She does the general house chores fairly well. She has a lot of patience dealing with Little Edison’s tantrums, which is obviously one of her strengths. She is willing to work hard and I can see the amount of efforts she put in her works. Cooking is a whole lot easier too, as she can help out in the food preparation and cleaning-up after the process. Overall, her work performance is still satisfactory.

One of her weakness is her poor command of English. She has difficulties understanding our instructions at times. Thus, we have to talk to her slowly to make sure she understands. In terms of speed and alertness, she is not as good as our ex-helper, Niti. Nonetheless, given time and more training, we believe she will gradually improve in these areas.

I really appreciate having a helper at home to ease my burden. I simply cannot imagine my life without them – I may have to scrub the toilet, mop the floor, do the laundries, wash the dishes and take care of Little Edison all by myself. That is why I’m always concerned about the well-being of my helper.

I’m careful to make sure that she feels alright at home and she has sufficient food to eat. I talk to her occasionally and try to understand if there are any difficulties that she is facing at work. Most importantly, I always make sure that she has enough rest and in good health.

Everything has been manageable so far. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that things will continue to work well and that we don’t suffer from any of the domestic helper dramas.

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Hubby bought this compilation album for my new car. It has four discs, featuring all the popular Chinese hits in the 80’s and 90’s. This compilation is hard to find, and he knew that I’ll be madly in love with it. I can listen to these relaxing songs when I’m driving. It’s awesome!

One of my top favorites in this album is a song called ‘Lei Hai’ (Sea of Tears) from Taiwanese singer Valen Hsu (???). I’m sure most of you would have heard of this beautiful song many years ago. I never thought that it still sounds so nice after more than ten years. Every time when I listen to it, it instantly brings me to a dreamy and sentimental mood. I just ‘melt’ into the music and suddenly I felt a surge of lost memories and feelings.

I felt like I’ve taken a time machine and I traveled back to year 1995. I was 18 years old again. I left my hometown in Ipoh to pursue my tertiary education in a university in Johor, Malaysia. My mother bought me a portable CD player before I left. It became my one and only entertainment when I was staying in the university hostel (for one super long year). Every night, I listened to 93.3 and I became a big fan of Valen Hsu.

Fifteen years ago, I was a naïve university student. I attended lectures in the morning and tutorials at night. I struggled to meet deadlines of my projects and assignments. I have all the freedom and time in the world, but I don’t have the money. I can’t wait to grow up and be financially-independent. I hate to take money from my parents who were struggling and working so hard to make ends meet.

Fifteen years later, I live a completely different life. I’m working in an industry that is completely different from what I studied. I’m financially-independent. I can pamper myself with an expensive haircut or a branded bag. I give money allowance to my parents every month, and I really feel good about it. I wonder how my life would be in the next 15 years. By then, I’ll be 47 years old. *Faint*

It’s amazing how a simple song like this can bring me so many memories of the past and thoughts about the future. It’s rare but definitely a beautiful feeling. =)

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I received a surprise phone call from his form teacher yesterday. She gave me a quick update on Little Edison’s progress at school. Generally, he is doing alright at school despite the occasional tearful meltdowns in the morning when I leave him. However, there are several areas that I need to pay attention and the teacher discussed with me in details.

Some of the drawbacks of being an only child are apparent in his behavior at school such as; he is overly dependent on his teachers to do things for him, rather than trying to do on his own. I guess it’s because he is too used to having a helper at home who attends to him 24/7. He is also very fussy with food; he spits them out on the floor if he doesn’t like the food.

One issue that really took me by surprise is his lack of verbal communications with the teachers and classmates. The teacher pointed to me that he will express his happiness and anger by facial expressions, rather than verbal. On the contrary, he is quite talkative at home. He will repeat whatever we say and expand his own vocabulary. To us, he is a very cheerful and expressive little boy.

When she talked about toilet-training, it horrified me even more because we always thought that Little Edison is well-trained in this area. He will communicate with us whenever he wants to urinate. Apparently, the teacher is expecting more than that. She expects him to be able to pull his pants up and down with ease in the toilet when he wants to urinate. Can a 2.5 years old toddler do that? I wonder.

The teacher also wants us to put on underwear on Little Edison. This means that he has to pull down two pieces of clothing – pants and underwear altogether. Again, can a 2.5 years old toddler do that? It’s really a huge challenge for me to train him in this area. At home, we will do it for him. But now, it’s time to let him learn do all his ‘business’ on his own. Not forgetting, we also need to train him to wash his hands, dry them and flush the toilet after every ‘business’.

I started to doubt my parenting abilities after the conversation with his teacher. If the other children are so independent, why our Little Edison is lagging behind? Is it because we pamper him too much at home? I think we are too used to provide everything to him, rather than to let him do things on his own.

Seriously, I need to come up with an improvement plan very soon. This is going to be my homework this weekend.

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A clingy toddler – does it sounds familiar to you? How many of us have dealt with our toddler’s extreme clinginess? You know what I meant – it’s the weeks or even months when your toddler decides that YOU are the only person in the world they need to be concerned with.

Oh well, I’m just right at the center of this mess now. Little Edison is going through a stage where every departure brings a bucketful of tears. Whenever I’m at home, he will cling to me like a koala bear. Whenever I’m out of sight, he will freak out and start screaming for me.

Separation anxiety is often triggered by a stressful change in our toddler’s life. I begin to suspect whether it is caused by his school – the occasional meltdowns when I drop him at school or the change of our helper – he couldn’t get-along with her.

In the morning, he wants only ME to feed him, clean him and change him into his school uniforms. When I get home from work, he wants only ME to feed him, bathe him, play with him and pat him to sleep at night. You see, I’m virtually maid-less. Although my helper is there, but she can’t help much as Little Edison insists on me.

A clingy toddler is REALLY very difficult to deal with. I’m getting very exhausted and frustrated every day. I hope this clingy phase will be over very soon. Someone please detach this koala bear from me!

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As the old saying goes “This is gonna hurt me a lot more than it hurts you.” I never felt the significance of it until I became a mother.

Countless times, I have to give my son a stern NO, scold him, punish him, or some other form of discipline, just to teach him a valuable life lesson or to protect him in some ways. It always hurt me thousand times more than it did for him.

During my growing up, I never realized that whenever I was upset with my mother, she would be equally upset too. I thought that a mother is supposed to love their children, protect them and bring them happiness. Until I have Little Edison, I started to realize that by protecting him; sometimes I may have to hurt him in some ways.

I strive to shield him from any pain and unhappiness. I pray for God to protect him and bless him with good health. I pray for God to give me the strength and wisdom to raise him to be a kind, compassionate and responsible adult.

A mother’s love is the most complete and satisfying love on earth.

A mother’s love is eternal.

A mother’s love in unconditional.

I thank God for allowing me to be a mother to Little Edison.

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