Kids Archives - Kids 'R' Simple

Holding It Together as a FTWM of 3 Kids Without A Maid

To be honest, I was scared counting down to maidless days. After enjoying life without the endless house chores, the thought of going back to doing them worried me. It is not so much as in whether I will be able to cope, it is more about losing the quality time with the kids, if I will step into the house after work with a foul mood seeing a messy house and stepping on oily, sticky floors. I had been through that phase and it was not something I wish to reminisce about. I remember that each time when I came home from work, as I stood at the doorway and looked into the house, my mind is full of frustrations and naggings about school shoes strewn about, toys littered around, beds unmade, pyjamas on the sofa, etc. And the next thing was me picking up toys with my handbag still on my shoulder, and kneeling down to mop the floor in my work clothes. I needed to tidy up the house in a jiffy in order to feel good for the evening. Hence, the kids got the worst of me and it was nothing proud at all.

Actually those days were only 3 years ago before I decided to employ a helper. I had then changed job and work took up much of my time. With an extra pair of hands, I was able to concentrate on work and was happy that I could play with the kids after work, free of house chores. Having a helper also means that I could have my couple nights out or girlfriends nights out in peace. I could sneak out for late night supper with my hub. I freed my caregiver who is my Father-in-law from cooking as well. He was able to relax with his grandchildren instead of making time for cooking chores. In the crucial year of PSLE this year, my helper was a great help to ensure that my revision with Missy was efficient. With her around, I did not have to worry about other distractions and house chores. All was good till my helper decided to get married and ended her contract with us and we decided not to employ another one.

Why do I insist on Not Hiring Another Helper?

You would have asked me why I did not hire another helper. The main reason is a request from Missy. She asked not to have a new helper simply because she does not want to attach feelings to another helper and be disappointed and sad when she leaves. She also insisted that she will be able to help out in the house. I debated for a long time with myself and my hub about giving what Missy wants versus what I WANT. I know that with a helper, everyone has more of my time and I need not slog on my leisure hours. But I had to give Missy a chance to show that she is capable of helping out. Besides, it is time that the kids learn responsibility and independence without help. Weighing the pros and cons, the cons of not hiring a helper actually outnumbered the pros. Still, we bite the bullet and go maidless.

Weeding Out Bad Habits From the Kids

For those with helpers will know that whenever the helper goes out on her off day, the house will be messy in less than an hour. Cups piled up in the sink, toys and books all over and floors got dirtier faster too. We will know that these will miraculously be tidied and cleaned by night time and nobody bothers to even wash a cup. Hence, on the first few days after my helper left, my house is in complete mess. How things operate in the house have to change, so I thought it is time to start educating the kids. Here are some basic things that we want the kids to chip in to help and learn a thing or two.

Ensure pyjamas and home clothes are worn at least twice before they go into the laundry basket. I have madness trying to clear the house loads everyday!
The kids help to fold the clothes and put back into their wardrobe. Even simple things like folding clothes can learn a trick or two. I am happy to teach them how to fold it nicely and straighten out creases such that ironing is not needed for clothes worn at home. This is also for them to see how many sets of clothes they conveniently throw into the laundry basket and with the repercussions of this act happen to be more washing, drying, folding and keeping.
The kids have to wipe all traces of crumbs and spills. It helps that my youngest spilled some honey water near our bedroom door and everyone saw that the ants infested the sleeping area because the spills were not wiped thoroughly. This also reinforced to them the long nagged rule on no food and drinks in the bedroom.
The kids have a chance to learn how to iron their own clothes. Their grandma came by and she had a fun time teaching them how to iron and the kids were all impressed by my mum’s efficient and time-saving method of ironing clothes.
The kids learn how to hand-wash clothes. It may seem common sense to us adults, but if the kids had never done a chore, they may not know where to start and how to do it the right way.
The kids have to make their own beds every morning and hang their pyjamas in the right places.
The hanging of towels has long been a persistent nagging item, hence now, I bring out hangers and designate a place for them to hang.
Toilet manners – being considerate for the next person who uses the toilet. The kids were taught to lift up the toilet seat before or after use depending on the who is using. This prevents ammonia from filling the toilet with pee on the seats and such.
Cooking – the kids gain many opportunities to learn cooking from me. Such life skills are better taught to the kids than to the helper.

There are more bad habits that I am trying to discover and correcting them one by one now that I can see the consequences so clearly.

