Raising Rockstar

Rockstar had a raging eye infection when he woke up Saturday morning, necessitating a trip to the ped (nothing very contagious, just that he’d felt something in his eye the previous day, and the rubbing and touching his eyes repeatedly eventually introduced the bacteria) – it was down just as quickly as it flared up, with antibiotics. But to us that’s something because I can’t even remember the last time Rockstar was prescribed antibiotics – 3, 4 years ago maybe – I’m constantly on his back not to touch his face with his hands in general (just really cuts down the number of times he gets sick). Unfortunately Kings was working the entire weekend again, and wasn’t even contactable on the phone til near the end of the day (because he was a keynote speaker) so Rockstar and I navigated the crowded Central area with me praying we don’t bump into anyone I know.

No such luck. Murphy’s Law of Looking Langgar (rough translation: A Mess) is, the worse you look, the more likely you will meet someone you know. Furthermore there will be a very high likelihood that it’ll be when you are lugging two heavy kiddie scooters because you were a glutton for punishment after your son saw the ped and so decided not to waste a trip, then attempting to pick up a toddler scooter simply because It’s Almost Time For Her.

You will then feel colossally bad that your son is doing such a bang-up job of staying away from any other kids around and not touching things in the store until you have cleaned his hands with your trusty pocket-sized sanitizer just in case he touched his face and forgot, and there you are getting wheels for your other child. I did remind him he has blades and a skateboard but still, I couldn’t bring myself to not offer him a scooter too.

And so here we are a-scooting.

And so that is how you will be lugging two scooters in to the Mandarin Oriental hoping the taxi queue is shorter having given up on two other queues that were nearer, and that is when you will meet people who are appropriately dressed for the Mandarin Oriental, unlike yourself.

So anyway. Got home, was in foul mood, had bed stripped twice because helper mixed clean with dirty bedding the first time (like, what’s the point?), and next thing you know it’s That Day Which You Loathe Traipsing About Alone With The Kids On, Sunday.

They say God uses even your lousiest circumstances for His purpose (oh wait they really did, in the sermon last week) and well it appears He uses your little annoying ones too. I’m wondering how I’m going to swing bringing Her Highness and newly mostly recovered Rockstar whom I still want to disinfect and disinfect again, all by myself.

My thoughts would go something like this: Come on, Aileen. Give it up. There is just no way you manage to bundle those two and cab across town, sanitizing where you shall put the younger one the way you are wont to do on all public transport, sanitizing the older one just in case he has any infectious bodily fluids coming from his eyes or maybe nose (he didn’t, just that the words “bacterial infection in eyes” creep me out), check the older one in to children’s service and proceed to entertain the younger, who will most probably charge up and down the aisle in back, maniacally waving the handout about, AND still feel all receptive to a blessed time of worship and one-ness with God. 

(Catches a breath) That would be about when it turns out one of Rockstar’s good friends (and mum) wouldn’t mind coming to church with us and suddenly I have company for service, Rockstar gets to have one of his favorite playmates in children’s service, we even manage to bum a ride home. I don’t have to sanitize any taxis! How cool is that?? 

Them coming back from church – in That Which I Did Not Have To Sanitize

This even happened! Whoot!

The most awesome thing is next time Kings is away weekends, Rockstar and I have Church Buddies. I even have help with Miss Maniacally Waving Sermon Handout In Back. Kings can now be gone as much as he likes. Well, almost. (In fact, he wildly prefers the late 5pm service, except there is no children’s service then, so I’m even toying with the idea of occasionally going for early service while he sleeps in, and then swinging back with him in the evening.)

For real though, I’ve blogged about how I preferred to be anonymous attending alone in case I might be well, judged <ducks head because surely not that many are going to judge you right? Right?> Even now Kings may be Christian and newly baptized but he still has to work some weekends because that’s when some of the biggest opportunities in events are and his business is just picking up, and that’s still going to suck. And there you (well, I) will be all self conscious and trying to fit in and somewhere out there is going to be someone full of judgment. Like it’s not already a little hard to show up alone. Murphy’s Law of Meeting Other Christians is you are likely to meet the one out of a hundred, a thousand, who is like that. Because there really aren’t that many judgmental ones are there, so let’s just blame ole’ Murph.

