It's been a bummer two weeks -- the kids have been sick (cough & cold) ergo, LOTS of sleepless nights for me; work has reached new levels of hectic and to top it off, my trusted yaya has just informed me that she is leaving on Friday. And before you think it's because of her evil employers, she's going off to pursue a college degree. Yeah, I can really pick em. I knew she was too good to be true. I am being punished for my smugness about how great my kids' yaya is.
She is the epitome of patience, I swear, she has never raised her voice to the kids no matter how obnoxious or kulit Joshua gets. A very far cry from their former yaya who used to have screaming matches with Josh. Very soft spoken, she can also speak english without any (that I detect) accent. Then again, she speaks so softly maybe I just don’t hear it. But I know she tells stories and sings to the kids -- when I come into the room sometimes I catch Faith swaying her body and waving her arms (her version of dancing). Of course, she stops the minute I am in the vicinity. I figure she's embarassed or her singing ability is way better than mine she doesn't want to embarrass me!
Her ability to take care of the kids also impressed me a lot. I was (still am, just dormant) one of those OC moms who, despite having a yaya, insisted on caring for my babies myself. I could never trust that a nanny would take care of my kids the way I would. So I used to bathe Josh & Faith, prepare them for bed, brush their teeth, make them drink vitamins, feed them, etc. I guess Jun and I got a bit (or a lot!) spoiled when Jona came along. For the first time since being a mom, I could delegate some of the child caring responsibility to her. She is one of the few people…oh who the heck am I kidding? She's the only one who can get spoonfuls of food into Faith's mouth because my darling daughter insists on eating by herself. But for some reason, Jona can sneak food into Faith's mouth without her noticing. Of course, now I'll have to learn how to do it without being spit on or snarled at by Faith.
Aside from minding the kids, she'll also tidy up the room, help the other maids clean when she's not with the kids, lend a hand to my mom when she's baking, put away our stuff, all...get this…without being asked. Talk about initiative. And I think the ultimate validation of what I've been saying is the fact that I know my kids love her. I was telling Joshua last night as I was putting him to bed that Yaya Jona was going to leave to go to school and he told me he doesn't want her to go. I wanted to start conditioning him that his yaya was going away soon. He said and I quote: "(Sniff) I'm sad now. I don't want her to leave us."
Sigh! Like I said, it's too good to be true. So now I expect my stress level to go up another notch. And the new yaya hunting adventure begins.