Seeing the Difference in the Kids

The helper could not have left at a better time. Right now is the school holidays and all the 3 kids have many chances to hone their house chore skills. There are many times I was pleasantly surprised by their good gestures to keep the house clean.

One day when I came home from work, I saw that the floor was sparkling clean. All the shoes were neatly placed, toys were kept properly and my youngest pulled my hand excitedly to bring me to his room. On the cupboard beside his bed was a set of pyjamas neatly hanged onto the hanger. He was so proud of it and went on to show me his bed which he made his bed with blankets folded nicely too. Guess who initiated the clean up? It was none other than Missy. I think she does a better job in delegating house chores to her 2 younger brothers than I do! No wonder they say that having a girl as the eldest child is the best!

On another day, Missy saw that I was very tired and still had to wash some dishes in the sink. The moment I stepped out of the kitchen to do some other chores, I heard her wash the dishes without any prompting. It was a simple gesture, but it warmed my heart very much. If we still had a helper, I will not see this thoughtful side of her.

I know that the kids are showing their love in one way or another through helping out in the house. It warmed my heart and I am really blessed to have these children. Before my helper left, I wanted to draft a time-table for them on designating house chores. I never got around to working out this time-table. Surprisingly, it is still working fine in our house. Half the time I need any help, all I have to do is to assign and one kid or another will come helping. Of course the other half of the time falls to deaf ears especially when they are playing or engaging in some activities or if they say “Later”, I will still end up doing it because it is so much easier and faster to do them myself. Nevertheless, with 3 extra pairs of hands, most of the time, the house chores can be done in 1/3 of the time!

Holding It Together as a FTWM

So, as far as it goes, things are still working out fine without a helper. I have also constantly reminded myself not to lose my cool or get into a bad mood over house chores. I consciously kept calm and tell myself that it is alright to have a dirty and untidy house. I start to get use to it by taking everything slowly and portion out the things I want to do, like packing the shelves or cleaning a room one day at a time. The last thing I want to do is to spoil everybody’s mood or sacrifice bonding time because I want everything to be neat and clean and perfect.

I admit that at times, I feel tired trying to hold everything together.

Dealing with house chores can really get on one’s nerves because the chores are never-ending and the satisfaction of clearing them does not last more than 1 day. Everyday is a new day and it also means that a refreshed set of house chores are waiting to be done!

For a full time working mum, it is not easy to stop all stress and fatigue at the door and turn on smiles and happy mood into the house at the end of a work day. The house chores have to be managed on top of managing the kids, dealing with tantrums, educating little ones and still leave time for play and bonding. I always say workplace should value mums because if they can multi-task so well in the house, they can definitely do a good job at work.

I am still fine-tuning how to change my mindset on the threshhold of cleanliness and not let house chores take up my time with the kids. I can feel the stress and fatigue affecting my interaction with people too. Plus the lack of sleep and working late nights that make me function a little off balance. I lost my cool with the kids a couple of times. I find myself offending many people around me with tactless statements that mean no harm. I am trying to hold everything together in the house as well as social life, work life and family life. I am not a superwoman, just a normal person juggling many balls on hand and trying to find a good balance.

I may not have a clean home, but I certainly treasure a happy home. Now that I see the kids are learning responsibility, independence and thoughtfulness to others, I think we made a right decision to go maidless and I hope that we can do this in the long run together.

Mommy’s Guilt for Travelling Without Kids

When it comes to travelling without the kids, I am not that cool. I have my guilty moments. It was hard when I first traveled for my business trip solo to the US and Canada, braving through the tears of the little ones every night counting down to the trip, so much such that I did some preparatory work before and during the trip to make me and my kids feel better. You can read about what I did over here.

Recently a conversation with my mum brings out the guilt in me which I was trying so hard to suppress. She told me that times have changed. Couples nowadays (she is referring to me and my hubby) will choose to travel on holidays without the kids while such couple trips were almost unheard of during my parents’ times. If parents in those days were to travel for holidays, they would bring their kids along. Not that my parents did that since we were not well-to-do to travel. But you get the idea.

We were lucky to have supportive parents even though they may not agree on our couple trips. In fact, we have been to several such trips in the past:

After my first born, Kel and I traveled to Taiwan for a couple holiday.

After my second born, Kel and I traveled on a cruise and a couple more short trips to nearby Batam resorts.

