Maid – Page 4 – HEALTH FREAK MOMMY

We’ve Chosen Yet Another Indon Maid

I’ve just returned from the new maid agency’s office (run by Alycia’s classmate’s parents). Looking at the bio datas of the available maids, we finally selected an Indon maid who looks pleasant and matured. She indicated her age as 26 years old in the bio data but I doubt that’s her real age as she looks like she’s in her late 30s or early 40s. Anyway, looks are very deceiving and can reveal very little about a person, based on my experience with my previous maids. This maid has had 2 years of experience as a domestic maid in Singapore. At least, I don’t have to teach her from scratch the basic household chores. She also indicated in her resume that she has high school qualification which I’m quite happy as I prefer to have a maid who’s more educated.

Well, I’m just praying that she’ll fit in and meet my simple requirements. We have to wait for at least 3 months for the maid to arrive, which means that she’ll only arrive earliest mid January 2008. Luckily my current maid has agreed, albeit quite reluctant to extend her service for another 1 month. My hubby has promised to give her a bonus for agreeing to stay on. And guess how much we have to pay all in for this new maid? Close to RM7k and that includes the agency fee of RM3,600 (agency fee would be RM4,300 for a Cambodian maid), 6 months advance salary for the maid at RM500 per month and some miscellaneous charges. As a goodwill gesture (since we are from the same neighborhood and his son is Alycia’s classmate), we didn’t have to pay the RM280 insurance for the maid.

One worry off my mind now.

No. of times viewed = 205

Tuesday Morning

I woke up at 5:30am today. Only managed to complete 2 assignments, still have around 10 more outstanding. It’s 7:10am now. I have to make myself a mug of milk with Milo, pop my prenatal vitamins and hormone pills then walk down the road to Alycia’s classmate’s house to look for his mum. Sean’s mum runs a maid agency and I always see a pool of maids in her house. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that Sean’s mum can help provide me a maid by December, else I would be maid-less for at least 1-2 months! Unimaginable! Well, at least for me, I’m quite a siew cheh and can’t stand doing household chores and taking care of 2 high-needs toddlers at the same time. Though I used to multi-task when I was a PA but if you ask me to do household chores, cook and look after 2 hyper toddlers who are ever so demanding, I know I’ll collapse!

No. of times viewed = 183

Never ending Maid Woes

Remember I had posted earlier that my maid has agreed to extend her service for another half a year, provided she gets to return to Indonesia for 2 weeks in December?

Well, I called up my maid agency a couple of days ago and was informed by the agent that we are unable to extend her service for 6 months as her passport is only expiring in August 2007. If we have to extend, it has to be for 8 months and she advised us not to send our maid back for the break as the risks involved are far too high. In many cases, the maids did not even return though they had promised to return. Also, we will be spending twice on her air fare. When my hubby asked my maid if she could stay on for another 8 months (instead of 6 months) without getting to return for her 2 weeks break in December, my maid was reluctant.

Well, now the decision is final. Since her heart is no longer here and she’s just raring to go home, we will not persuade her anymore, period! She will return to Indonesia in December and we will have to look for a new maid….all over again. That’s where my nightmare begins – hunting for a suitable maid, paying the exorbitant fees, training the new maid all over again, what if the new maid is not trainable, what if she has a terrible attitude and all the what ifs. I can only pray that my new maid will be God-sent.

No. of times viewed = 145

My Maid

Who do you think sculptured these balloons for the gals? It’s my maid! Not only can she perform her housework satisfactorily, she has also mastered some simple plumbing skills, she can perform simple house improvements, she can draw quite well, she can build really cool robots and helicopters from Lego blocks and now she has even mastered the balloon sculpturing skill and has been entertaining the gals with sculptured balloons when I am busy.

No. of times viewed = 138

Maid’s Birthday

We celebrated our maid’s 27th birthday last week with a Strawberry Tiramasu cake, complimentary from Shangri-La Hotel. Both my mil and I gave her an ang pow each. As I don’t really fancy cakes, I just ate a tiny slice of the cake whilst Alycia and Sherilyn relished every single bite of the cake, especially the chocolate slices on top of the cake. My maid ate the remaining of the cake all by herself, for days.

No. of times viewed = 205

Maid’s Birthday

Today is my maid’s birthday and I say she’s lucky. Why? Because coincidentally my hubby has ordered a Tiramasu cheese cake from Shangri-La Hotel that’s complimentary for members last night. Members must dine in the hotel to be eligible for the complimentary cake. We only found out that it’s our maid’s birthday today.
Hubby and mil are now enjoying their lunch at the hotel before she returns to Hong Kong this weekend – when 2 dines in the hotel, there’s a 50% discount. When they come back, we will present the cake to our maid and sing happy birthday to her. The gals will love it. They love singing happy birthday, blowing candles and cutting birthday cakes. I have also given my maid some cash in a red packet. Must belanja a bit lar and make her happy. Hopefully she’ll agree to extend her stay with us further after her 6-month extended stay.

