Tag Archives: nanny

When the housemaid’s away

Posted on by

It was a day I wasn’t especially looking forward to: our live-in helper and nanny Catherine the Great was leaving on a well-deserved vacation.

Not for the first time – she returns to the Philippines for a month each year, but usually this is while we’re gone over the summer. This year, she’s going twice because there’s a special occasion at home she really wanted to attend in March.

In other words, it’s the only time in four years she’s left us [hangs her head in shame] to our own devices in Dubai, with one-and-a-half jobs and the children to juggle. [Gasps]

I could tell she was nervous. She had a long journey ahead to Manila, albeit in business class, and a 10-hour coach ride to her village.

pic1We talked about what to wear on the plane, to be wary of fellow, drunken passengers (my main advice was to travel semi-smart – no flip-flops, no shorts – and she took this to heart, looking glam as she left). We discussed how I could contact her. Then I realised what it was she was actually nervous about.

She looked at me sagely: “Will you be okay Madame? With the two boys? All by yourself.”

The worry in her eyes was undisguisable. OMG, I thought, she thinks I won’t cope. She’s sure the household will fall to rack and ruin with me in charge.

“Of course!” I replied, with a squeaky, too-high voice. “We’ll be absolutely fine. But you will come back, won’t you?” I asked with a nervous laugh.

She assured me she would (PHEW!) and I told her to go upstairs and help herself to as many of the baby toys in the cupboard as she could fit in her suitcase.

philippinesHer family lives on a rice farm in an impoverished part of the Philippines. They don’t enjoy all the trappings that we do in the West and anything we can send over really helps. There’s probably a whole island wearing my old clothes from Gap and Monsoon; and much of our baby stuff has already been shipped to her sister, who recently gave birth.

We hauled her suitcases – practically splitting at the seams – to the door and called a taxi. I’d bribed BB and LB with sweets to be extra-nice in the hope she might miss them (one was, the other wasn’t, the little minx) and then it was time: to let.go.

With a swish of her long, black glossy hair, and one last worried glance back, she was gone.

And suddenly I was staring down the barrel of no childcare and a job to hold down for the next couple of weeks. The silence of the abyss she left behind would have been deafening if it wasn’t for the fact I had to put a kicking-and-screaming BB in time-out for bidding Catherine goodbye while STILL on his DS machine – after which he RAN AWAY.

*Good* start.

pic2But, and I know you can’t wait to hear how it’s going, things have gotten a lot better. Day one, to my amazement, was remarkably smooth, even quite blissful. We reveled in the independence, loved having the house to ourselves. I moved things around in the kitchen; reinstated control and was practically doing pirouettes around the broom.

“Wow,” I thought. “This isn’t so bad.”

Fast-forward nearly a week, and the novelty has begun to pall, though to be honest – other than not finishing all my chores until 10pm – I think DH might have noticed her absence more than me. I’m finishing a work contract, so he had to take vacation (not sure he’d exactly call it that) and has been holding the fort at home; yesterday accumulating neighbourhood children as the day went on like a Pied Piper of Dubai.

Help with childcare and chores aside, I genuinely miss her – she’s a true gem, a gentle, kind and sweet-natured person and an adult companion in the house with oodles more patience than me.

I REALLY hope she comes back.

Now, where did she say the iron was kept?

On falling in love with the bus nanny

Posted on by

The most wonderful thing came into our lives recently. Yellow and long, with chunky wheels, squeaky brakes and snotty noses pressed against the window.

It is, of course, the school bus and it saves us two hours a day through no longer trotting backwards and forwards on the school run.

We were on the waiting list for a year and, even now, BB’s ride home is only on ‘stand-by’, but so far there’s been space every day.

With a hop and a skip, he greets the bus nanny on board!

And, though only five years old, it makes him seem so grown up, so independent, all of a sudden. On hearing the bus come trundling down the hill, he bolts outside in a flash.

The doors clap shut and that’s it, he’s gone – his toast left half eaten on the sofa and cartoons still blaring from the TV. The first day I felt quite bereft.

Until I realised I could actually go back to bed for a bit.

