The (real) luxury of being a stay at home mom

Stay at home mom (urbandictionary.com)

Definition: A mother that stays at her home during the day. Unemployed, usually with the husband supporting the family.

How many days of annual leave do you have? 14 days? 21 days? 25 maybe? 

A stay home mom doesn't have any. She also doesn't have a so-called time off. She's a full time mother 24-7, 365 days with NO annual leave, emergency leave or even medical leave. No public holidays and replacement leave too.

You earn a decent pay every month and love the freedom of using it at your own will.

A stay home mom depends on the husband for allowance. Unless you have other sources of passive income, or a husband as generous as Dear Hubby, please do not quit your job!  

If I'm a stay home mom, I can wake up at a later time.

WRONG! Babies are usually early birds. Mine wakes up without fail at 6am for milk and then 7.30am for breakfast. Sometimes they have nightmares and are awake at wee hours, refusing to sleep for hours.

A stay home mom has all the time in the world. Lucky her, all she does is sit at home while looking after a baby.

Really? All the time in the world? From my experience of being a stay home mom, the only time I get is when my baby is sound asleep. And that too depends on how fast you wash the dishes, milk bottles, etc, clean the spills on the floor from breakfast / lunch / dinner, pick up toys, do the laundry and ironing, prepare meals for both you and baby. After all the chores are done, and your baby is still sleeping, then maybe you'll have 'all the time in the world' before your baby wakes up.

You hate the traffic so much, you rather be a stay home mom so you can drive to anywhere you want at your own time and leisure?

Well again, you forgot about the baby's schedule. 

Baby's schedule

Definition: A fixed schedule your baby set for you in addition to the no leave policy. It is strongly advisable to adhere to the schedule as closely as possible to avoid major meltdown, tantrums, and crankiness.) 

Moreover, if your baby happens to fall into the category of car seat haters, be prepared for a screaming and crying baby all the way to your destination.

You would like to be a stay home mom who is seen happily doing her shopping while pushing a stroller with a smiling baby on board?

That's the ideal. Here's the actual scenario.

You saw a 50% sale sign board. You manoeuvre the stroller past the narrow aisle. You stop the stroller to look at some clothes. Barely 5 minutes, baby starts to scream. You put down the clothes and start pushing the stroller again. You saw a blouse that has your size and it's 50% off! You decided to try on. Damn, where do I put my baby?

How about groceries shopping? Sure, if your baby is old enough to be able to sit upright without help on the cart seat. Proceed to fold the stroller and place it in the shopping cart too. Also, please have two very strong arms to carry your baby and loading / unloading of the groceries.

How you wish that you're a stay home mom so you don't have laptop or heavy files to carry along every time you leave for work?

Try packing a baby bag. Diapers, changing mat, extra set of clothing, hanky, small piece of towel, water bottle, milk bottle, milk powder, Thermos flask with hot water, some snacks, wet wipes, pacifier (if your baby is dependent on it). Not to mention you'll have to bring along the stroller and your baby, of course. And don't forget your handbag / purse with driving license, I.D card and money! 

Still fancy to be a stay home mom?

p/s: If you do, can you please email me your company and position so I can apply for it once you quit your job? Thanks.

Natural Parenting

Dear Hubby says this is what happened between us.

Happy Halloween, people!

Mothercare Malaysia sales - October 2011

 

Mothercare Malaysia is having membership recruitment drive from 1st October till 31st October 2011. Just spend RM400 to become a Mothercare VIP card member instantly (Usual: Spend RM800 in 3 months to be a member). 

In addition to that, they are having apparel sales promotion of buy 1, get 30% off and buy 3, get 40% off. Spend a minimum of RM50 and you'll get to buy selected Early Learning Centre (ELC) toys at 50% discounts. For those who are expecting first newborn, you might want to take a look at Tommee Tippee electronic steam sterilizer kit (which includes 4 baby bottles, a bottle brush and a bottle tong) now selling at RM299.90 (Usual price: RM429.90). Not the cheapest sterilizer available, but it's a good buy since it comes with all the bottles. Don't forget to buy extra sachets of citric acid for descaling (Mothercare is selling it for RM3 per sachet -  and they get snap up pretty quickly because stocks are limited). Personal recommendation: Buy it at Babyland SS2 - RM15 for 10 sachets.

The countdown

31 days to go and I haven't even decided on my baby's name yet.

I am not feeling the excitement of naming baby #2 as much as my first one. One of those bleh-I-don't-give-a-damn in my pregnancy phase.

Just another story of the same bimbo

I realised I haven't been bitching about DH's ex-wife for quite some time now. Not that I develop a sudden sense of liking for her, but maybe I don't feel that bitter anymore with the past incidents. Or perhaps I'm all immune to her nonsense.

However, I still find it tempting to blog (or should I say bitch - as how Jen would put it) about her once in a while on her bimbo-ness. After our previous maid left for good, we decided to take over her maid who has been working with her for 10 years. Reason being she's still using DH's name for the maid's visa although she remarried 3 years ago. Not a good move to use her maid when I rather not have anything to do with her or her maid, but we are doing the maid a favor since she asked us to let her work for couple of years more to pay off her loans in Indonesia.

Now, the latest story is on how she owes her maid's salary. To cut the story short (and begin with the bitching part), the maid told me that her ma'am still owes her August's salary. And we're now in the month of October, aren't we? She tried asking for her pay but was offered partial payment first. So in the end, DH and I decided to loan the salary to the maid first so she can send it back to Indonesia for her children's living expenses. 

Sometimes I just find it rather "amusing" on how she manages her finances (not that it's my concern but if my maid is complaining to me everyday about her August's salary, then it does agitate me quite a bit). She can afford Crocs, bottles of expensive perfumes, hundreds of pairs of shoes, mountains of clothes (all told to me by her maid who works for her for 10 freaking years!) and yet she couldn't afford to pay her maid's salary? I say it's darn ironic. Oh... by the way, did I mention that her new maid quits on her after 5 days of work?

A typical morning

This is what we usually do on a wonderful crisp morning. Lots of cool air, grass and sunshine.
Five more weeks to go before delivery. I'm going to miss this routine of ours.

P.s: Pardon the poor quality photos on my blog recently. I've been too lazy to bring along a real camera and BB phone camera sucks big time.