Sunday extras and a dilemma

outcome of Sunday plan

• easy run with Sofia – GREAT! Her running friend joined too.
• Sofia-golf lesson 9am – Good play for Sofia, terrible for me. Just couldn’t get it right.
• Sofia and Lizzy soccer- 10:30-12pm – Good indoor practice
• Me- prepare lunch as our helper left yesterday – Enjoyed making new recipes
• Sofia- piano theory 3pm – uneventful
• Me: nail at 2:30pm and massage at 4pm – Rescheduled nail appt as didn’t want to leave the girls to hubby alone for 3-4 hrs, but did go to massage and it was okay. the lady didn’t use enough pressure.

Sunday extras:

I made a new batch of 50/50 bread using a glass bowl and look how high it went.

so soft inside. I definitely will keep making it with this new technique.

Also made a traditional rice sausage dish, one of my mom’s favorite. First time making for the family and received a lot of praises

I also baked Costco marinated salmon and few vegetables.

Sofia’s balanced plate. She asked for more sausages and Lizzy loved the salmon.

I am grateful that cooking doesn’t stress me, unlike to my BFF, daily chore for her while I cook when I want to show love to my family, and to relax. How lucky I have it in my pocket so easily for both purposes.

Now to the dilemma. Another extra we had at home was yelling. Yelling to the girls mainly as they are the spoiled girls that wherever they go, they trash the room. They are so used to start something and leave it behind as the helper would clean up later. Their rooms in the morning with stuffed toys everywhere looks like a war zone. We didn’t have helper yesterday so hubby and I went nuts. It made me realize that 5 years living with helper(s) really got them and us into bad habits. We don’t tidy up, we leave trash everywhere, we make a mess wherever we go. Not all the time, but most of the time. Even for adults, we don’t make our bed anymore, we leave used clothes anywhere that’s convenient instead of the laundry bag, just because somebody will tidy up later.

I am conflicted about it because it is 100% convenient to have somebody do these for us. Yet, I don’t like to get used to it forever, especially my girls. Although they know how to do age-appropriate chores, they don’t incorporate them into daily life. Yet, it’s so cheap to have helpers in the Philippines, the country is the main exporter of world helpers, so they are wonderful. I heard from colleagues in Indonesia that helpers and drivers there are even nicer. So shall we just continue this life style and risk our girls one day don’t even how to cross street when they are 21 years old? (it happened to the daughter of one colleague that grew up here and went to Canada for college).

On the other hand, I don’t want to get into daily fight with hubby and the girls forever. It put me in a bad mood and it put them in a bad mood. Not good for the long run.

A compromise idea is to have a live-out helper as we will have starting today, and ask everybody to tidy up as they go, so it would be a gradual process to incorporate some good habits. I’ve told the girls that they’ll have to tidy up their rooms every morning, and that Sofia will be tasked to clean dishes after dinner while Lizzy will clean/mop the table. The helper will focus on cleaning the bathrooms, floors, kitchen, laundry, and cooking.

I’m not sure whether this partial helper would work, but can’t think of anything better at the moment that doesn’t involve 24/7 battle with the girls and hubby, and bad vibe in the house.

Finger crossed we make some progress on that front.