Of course, I’ve worried about the ‘what ifs?’ – what mother wouldn’t? – especially as Dubai drivers tend to behave as though they’re riding the dodgems at the fairground and the highways here have at least eight lanes.

But he’s so excited by the bus buddies he’s made – and has fallen in love.

Buses in Dubai for primary school children have bus nannies on board. Ours is a sweet-natured lady from India with a kind smile and beautiful eyes. Her name is Shabina and, most likely, she has kids of her own back home, living with grandparents so she can earn money for their keep in Dubai.

Her days are dedicated to riding EK1 to school, waiting while the children are in lessons, then travelling back to our compound in the afternoon.

It’s not as easy as it sounds – she’s tasked with maintaining order on board and making sure all the kids keep their seat belts – and clothes – on (yes, really, last year someone stripped apparently).

Early this morning, I found BB writing a love note to Shabina on a card he’d made for her. “Muuum-mee, can you help me?” he asked, somewhat sheepishly. “I want to put ‘I love you bus nanny'”

Then he wrapped up a scented candle that was sitting on our bedside table (not a car or a train, like he usually chooses, but a candle! Surprisingly thoughtful!)

He’s adamant he’d rather we didn’t pick him up from school, like we did the other day to surprise him, because he’d prefer to ride home with his beloved bus nanny, who is so sweet she apparently even gives him a good-bye kiss.

So my big boy has his first school-boy crush and thinks he’s going to marry Shabina. When he’s 18 and reading this, he’s going to kill me for spilling the beans!

And if, like many of the Indian, Sri Lankan and Filipino workers over here, she does have her own children, I really hope she gets to go home to see them as often as possible.

A sticky story about having a housemaid (and please don’t go off me!)

Posted on by

It’s no secret that many of us here in Dubai have housemaids, who double up as nannies and sometimes cooks too. A very small minority even drive, meaning the school run is magically done too.

I’ve heard this wonderful perk described in various ways:

“My wife at home,” is a common one from expat mums, or “I should have married her!”

Another friend who’d just hired the sweetest lady from the Philippines told me, “She’s marvellous! She can stay at home and be me and I can go off and be somebody else!”

Introducing the efficient, gorgeous and all-round wonderful Catherine the Great (with baby LB)- can you tell how much we love her?!

And it’s amazing how you’re suddenly inspired to do baking, three-course meals, or catering for multiple kids when you have a self-cleaning kitchen.

The only draw-back is if you get too used to having a housemaid – dare I say it, dependent – it can be quite a shock when real-life catches up with you, ie, you have to move back to your home country (or go on a two-week holiday without her). In fact, it’s common for local families and a few expats to take their maids on vacation with them.

This summer in England, a friend asked me if our live-in nanny Catherine the Great spends her whole time tidying up after our two very messy boys.

Well, we are, in fact – and have been for some time – on a drive to get the boys to tidy their own toys, as a precaution against one of my worst fears, expat brat syndrome, which I’ve blogged about before.

But, inevitably, the rest of us, and in particular C.the.Grt who’s at home all day, still end up doing plenty of clearing up – and it drives BB bananas.

So he’s taken to using sellotape (American sp. scotch tape) to tape his trains, planes, cars, pieces of track and even lego to the floor – in the hope all his bits and pieces won’t get thrown back in the toy box.

Once he taped up the whole living room, cordoning it off like it was a crime scene that couldn’t be touched.

Double-sided, poster tape, mounting tape, he doesn't discriminate - he'll take what he can get

He also uses sellotape to make roadways on the floor and he gets through miles of the stuff.

I’ve found myself bribing him with it: “If you’re really good today BB, I’ll get you a roll of sellotape at the supermarket tomorrow!”

This morning I had two rolls stashed away, but BB found them and got busy. The end result was this sellotape superstructure, which we’ll be unsticking for days.

So that is the reason, my dear friends, why when your children receive a present from us, it’s always wrapped in Toys R Us gift paper – because our sellotape is all over our floor and is never, ever to be found when I need it.

PS: I really recommend two superbly written blogs by Dubai writers on this facet of expat life (housemaids, not sellotape) – Housewife in Dubai: Maid wanted: Must love cleaning and hate gossip and We have it maid by SandboxMoxie, who has good reasons for resisting the lure of live-in help.