Bonjovi,
Ya, I brought bb along.
Re: Maid
My long story.. My mum is my girl's main caregiver. She's staying with my bro's family and he has 2 girls. My SIL is a SAHM. When I ended my ML, I suggested that they employed a maid & I chip in. So I paid about $100 each month, give my mum $300 on top of the allowance that I give her. So a large part of my pay goes to that commitment. Many times, my mum will grumble when I work late and I get super irriated cos I feel that I gave her alot of $$ as compared to my bro. Moreover, I work lor, not go out and play.
The maid tends to take care of the nieces more, since my bro & SIL are her bosses and not me mah. I had quite a few arguments with my mum already over working late. The last straw is the cruise, which I went with my mum , my bro's family + maid. My mum spent a large part of the time in the casino. The maid was constantly helping out with my nieces. Thru'out the cruise, I and my hb was so busy looking after our kid. We take turns to carry her, gobbled down food and ended up more tired than before the cruise. I finally exploded and told my mum that I could be better off getting my own maid. Initailly, it was angry words, but come to think of it, maybe I should do so. With a maid, if my hb end work early, he could pick up the kid 1st. Now, he has to wait for me cos he cant handle the kid alone. The maid can oso do housework and I can stop the part-time cleaner that I am engaging for 2x a month now. We can oso spend more quality time with my girl. My hb & I can oso have more "me" & "we" time.
To get a maid, I will have to stop giving my mum the extra and use that to finance the maid. If that is the case, I will oni have to top up a bit more per month.
However, the concern is about getting a good maid lor. I will still need my mum to supervise the maid. If my mum still ask for extras for the "supervision" work, then it will be very tough on our finance. Haiz... dilemma...