And then we get home all buzzed and happy from a great time and find……….. the home has been tidied up. Now, you have to understand how absolutely essential our helper’s holidays are to her. We were quickly erm, trained not to mess with her days off – because we pay her double and everything, but she often simply cannot keep from making the most hare-brained mistakes. It was like you pay her double and she punctures the ball pool kind of thing, just not worth it (I have almost never been able to deduct any helpers’ salary for stuff they break, this one actually volunteered to pay and I took it up the once, but in general I always just think the helper makes so little already). So anyway she’s young, she has a boyfriend, she’s just got to be allowed out for a break or she can barely function.

So our helper wakes 5am on Sundays (only then haha regular days she used to have a real problem waking up before me) to do what we need her to do and then get to maximize her time out, especially as last week I already requested she work half day so I could go with Rockstar to church, and she notices Kings in work garb about to drop me and the kids before going to his function and asks if Kings is actually working (because I didn’t mention for her to stay). I think nothing of this until we get back after service around noon and discover she tidied up our whole home before leaving. Sigh. People ask me why we don’t change helpers asap for all the hare-brained mistakes and our unwillingness to leave her alone with Little Miss unless Her Highness is either napping or feeding and I would say I feared ending up with someone worse. This would be what I mean, we’ve never had a helper who volunteered to have her salary deducted, tried to resign (rather than get fired and paid off) and well, this. Oh, I’m pretty sure she’ll drive me nuts about something else soon, but at least lemme enjoy her gesture til then…

And so Kings came home and took over feeding Her Highness from me while I had a glass of Penfolds Shiraz. What I was thinking as he sat down opposite her to finish the feed was how she must be thinking Ah Fresh Meat For The Baby Lion. (Fine, dragon). But he valiantly sat through the gradually half-hearted theatrics to get out of eating.

Like so (note foot)…..

We enter the elevator to see a baby strapped to a helper. The reason I notice the helper with the baby boy, who looks about a year old, is because when Little Miss and I enter, they’re standing/ hanging in a corner of the lift, and it isn’t going anywhere. In a nod to what I shall dub Parent Karma (that is someone’s baby and you try to do the best you can because you can’t be with your own kids 24 hours a day and you hope somewhere out there someone else who encounters your kids when you aren’t around is also doing the best they can) I try to make eye contact because I’m guessing the helper is new and lost while handling someone’s baby, but she steadfastly does not look at me.

So I turn back to key in the communal floor that is our destination. Slowly, making sure she can see me, because I also suspect she doesn’t know how to use the lift, which has laminated instructions right next to the button panel because it’s slightly more complicated than the regular lifts.

I roll the stroller off on one of the public floors half expecting Helper With Baby Attached to follow, but she doesn’t. Ok, so maybe she’s going home instead and forgot to key her floor in, I think. Until two minutes later when we see her exit the lift again, cast me a very sheepish look and quickly disappear around a corner while I’m just entering the next lift, still with baby attached.

My first thought is Wow She Is So Lucky The Baby Still Hasn’t Complained 😀 and I take it she had quickly learned to key the same floor she had watched me key. Except I’m not sure she then knew how to get back to her own apartment. But she’s disappeared too fast and the occupants of the new lift are looking at me expectantly.

That’s when I notice the Asian toddler in the stroller. Except the woman attached to the stroller is Caucasian. (Well one of our pastors who is Caucasian adopted 4 kids, 2 of whom are from the Mainland, and has taxi drivers ask him “Do you have two wives?” which is all manner of funny when you think of the taxi driver assuming the Chinese wife then also just has killer DNA :D) …The little boy in the other stroller has taken quite an interest in Little Miss’ ride, and is pointing to the large wheels and saying “tractor”.

“No, that is not a tractor, those are the big wheels on the stroller. Can you say that?” He dutifully attempts to repeat as many of the words as he can, and when Little Miss reaches over to examine his ride (so not the shy one, of my two kids), I explain “She’s very comfortable with older boys because she has a brother…. He’s a bit over 5-and-a-half though…”

“He’s two, how old is she?” The other Asian woman in the lift who replies must be his mother. Ah, so the woman pushing his stroller must be his nanny/ English tutor. His mother says something briefly to him in…… it’s not Chinese, but it’s too few words for me to hazard a guess…. Korean? Japanese? Rockstar is around quite a few Korean friends and schoolmates and has better Korean-dar than me, but of course he’s at school.

