Moved!!

I hope those of you who are reading this have a much better start to the New Year than me. I can’t say I have the worst start but it definitely could have been better.

I had moved back to my own place with my family on the 2nd of January, Friday. This is to prevent my relationship with my parents going further south. During the 3 months that we were there the tension just kept getting worse. So finally on New Year’s day the Mrs and I discussed and decided that we really have to move back to give each other more space and time to repair what was damaged and more importantly prevent any more unpleasantness.

It was an easy decision to make but we were worried that they might be further offended so I got my sis to help break the news to them. For some unknown reason my sis has to be the bridge of communication between my parents and I for serious matters. Anyway luckily for us they are both in agreement that this is the best for everyone.

The irony here is we wanted to move out to prevent any direct conflicts between my dad and me but now that we are home, it is my mum who is giving me a hard time. At first she was sad and disappointed that our relationship deteriorated so quickly but now it has gone from sad and disappointed to bitter and anger.

As my parents are not really the confrontational type so I had to send my sis to go and talk to them to see where according to them the problem lies because quite frankly I had no clue. All I can sense is that we are all not very happy.

After my sister’s probe and investigation, we realized that the problem lies with Ani and our ‘protection’ of her. My mum is upset that as a family we are ‘divided’ by a maid and that we are taking her sides and words over theirs.

In our defence, we are not protecting Ani but merely stating the facts. Since the last major issue between Ani and my dad we learnt that it has all got to do with 2 sets of methods of doing things and clearly my parents needed Ani to do it their way which is fine except that she has to do it ‘wrong’ first before she learns that my parents prefer it to be done in another way. Unfortunately there were probably too many ‘wrongs’ hence my parents are getting impatient and harsh with her to the extent that she rather not use her initiative to offer assistance for fear of getting scolded again.

We learnt now that it has gotten to a point that there is this stigma in the way they perceive Ani and her work. What is scary to me is what they perceived to be real they will believe in it whole heartedly. If we were to try and explain on her behalf then we will be deemed as siding her.

They also feel that Ani is always throwing our names at them but as an employee I can understand this act. If my direct boss asks me to do something in a certain way and his boss comes after me for that, my natural instinct will be to inform him that it was my immediate superior who asked me to do it in this manner. She has to defend her actions and that is to tell them that we had asked her to do it.

At the end of the day are all very small and trivial matters and I know that majority of their complaints have good and well intentions behind them. They are doing this for their love of Isaac but I still feel that there are simply too many things they are unhappy with already. Take for example my dad complained that Isaac’s nails were cut too short. Upon examining, the Mrs find that maybe only 1 of 10 was a little shorter but there was no blood and she understands that sometimes due to Isaac’s own movement this can happen so she will continue to monitor.

Another latest incident was my dad complained that Ani poured away the porridge and she is impatient with feeding Isaac. There is of course another side to this. Ani will feed Isaac porridge and there will come a point whereby he doesn’t want it anymore so he will spit it all out. After a few more tries then she will conclude that Isaac really doesn’t want it anymore so whatever is left in the bowl she will throw away and this is usually not a lot because by now she can roughly estimate how much will Isaac take. In regards to being patient when feeding him, I have to state that she is the most patient of us all.

It now came to a point that we dare not defend or explain on her behalf anymore so we will just go ‘Orh’ and then we will monitor at our end. For this I feel rather sorry towards Ani because I am unable to clear her name but this is the best for now. The plan is to move back and get off each other’s back for the next 3 months and hopefully things will improve.

My current headache now is what to do with Ani and all 3 babies after 3 months. I know for a fact that if we were to send them back to my dad’s place then all these nonsense will start again. So our only options are to send them to my MIL’s place or get a second maid and leave them all at home. We would rather not have to pick the latter unless absolutely necessary.

Guess we will cross the bridge when we come to it. Now we just want to enjoy some peace and quiet at our own home and look forward to the Twins’ arrival at the end of this month.