This afternoon, because a cockroach suddenly appeared in the kitchen out of nowhere, I had to wake Jon from his nap because there is no insect I fear more than the cockroach. He summarily disposed of it before grouchily resuming his nap on the sofa whilst Daniel made a lot of noise around him (Mission Sunday Afternoon Nap: Fail) and Andrew rolled around the playmat making his unhappiness with his inability to do more known.
(I carried on cooking. Jon was eventually forced to wake up, nehnehnibooboo.)
There are wooden blocks, train tracks and Duplo strewn all over the sofa and playmat. Before I turned off the living room lights just now, I noted that some parts of the playmat were gleaming suspiciously, from where Daniel knocked into our bowl of chicken macaroni soup at dinnertime because he was trying to sit on my lap when Andrew had already usurped that place (I had offered him a spot on my calves). I'd wiped up the spilt soup with two Huggies wet wipes, pushed Andrew, who was on his front and yowling, further away from the damp area, and continued feeding Daniel from my bowl, despite his earnest entreaty Want to feed the me. A pile of newspapers sits messily folded next to the sofa where Jon left them, and I have no idea where the TV remotes are. Again.
Tomorrow, when my mother brings the boys back here after BSF, she will sigh inwardly and resist the urge to WhatsApp me to say Your house is so messy again! Depending on how tired she is, she will make a stab at doing some tidying, throwing the toys higgledy-piggledy into that ubiquitous clear plastic Ikea box on wheels which I'm sure you have in your house too, shuffling the pages of the newspapers back together and putting them by the door so I can start amassing a new stack for the karang guni man. I told Jon we should just switch to the digital version of the Straits Times, but the uncle who delivers it came to our door to collect arrears in our subscription two Saturdays ago, and after that, I felt like I wanted to continue giving him our business.
I have done two loads of laundry this weekend, stuffing the drum to the very brim each time - which probably means that the clothes aren't very clean and it's not good for the motor? But who cares? - and our dryer is on the fritz, meaning there is a high chance the boys' clothes won't dry properly until one or two days later because they are air-drying indoors together with Jon's and my clothes. I mopped the kitchen floor with very hot water after cooking enough food for 2-3 meals, but it still felt oily underfoot when I was done with the dishes. I strained my left shoulder just a little bit reaching under the sofa for the tub of Sudocrem, where Daniel had rolled it earlier.
A mass of unopened mail sits atop the study table; neither Jon nor I have actually sat at it in recent months. A colony of ants, intent on tormenting me, use the doorframe of my bathroom as an expressway to goodness knows where their nest is (it better not be in my house). Despite my part-time help's and my best efforts, we have been unable to deter them.
Bits of toast, soil, and miscellaneous debris have gathered on the floor of the car just below Daniel's car seat. I will, at some point this week, wipe the visible layer of dust off the dashboard with a wet towel from our date night last Friday. And I should really be sleeping, but it has been some time since I've written and I finally had some time to do so tonight.
Jon is going to the Philippines, again, for three of the five work days in the coming week.
***
It struck me today, just as it has almost every day since the confinement nanny left, that life would be easier with live-in help. W says no one will think the worse of me for it, and I agree; I don't think it's a matter of pride though. J has commented that he thought my house would be neater, since one must have a good dose of OCD to not have live-in help, I suppose, and I admit I am not OCD enough about most things (Jon may tell you otherwise).
Perhaps it will mean that the boys' noses will finally stop running All The Time, and my hands will start feeling soft again. Having to wash dishes and milk bottles almost every day is taking its toll, and I don't like wearing gloves because how will you know if the dishes are truly clean? And then I have to scrub my hands with soap too many times a day, especially over the weekend. Today alone, I changed six post-poo diapers and administered 5 baths because Daniel keeps asking for a bath after he poos (of course, given the increase in water prices and the drying effects of soap, they aren't full baths).
Perhaps I will finally have the balls to toilet train him by force (I console myself by telling myself he's not ready), because someone else will be doing the laundry and cleaning up the accidents, and at meal times we will sit at the dining table instead of having picnics on the playmat and he will feed himself because someone else will be doing the dishes and cleaning up the food he spills on the floor (which, to his childcare centre's credit, isn't very much).
Perhaps the both of them will transform into those magical 12 hour children who go to bed at 7.30pm and wake at 7.30am the next morning.
Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps (bet you saw that coming!).
***
In all honesty, it's been about three months since I went back to work full time, and I don't think I would have it any other way. People say it's "amazing" or "incredible" that we don't have live-in help, but I really don't think it is - it's just something I have chosen, and there are thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of other women out there doing the exact same thing, and a sizeable proportion with more than two children, probably. Plus we are blessed to be living near both sets of grandparents and be able to afford quality childcare and get a government subsidy for it. Admittedly, I am tired a lot, and I do wonder whether I should be spending cooking and washing-up time sitting on the playmat building tall tall towers...
But there are now talk-talks and song requests before Daniel finally turns to his side and falls asleep, which I usually indulge even if it's getting late, and the laughter and huge, toothless smiles which break across Andrew's face when Daniel does something to amuse him (you know the sort of smile I am talking about, to think there will only be a few more months of it! On that note, no he has not cut his first teeth and the Tooth Fairy is definitely not real). I'm not saying I wouldn't experience these things if we had live-in help, but it's just different, I think, being always there (and sometimes it sucks, although it's generally okay I guess, And actually I am not "always there", but you know what I mean). The layout of our flat also means that we would have to share our private space, because we didn't have the foresight to partition off part of our (quite large) kitchen.
And it's things like being the one they look to for a diaper change, a bath, a meal, or when it's time for a nap, that is the stuff love is made of and relationships are built on; the boring, routine, yucky, mundane stuff, which makes serving your family something of intrinsic worth (that's what I tell myself when I spread moisturiser on Daniel's bum for the nth time in a day because Mummy isshhee).
It's taken me some time to accept that sacrifices have to be made, to realise that #fomo is just that - a fear of missing out, which can be cast out by love (okay, paraphrasing the Bible and probably taking it out of context, which means it's time to sleep). It is a lesson I think I will go on learning for the rest of my life though, or at least until the children (we may stop at two after all) are more independent.
Finally, just in case this was starting to sound like something from The Invasion of the Body Snatchers, it is apt for me to end this by quoting M:
All this is not because noble, but because boh bian.