The lift door opens, and the Korean? Japanese? boy and his nanny exit, still practicing a few English phrases, as his mother follows along…

Back to Baby Attached To Helper. She wasn’t carrying anything – not diaper bag, not bottle, nothing, just the baby, so I really hope she found her way home. If she hung about the lifts long enough one of the reception guards would probably come find her, since they can see her on the CCTV – our helper tells us she got stuck in one of the lift lobbies and they helped her out. Not sure about the corner of the park this helper’s disappeared into, though. It occurred to me this new helper didn’t want to admit to her employers that she has no idea how to navigate the lifts or parks, or else she didn’t want to tell them she still didn’t know how to, after they’d showed her. And she’s obviously been left alone with this baby for the moment. Maybe for the day.

It occurred to me the two children Little Miss and I met this morning live in this pretty nice development, but the care they are receiving is just worlds apart.

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OK I get mildly peevy messages if I don’t post something about the Rockstars (Uh, no, people don’t come here to read what I write. They tolerate what I write because of pictures :D)

So here now, Little Miss stars in a 5 second skit titled “Going, going, gone.” Guess why?

(I KNOW. One little biscuit stick, so many faces.)  

There are the regulars at Wisekids Playroom who can more or less recognize each other even if they don’t go there daily, and there are the relative strangers. At some point Little Miss and I crossed categories, after I got her a season pass for the month.

(Season passes btw are totally underrated if you have a baby/toddler – without the monthly HKD 1152-with-member-discount pass, you’re looking at HKD 126-also-member-price for every 90 minute session. The problem is the 90 minutes is based on a rigid timing, meaning you pay the same price even if your baby was asleep and you only showed up in the last 30 minutes. If you then want to do the next session, that’s another HKD 126. With the pass however, you can show up for as many 20-minutes-remaining sessions as you want, based completely on whether Her Highness feels like it or you’re still enjoying your caramel machiato as she coos happily with another toddler at the next table, and don’t feel the pain.)

Anyway back to the story. As we start recognizing regulars, a local mum asks curiously if we have a helper – there are often more helpers than mums on weekdays because it’s a nice, safe, clean environment to park helper and child while you run errands I suppose, and we’ve never brought a helper.

Her own helper I had previously identified as being one of the “better” ones, with her 18 month old charge, let’s call him Georgie. Now, we just got back from a total 4 weeks of travel over summer without a helper, so there is a very small part of me that is wistful about being able to farm your child off for a feeding or occasional diaper change. (N-ot very much, but still). Sometimes I even What If? when it comes to missing a career/ former life.

So I chat with Other Mum for awhile before our kids toddle off in different directions, and then after snack time “it” happens. We’re all filing and toddling back into the main play area when Other Mum’s helper calls out, “Georgie, look!” as she cuddles another toddler. Georgie runs further ahead from his mum wailing a little and clinging to the helper who coos, “Aw, we’re jealous?” I duck my head and walk swiftly around them trying not to register the scene, but not quickly enough that I don’t hear Georgie’s mum, “What about this, Georgie? What if Mummy does it, would you be jealous too?”

One of our ex helpers did similar while I worked. Not to the extent of a cuddle, but in a baby class she repeatedly called Rockstar away from me. Finally, I bellowed “Call my son away from me while I am talking to him one more time and YOU’RE FIRED.”

pic from tumblr.com

“DO YOU HEAR ME???” I wasn’t sure she did you see, she was too busy looking around at how many of her friends had heard.

I HOPE THEY ALL DID. Otherwise I didn’t do it right. (By nature I just have too long a fuse. Takes me like, forever.) I quit not too long after that. Then I fired her.

Anyway that’s when I stopped missing my job. That’s when I stopped wondering if I should get a helper who is better with the childcare. Because you look for the best possible “package” to suit your confluence of wants, needs, probability of getting them and well, the odds are just too low that you ever find a helper who is not only good with kids but lets you irrevocably be the mum.

Other Mum didn’t blow. She didn’t have a choice – she has 3 kids and as a stewardess flies at least 10 days a month. I felt so sorry for her. I’m not sure she’d like that so I settled for pretending I didn’t see. I know another mum in banking whose helper announced at an extended family gathering that “of course” the boy toddler under her care loved her best.

That’s when I stop thinking helpers who are good with childcare are better. They are not doing their job of supporting the working mum. So if you ever find that mythical caregiver – the helper who actually takes care of your child well and doesn’t fight with you for your child’s affections – pay her the freaking earth and don’t ever let her leave.

Little Miss at snack time That Day (she’s often the tiniest/youngest joining that many activities, but thanks to Rockstar, which he is very proud of, she isn’t cowed easily by the bigger kids – even when they bowl her over)