Sorry, I'm new to this posting thing...
Anyway, our au pair is trying to take advantage of us and pushes the envelope.  We have a guide book that is very thorough and rules and we've gone through them and she tells us they are reasonable but she finds ways to get around things.  For instance, she is 19 and thought nothing of lying to a bouncer to get into a bar.  She lets people smoke in our car.  She plans vacations, booked and paid for, before she asks for the day/week off.  Her family is visiting the US for three weeks, booked and paid for, before we were notified.  She is out on the weekends until 3 or 4am which is fine provided our car is returned by midnight.  She "tells" my husband what to do or what she is not going to do when he asks her to do something (like, this morning, it was cold and he asked to make sure our son wore his winter coat - she flatly refused saying he didn't need it).  She has other au pairs and their kids over for playdates without telling us.  She takes the children places without telling us where she is going.  We have had one sit down after another and it seems she understands then something else comes up a week later.  She talks about her home country - which we welcome - but it is always why it is so much better than America.  The blog she keeps is downright disrespectful in certain cases.  Are we wrong to be upset? The thing is that the kids do love her and she is taking fairly good care of them (well recently, I have to leave early for work and my husband realized she wasn't helping either of our kids brush their teeth before leaving for school (they are 5 and 2 so doing it themselves is really silly).  I'm at a loss - what can we do to turn this around?  We are very vocal happy people and we want this to work....