Hotel Serangoon

After months and months of struggling with household chores, cooking and caring for 2 kids, husband and I decided to give ourselves break and temporarily shift into Hotel Serangoon aka my IL's place. :p

We thought long and hard about this before making the move. There were several advantages, namely:

1) Nutritious home-cooked food for Ying Ying (goodbye to packet food from food court)

2) Household help (no more leaving the kids to watch DVDs while I hang out the clothes/mop the floor/cook)

3) Less 30mins of daily driving for husband whose office is located in the west

4) 50% reduced travelling time to town for classes

5) Pet therapy (see previous post)
6) Pool!!! (the girls love it.)

Downside?

1) Lack of privacy (of course)

2) Lack of space (can't be helped)

3) TV influence* (solution: distract the girls or take them out when the TV is on)

4) Occasional smoking fr FIL** (solution: block door gap)

5) Broken English fr SIL (what to do? Nobody's perfect and I don't speak Queen's English either.)

6) Spoiled kids? (Does not watching mummy do household chores make them spoiled girls in future?? Just like my SIL??? Then again, my mum has no helper and I still think my brother is spoiled rotten!)

* My ILs are huge TV addicts and I really can't stand how they often invite meimei to climb up the couch and ask her to 'watch TV, watch TV' (!!!) or how my FIL sometimes switches on the Disney channel so that he could feed Ying Ying her meal. (This girl shows no interest in self-feeding, apart from her favourite cakes and ice cream. Haiz.)

** To his credit, my FIL only does his smoking in his toilet though we can still smell whenever we walk past the corridor and sometimes in the living room when he thinks we have all retreated into our bedroom though I can still smell it with my hypersensitive nose. But I discovered the foul smell can be easily blocked out by stuffing some soiled clothings at bottom of our bedroom door. Thank goodness the unit is airy.

Well, it has been exactly 2 weeks since our move and all has been good so far. I suddenly have more time with the kids without feeling stressed up over meal preparation, laundry and cleaning. Husband could finally read his papers in peace after a hard day's work, without me nagging him to watch the girls or do the dishes. My life is now focused on meeting the needs of the children - taking them to school, feeding them, bathing them, taking them on outings. Compared to previously, isn't this some kinda holiday or what? :p