After my third born, we stop travelling without kids because we think that it will be hard on our parents to care for 3 young children. Hence, we decide to wait till the youngest is older and easier to care for before we resume our couple holidays.

In between, we travel separately for business, incentive and girls’ trip, but there will always be one of us at home with the kids. And knowing that one spouse is at home with them, the other one can travel with a peace of mind without worrying if the grandparents are coping well with minding the little ones.

When it comes to travelling without the kids, I am definitely no cool mama. I have my guilty moments, and plenty of that. It was hard when I first traveled for my business trip solo to the US and Canada, braving through the tears of the little ones every night counting down to the trip. I had to do some preparatory work before and during the trip to make me and my kids feel better. You can read about what I did over here.

For the first couple trip, it was not easy for me to leave my eldest with the grandparents, and I had to bring along one of her two favourite bolsters and hug it every night in the hotel. We called home using the calling card every night (those were the days without facetime and internet calls). It was a little harder on the second and subsequent trips when we had to leave 2 children at home with one more little one to miss. It is even harder to leave 3 kids now to do the same.

So after a hiatus of about 6 years, Kel and I have finally decided that our kids are older now and easier to leave with the grandparents, and about the right time to have a short getaway to recharge, reconnect, enjoy a holiday which is really planned for ourselves. Well, we only booked our trip after we had our parents’ support to take care of the kids.

Choosing the getaway dates

There was much consideration this time round. I had to choose a period when the elder kids had finished their examinations as I wanted to be there to help with their revision during their papers. I had to ensure the dates are during school days because if they are in school during daytime, they will not miss us too much and caregivers need not handle 3 kids for long hours. The dates should not touch weekends because I want to spend time with them on weekends, ferrying them to their art and piano classes. This means that I have to take weekdays off from work.

Every aspect was taken care of, including ensuring school pocket money was topped up in their wallets, breakfast preparation, lots of pep talk to the littlest one, etc, etc.

Reactions from the kids

And so we left for the getaway and back to see the following reactions from the kids during this period:

Missy 11 was wishing us an enjoyable trip and looking forward to many gifts for her and her brothers. But on the morning of departure, which she told me later on, that she silently wept after I saw her to school.

Master 9 asked me why we did not bring them along for this trip. I felt a lump in my throat at this question but I tried my best to explain that Papa and Mummy wanted to have some couple time to ourselves. Subsequent days of calling home, I felt worse when he showed no interest to talk to me through facetime.

Master 4 seemed to understand when I told him for 3 nights, he would have 2 grandmas to take turns to keep him company during bedtime. But when we were overseas, every evening, he would asked his grandpa why Papa and Mummy had not returned after 7pm.

All these tore at my heart.

If it is so hard, why do we still do it?

Benefits of couple retreat

Some will say that we are selfish, but I believe on the benefits of reconnecting with my other half for a short time.
1. We believe that we can do things we love as a couple without waiting for the kids are older to pursue our interests.
2. It is important for us to rekindle the fire in us without minding the little ones. When the parents are happy, kids will be happy too.
3. It is also a good chance for the children to bond with the grandparents every night.

The benefits as written are not a long list, but really, the main reason is to reconnect as a couple free of little ones’ screams, naps, restricted itinerary.

Now that we are back from our 4D3N Bangkok trip, I realized that I really missed them very much. Every interesting thing I saw on the street, I would think of bringing them to the same place to see what I saw. Every shopping trip was really to buy gifts for them to make them happy and compensate for not bringing them with us. I realized that I had to be extra careful and take really good care of ourselves so that we return safely to the kids. And on the last day of the trip, I was looking forward to seeing them back home.

While we were away, the elder kids wrote diary entries to me. I had told them to do so if they missed us. What they wrote touched me very much and it was really sweet to read their thoughts. And Master 9 was really sweet in his penned down words even though he did not talk much to us when we called home.

If you ask me if I would travel on the next couple trip without the kids, I may really hesitate. Perhaps, it would be good to wait till the kids are in their teens before I can travel without guilt.

Do you feel guilty like me when you travel without the kids?

Chek Jawa Guided Tour in Pulau Ubin – a living classroom

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Chek Jawa Guided Tour is a tour that you must exercise kiasu-ism when you do booking. When I did my booking for June guided tour, I put a reminder on my calendar as early as January to remind myself to book on 1 March, the date when booking for June opens! It is very popular especially on dates that suited us in June holidays. Mind you, there are limited dates for these tours, so you really have to plan well. If you wish to check out booking and guided tour dates, click here.

