to take care of their kids so they could go on a date or when they had some activity that they couldn’t bring them. And when I traveled to the US I also had kids around, so I would take care of my host brother when my host parents would go on a date, I even took care of our neighbors, brothers who were 3 and 4 years old. I still babysit nowadays and I think that is a big advantage of mine, I have a big idea of how I’m supposed to act with kids, behave around the parents and do a good job.