When my children were little, I decided to hire an au pair for one year. My youngest was one, the next was two, and the eldest was three and a half. The household was a bit nutty and my husband was traveling a lot teaching homeopathy! I felt that with another pair of hands around, my kids would get more attention and care, and I would be able to enjoy motherhood a bit more.

When our 20-year-old Austrian gal arrived, we were happy to welcome her into our family. That very first day we gathered the troops and headed to the local playground. Up and down slides, pushing kids on the swings, drawing with sticks in the sandbox - we were having a fun afternoon! My three-year-old daughter loved the zip glide she had recently mastered grasping the small handle with both hands, holding on tightly with her legs dangling, and then zipping along a structure about four feet off the ground. With a bit of a push, off she'd go, screaming "wheeeee," as she sped along the track.

My two-year-old son was entranced. He was not yet strong enough to hold on all the way across, but he sure wanted to grip that little handle too and have one of us grab him around the middle and run with him along the length of the glide. The au pair must not have noticed that I'd been holding onto him as we zipped along; she put him up on the glide and gave him one good shove. I saw him holding on just as long as those little fingers could grasp. To my horror, as he lost his grip, that chubby toddler went flailing and cascading to the ground into a broken heap. He starting wailing-more than usual for him-and holding the bottom of his leg yelling, "Owie!"

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