On the day of the tour, we met my BFF family at 7am at Changi Jetty. It was rare for our kids to wake up so early and we were rewarded with sighting this beautiful sunrise!

We took the boat from Changi Jetty that sits maximum 12 pax, with each paying $3 for the ride to Pulau Ubin.

The ride was about 10 minutes and when we had reached the Pulau Ubin Jetty, we took a van to Chek Jawa. We have to pre-book the van prior to our trip (Scroll to the end for all the details and cost for the tour). The van could accommodate all 15 of us, 8 adults and 7 kids. The van ride took about 10 minutes to Chek Jawa and we had to get down and walk a 100m stretch of road to the information kiosk, the meeting point where we met our tour guide from Nparks.

There were a few more tour groups, each with its own tour guide. The tour guides are volunteers and I thought they are really doing a good thing to volunteer their time to educate us on the ecosystem of Chek Jawa. We were very lucky to have our tour guide who was very patient to answer the kids’ questions and very knowledgeable on Chek Jawa. His instructions and explanation were very clear and shared lots of analogies in simple terms to help us understand the flora and fauna.

Before we started the tour, our tour guide prep us with a few instructions:

Go to toilet before we start as there will not be a washroom until we return to the information kiosk 2 hours later.
Apply mosquito repellent before we start the tour
Do not shout or scream when you see the little creatures like crabs, mudskippers, etc, as they are shy and might go into hiding, leaving the groups behind to see less of them.

Continue reading “Chek Jawa Guided Tour in Pulau Ubin – a living classroom”

Don’t judge the way I raise my children

I am not in a competition on raising children.

I believe everyone has his or her own way in raising theirs, but there are so many times when I am judged at how I raised up my children that I think this ‘judgement’ deserves a blog post here.

I often received raised eyebrows when people know that I let my baby sleep in a sarong cradle. Some were surprised that I give pacifiers to my babies almost betting that I would have trouble weaning them off it. People judged when they saw that I feed my toddler on the go. Others gave disapproving look when they sighted my kids playing on tablets or smartphones. Many criticized when they see my kids’ overactive behaviour. And this will almost certainly set you off laughing: I let my children use the milk bottle for as long as they like.

You may disapprove some of the ways I deal with my children. But I believe that I am bringing them up well.

Why “no sarong rule”?

What is wrong with children sleeping in a sarong cradle? Some said that it will cause over-dependence on sleeping in one and “spoil” the baby. All my 3 children grew up sleeping in one and up till 3 years of age during nap time. They slept on the bed from 6 months old for night sleep. The sarong cradle is an amazing piece of cloth that once hung onto the sarong cradle metal frame, creates a hugging sensation to the baby who tends to sleep well in it. The rocking motion of sarong cradle is very soothing to the child, mimicking the feeling in mummy’s womb. And from my 3 times experience, my child can sleep anywhere with or without sarong cradle. I do not have problem getting them to sleep on the bed either. So why the insistence of no sarong rule?

Pacifier is better than thumb

When my children were babies and started to suck on their thumbs, my mum gave me a very good advice to use the pacifier. Continue reading “Don’t judge the way I raise my children”

Getting prepared to be a SAHM

In recent weeks, I have been feeling extremely demoralized at work. I told Kel about calling it quits and taking a break from work.

It didn’t exactly come out as a “break from work”, but it came out much harsher. I told him that I ever gave him a chance to fulfill his dreams and I hope he is able to give me my chance too. I really want to fulfill my dreams once in my lifetime. Or it shall be a lifelong regret for me.

What dream is that? You guess it right: to be a SAHM

After a long, long pause, Kel finally said,”OK, you can quit your job come end of this year and go and fulfill your dreams.”

And I never expected that answer.

I mean, I have lamented, complained, hinted, blatantly spelt, and we have talked about this topic for the longest time. Each time, we both knew it is quite impossible because living in Singapore with single income is too much stress for the bread winner. However, it feels a little different this time. Perhaps my dreams will really come true.

The next day, we brought the kids out and Missy 10 asked to buy some beads from Spotlight to make some crafts. The beads cost $6.99. I thought to myself: If I were no longer working, will I even buy those beads? I had Continue reading “Getting prepared to be a SAHM”