Life without a Sitter

When my babysitter told me that she won’t be taking care of Sze Juin anymore last month, I was devastated. But I was lucky because I have my MIL as backup. Just that I’m not sure how she would cope with 2, instead of 1 now. She’s been having difficulty in getting up and walking about most of the time, so how could she chase around my two naughty little rascals?

Another alternative would be to send Sze Yi to full day. To which she protested vehemently. She has promised to be good, to help Amah take care of Mei Mei, and to listen to Amah. If not, I threatened her that I have no choice, but to send her to full day. MIL was also persistent in saying that she could cope. No maid needed. She also voiced her desire to have both of the kids at home, compared to the current arrangement where the sisters’ time spent together would be limited to only night time’s bonding. All she said was, “they’ll get used to it.” If it didn’t work out, we can send Sze Yi to full day the following month. It’s really risky. I was tempted to ring up Sze Yi’s school’s principal and gave her a heads-up notice. But I didn’t. Still procrastinating…

In the meantime, I tried to persuade the babysitter to continue on. I’ll give her 1 month holiday to do whatever she wanted to do (well, her reasons was she wanted time off to do a lot of things), and then to come back in August. I don’t mind raising her pay. She told me, she’ll think about it. But if my MIL can handle it, then she’ll let my MIL take care of Sze Juin (Actually MIL wanted to bring back Sze Juin after she’s 1, so this seemed like a good timing).

I kind of like the idea of them both being at home, maybe they’ll have enough of each other during the day time, so by night time, it’s easier to get them to sleep? Recently, both of them just didn’t want to sleep, they would play until past midnight. Sze Juin just wouldn’t want to go to bed, and she would get excited when she saw her Jie Jie. The only way to make them go to sleep together is to get both Jie Jie and Daddy into the same room and sleep. It’s no point separating them anymore now, because she would insist to go join them.

But, that is the ONLY plus point. Or so for me, now. I have to mentally prepare myself of the things that would greet me when I go home everyday. I guess life would be harder, with all the housework, dirty laundry, ironing, unwashed bottles and dishes, toys strewn all over the floor, etc.. piled up (my MIL had been really nice to help me with the housework while I was working, so I have less headache after work). I guess I would have to say goodbye to the good old days. Hopefully things would not be as bad as I imagined. Previously, I only have headache with Sze Yi. I would go home to find her not bathed yet, or not eaten yet, homework not done, etc… So my task would mostly involve ‘settling’ her down before I went to fetch Sze Juin. And the best thing of having a baby sitter is that everything got settled for you. Sze Juin would be bathed and fed. And all I need to do was just play with her and nurse her, until it’s time for bed. I guess now, I’ll have to be prepared to settle 2 people instead of 1 when I reached home….sigh!

My babysitter is a really nice person. I am very happy with her so far. She made no fuss when I made 2 major requests – to use nappy cloth and feed her breast milk. Sze Juin was on cloth diapers all the time at her place, except when it’s about time for me to fetch her back, the sitter would change her into disposable. As for breastfeeding, she’s not a 100% supporter, but she obliged me all the same. That’s part of the factor that enable me to breastfeed her 100% till she’s 1 now. As for $$$ matters, she herself lowered the price that I was willing to pay her in the first place, so I actually got a very good deal. Apart from a very clean place, she’s also very flexible. She won’t show me a black face when I was late to pick up Sze Juin. In fact, SJ was there at her place for ~12 hours per day, and I can also pop up very early in the morning because she’s an early person. If I had something on during the weekends, I could just ask and she’s ever ready to say yes to babysitting SJ for a few hours without charging me extra. Overall, this sitter just suits me perfectly well, and I was really sad when she told me that she would like to quit. But somehow, I felt that I still have some hope that she would continue on next month… well, I’ll keep my fingers crossed!

Well, so how did Day 1 go? To begin with, Sze Juin cried when I left for work. She never cried like this when I sent her to the sitter. When she started to make a slight protest, the babysitter would tell her that Mommy needs to work, will be back to fetch her later, and she’ll be OK. No yells that would break my heart, not like her Jie Jie last time. Which makes going to work easier for me. But today, it’s heartbreaking to hear her cry when I left. Maybe the irony of being left alone when Daddy, Mommy and Jie Jie were going somewhere caused her to be so teary and sad.

During lunch time, I went home after fetching Sze Yi. I packed lunch for MIL, since she won’t be able to cook or go buy from downstairs. MIL told me that SJ didn’t want to drink milk, she never drank at all since I warmed up the milk for her this morning. I tried to breastfeed her directly; she just nursed for awhile and then pushed me away. It seemed that she’s full. She’s bathed and taken the porridge earlier. So, I entertained them and fed them fruits while Amah ate her lunch. I waited until Amah bathed Sze Yi before I went back to work. I guessed I would have to do this until we found a way to enclosed Sze Juin so that she won’t get into any mischief. You see, our play pen just gave way the other day, maybe it couldn’t take the weight of them both jumping up and down in it. I would have to find something soon, because Sze Juin could now climb out of the walker, high chair or her stroller even though we’ve strapped her up. And she’s now into climbing things – chair, table, sofa, you name it. So it’s really risky to leave her alone, while Amah’s bathing Jie Jie.

I guess life without a sitter would also mean this….
- more lunch trips home to relieve MIL
- that we’ll have to eat outside food more often
- me going home much earlier, to help feed them, bath them and clean up the mess
- staying up later at night to do the unfinished housework

Sigh… and it’s only Day 1. I wish July 31st would be here soon (arrgghhh, there are 31 days this month!) and my sitter would be back…