No. of times viewed = 198

Looking For A New Maid

For the last few weeks, I’ve been browsing through the website of my maid agency looking at the resumes of new maids. None of them look pleasant or suitable. Most of them are either too young or too old. If I get one who is too young, I run an extremely high risk of her running away with her boyfriend. I’ve had bad experiences with this group of maids. If they are too old, they may be good with my kids but then, they may lack the stamina or initiative or they may not like being told off by a younger employer. My parents have an old maid of 50+ yo now and she’s such a pain in the neck (can’t seem to follow instructions, stubborn, super slow in her work, cannot do chores that are too tough due to her age, extremely fussy with her food and doesn’t look pleasant at all) but my parents are keeping her as my grandma of 90 y.o. adores her. She had lied about her age in her resume. She declared that she’s only 40+ but alas, she herself spilled the beans when she accidentally blurted out her age.

Those who look pretty are also a no-no coz they are most likely to attract men to my house as there are many male foreign workers at my housing estate, thus also risking my safety as well as my 2 gals’. I just need someone who is obedient, initiative, hardworking, trustworthy, good and patient with my 2 naughty gals and one who looks fairly pleasant. I wonder why I am never lucky with getting good maids who are willing to work for me for 10 years or more though I treat my maids so well. I pay for all their toiletries, buy them clothes, pay their phone bills when they call back to Indon without deducting from their salaries, treat them to meals in hotels and restaurants, eat whatever good food we eat yet I am never lucky enough to get one good and loyal maid. I’m just praying that I’ll be 5th time lucky this time round.

No. of times viewed = 165

Maid Issues… Again

One of my dreaded worries finally came true a couple of days ago. My maid told us that she doesn’t want to renew her contract to continue working for us when her contract expires in December. She said she wants to start a small business back home. This means that hubby has to spend a few thousand ringgit on the agency fee to hire a new maid. I called up the maid agency yesterday and was told that the total amount for hiring a new maid will be a whopping RM6,200 upfront! Breakdown – agency fee around RM3,500 and 5 months advance salary @ RM450 per month. Wow, that’s a lot of money and hubby would have to pay thru his nose like that man. Also, the thought of getting a new maid and training her from scratch makes me shudder and gives me sleepless nights.

I’ve had pretty bad experiences with my previous 3 maids – the 1st maid poured urine and charm water into my drinking water, which I drank. The 2nd and 3rd maids (I had 2 maids when i was still working) brought their boyfriends back to my house in the wee hours of the morning and stole my sil’s and hubby’s handphone. My current maid is by far the best. She is very smart, educated and picks things up very fast. When she goes back to Indon, I will have to start all over again to train the new maid by waking up at 5:30am to show her how to do the household chores and teach her the basics of cooking, caring for toddlers, showing her the dos and don’t’s etc. That’s really very time consuming coz for the first few days, I actually have to do the chores myself and cook myself to show her. I don’t think I’ll even have time to blog then. I’m praying that my upcoming maid will have good attitude and easily trainable, else I’m really going to be really stressed up again.

No. of times viewed = 280

My Maid’s Cooking

When my maid first started working for us 1.5 years back, she has zero culinary skills and I had to teach her from scratch, from the rudiments of frying an egg to stir-frying a vegetable dish, steaming fish and chicken to boiling soup, but Suliah has certainly picked up her cooking skills pretty fast, both from my mil and me, though at times her cooking kinda sucks and is tasteless. Overall, I would give her a rating of 6 over 10 on her chinese cooking. Each day, I will prepare a menu-of-the-day for her from breakfast through dinner and stick the menu on the frige and I leave it to her to organize the ingredients. Marketing will be done by DH and I.

This is what my maid cooked for dinner today :

Aubergine stir-fried with minced chicken meat and organic miso sauce, sprinkled with freshly chopped spring onions.

Stir-fried asparagus with baby sweet-corns, diced chicken breast, garlic, shallots and soya sauce.

Stir-fried Hong Kong por choy with garlic and shallots.

Steamed tofu with fried shallots, freshly chopped spring onions and soya sauce.

Pan-fried fish with ginger (the ginger kinda looked burnt, but overall taste is acceptable)

So, what say everyone of the dishes that I have carefully planned? Healthy and wholesome enough for toddlers? Oh yah, forgot to mention, all my dishes are oyster sauce free, thick black sauce free and MSG free and I only use preservative-free & MSG-free soya sauce. Call me a health freak, yeah!

