Wasiyah, You Are Bloody Fired!

I've fired my maid and sent her packing back to Indonesia.

It is easy for me to write about this now but when it first happened, it was definitely a huge challenge.

Over the last few months, the maid had slackened in her duties. Let's not even talk about petty things like house chores. She failed with the upkeep of cleanliness with baby's clothings, toys and generally, was not interested to care for my baby. All day, she only wants to feed the baby milk and instant rice cereals. She was not competent to cook for baby. In the middle of the night, she was not interested to hold the baby when baby cried. Every day, I take out the toys for her to play with baby but she doesn't use them.

All she cared about was to ask to go downstairs.
On the pretext of bringing baby to the playground, she would beg me, my husband and my mother to let her go out of the house. I refused because I sensed she had a different agenda.

All this time I put up with her nonsense as I felt that she was good with the baby and baby liked her over me. This is natural as I spend very little time with my baby on each working week. I leave home at 7 and will only be back by 730. I only have about an hour with baby before she goes to bed. Although I sleep with baby, the night feed is a toil to my restfulness.

Whatever the case, stress built up and I had tolerated with the situation.

On Sunday & Monday, Kiki had fever and I stayed home. My neighbour then called to inform me that she spotted my maid out with Kiki on two ocassions. She questioned the maid about whether I approved of her going out of the house and the maid lied that I did. With the pouring rain and chilly weather these past days, Kiki caught a cold and fell sick after all the rendevous. Mind you, my neighbour caught her twice but nobody knows exactly how many times she went out with my baby.

On Tuesday, the maid went missing on her own for several hours.
This was the last straw for me and I took her to the police to file a report.
Then I brought her back to the agent, bought her a plane ticket and sent her home.
She did not apologise nor was she remorseful.
I could have slapped her or shaved her head bald but I didn't.
I told myself that life with take care of it.
I let it passed.

And so my bonding with my baby began.

I used "bonding" and not "re-bonding" because it is a fact that I hadn't done my part to bond with my baby in the first place.

I had always thought that since I have to be away at work, it was better that the baby does not cling to me. Boy, am I wrong! Was I so damn wrong.

I thank Goodness that this happened as I've learnt a valuable lesson.
I am the mother.
No matter now incompetent I feel, I must not be incompetent!
Gosh, what a phrase. Ha ha.

I thank my mom for being around, my sis for ferrying us around to the new agent and to the doctors, and of course my husband for firstly, the moral support (he said "Don't Let the maid back in the house") with that, I took care of it. Secondly, for also being more involved with the baby.

We both felt very hurtful that this happened at the expense of our baby but we both drew strength that we have become more resourceful and in fact, are more competent than we thought of ourselves.

Lastly, I thank my bosses and colleagues for letting me have my time off with peace of mind from work, and also lastly, to my Godma, aunties & cousins for caring and the moral support.

And so it is.