Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Starting all over again?

2 months back, I received a very bad news from Alice, my babysitter. She was not able to care for my 2 kids anymore. This happened when her mother in law passed away suddenly in her sleep about few months back. Her mother in law normally will help her in taking care of my kids too and doing their house chores too. So, losing her means a lot to their family and mine too.
After her mother in law’s passing, I actually prep myself mentally to be prepared for the worst but to my surprised she told me she still wants to take care of my kids because she and her whole family really love them very much and treat them as their own children. She hired a lady who happens to be her close friend to help around and she pays the lady about 70% of what I’m paying her. I paid her about 1.1K every month and she paid the lady RM700 and she only takes RM400.
I was grateful but guilty at the same time. Few months past by and about 2 months ago, she told me that her friend manage to get another job and didn’t want to work with her anymore and she can’t manage 5kids (she has 3 kids on her own) alone. I understand her feelings as I know babysitting is definitely not an easy task especially you need to take care of the house, chores to do, cooking and fetching the kids to school etc.
So, I need to look for a new babysitter. But I got a surprised from my mother because she volunteered herself as my new babysitter. I was of course very grateful for this favour. My mother is a career woman and I know she sacrifice a lot by giving up her job to do babysitting. Who doesn’t want a family member to help take care of your own kids’ right?
I started to bring the kids to my mom’s place every weekend and let them bond with her and to familiarize the house and what not. 1 month passed by and my mom told me another bad news. She wasn’t able to cope with the 2 kids alone and she was having backache and etc. Another thing is her bosses actually gave her salary increment and ask her to stay in her current job. I was of course devastated and nearly went crazy as it was barely a month away before I can find a new babysitter. I was very upset and down and thought of resigning my current job too.
My mother finally manage to find me a babysitter just staying opposite of her house. We plan to send Isaac to the babysitter and Naomi to full day nursery cum day care centre.
Hopefully this new babysitter will love and care for Isaac like their own child. Finger crossed!
As for Naomi, this is definitely a new chapter for her. I have so many things on my mind like will she cry when we send her there? Will she able to cope? Will the kids bully her? Is it too much for her (As we will be sending her for full day). Can she eat well? Sleep well? Will she fall sick often? I also need to prepare myself mentally and physically as well.
We’re still deciding on which nursery to send her to yet. Hopefully, we can finalize everything by mid of this month. We already have few options but we’ll see how it goes.