No. of times viewed = 2463

Sometimes Only Her Kakak Understands Her

At times, only my maid Suliah comprehends Alycia’s and Sherilyn’s baby talks. We were having dinner a few days ago and one of the dishes was an omelette. Alycia the greedy pig was chewing with a whole mouthful of omelette when she muffled something like this :

Alycia : I …. (as she munches her food) muck egg…..

Me : You have stomach-ache? Do you want to go poo poo?

Alycia : Shakes her head. I (munch munch munch her food) muck egg.

Me : Hiyah… you must have eaten too much dim sum for lunch. I told you not to eat too much, now you have stomach-ache. Come, let’s go to the toilet and poo poo.

Alycia : I want (munch, munch, munch) ….. muck egg.

My maid who was observing us noticed Alycia pointing to the omelette dish then said “oh, Alycia kata I want somemore egg”

Then all three of us burst out laughing.

No. of times viewed = 189

An Unforgetable Mothers’ Day

Yesterday’s Mothers’ Day was quite an eventful one for me. Well, the day started off well but ended in a nightmarish note. As usual, my maid will jaga the gals in their room each night when I fix them their milk in the kitchen downstairs. Yesterday, my samseng Sherilyn tried to climb up the table to switch on the stereo. My maid then used the cane on her. I still don’t know if she actually hit Sherilyn or not but Sherilyn who is very attached to my maid cried incessantly. It wasn’t a painful cry but an upset cry as she was obviously very upset that her kakak had hit her / threatened to hit her. Only God knows whether my maid had hit her or not.

The crying session lasted about 1 hr until bedtime. As I slept with the gals, Sherilyn who was still crying (as if she wanted her kakak to sayang her back)suddenly choked and after a few coughs, vomitted. OMG, she vomitted like a just erupted volcano … all her dinner and her milk spewed out onto the new mattress, the pillows, comforter, all over her hair and everything on the bed. To make matters worst, Alycia got scared and tried to cover the stinky vomit with all the blankets and cried coz her pjs also kena the vomit and she wanted me to change her pjs immediately. Oh God, it was messy, really messy and stinky and it was 11pm for pete’s sake. I could barely open my eyes nor move my tired body. I then yelled out to my maid to help clean up the mess and as she entered the room, I erupted like a volcano too screaming at my maid and snapped at her. I told her that no one can hit my gals except me. My maid denied hitting Sherilyn and said she just threatened her with the cane. She was even in tears when I queried her further. Earlier when my maid left the room, I had asked Alycia if kakak had hit Sherilyn or not and Alycia replied dramatically “yes, very very hard and punched her hand and scolded her”. I know I cannot fully trust my 3.5 yo drama queen’s words for she is a very imaginitive girl and very exaggerative too. But I just had a guts feeling that my maid had hit Sherilyn to discipline her.

My maid and I spent the next 1 hour cleaning up the total mess in the room. Still seething with anger, I went down to the kitchen to fix Sherilyn another bottle of milk. As I opened the can of milk powder, I slopped milk powder everywhere on the counter and floor. GREAT, why must my hands play me up at such time? It was almost midnight then and I was sweating though I had just taken my shower. Spent another 10 mins cleaning up the mess in the kitchen. I ended my day being drenched with sweat and vomit. What a way to end Mothers’ Day.

Oh, today my guilt-stricken maid was super nice and patient to my gals.

No. of times viewed = 185

Maids…. are they a help or a pain in your neck?

My current maid of 1.5 years is my 5th maid in less than 5 years. All my previous maids were fired by me before they finished their 2-year contract. I wonder if my current maid will survive the 2-year contract period or not.

Suliah, my current maid is generally an acceptable maid with fairly good work attitude and is diligent. However, she doesn’t like to be corrected of her mistakes. She loves to do work her way, not my way. Each time I correct her mistakes or the way she does her work, she will put on a sour face or let out a sigh. I’ve chided her a few times before. This morning, as she was carrying the garbage from the kitchen to the front of our house to dispose them, I noticed some stinky water dripping out from the garbage bag all the way from the kitchen to the hall. When I asked her to mop the floor, she let out a big grunt, hhhhiiii….yyyahhhh……. as if to tell me “you fussy lady boss”. Trivial matter like this really spoils my day and I always ask myself why am I paying close to a thousand ringgit a month just to stomach someone’s nonsense.

Suliah’s contract will be expiring in December this year. I am still in a dilemma whether to extend her contract or just be done and over with live-in maids for the rest of my life. Maids…. you can’t live with one, yet you can’t live without one.

No. of times viewed = 760