Our new nanny's arrived

I took a day off yesterday to pick up our new nanny and to get her settled in with the kids. So far so good, the kids are not 'rejecting' her. In fact, they're quite happy to engage her in small talks and play. Whew!!! However, they're still reluctant for her to feed, bathe or put them to bed. I guess it takes time. So today's another day for them to get used to having her around. Tomorrow Aunty Ann will have to take on her full role as a nanny since I'll be away for 2 whole days on a work assignment in Penang. What bad timing! Hopefully everything will be smooth running while I'm away *fingers crossed*

thank you and bye bye aunty

Today's our nanny's last night with us before she leaves tomorrow morning. Despite her shortcomings, which are small compared to the support she's rendered us over the past one year, we're really grateful to have her. As a small token of appreciation, I got her a Coach wristlet and a thank you card. The kids were happy to write the card and give her the present. I forgot to take a picture of what H wrote, but this was what he wrote and he wrote it all by himself (the message also came from himself):

I Love uoy Sophia popo
H and L

H has a tendency to somtimes write in mirror image. Perhaps this is due to him being a left hander when he was younger, so he gets confused sometimes.

Anyway, the kids are certainly going to miss their nanny. Let's hope they will like the next nanny just as much. Thank god Sophia promised to come back if things dont' work out with the next nanny. She's promised to stand in until we finally find someone right :-)

THANK YOU AUNTY SOPHIA!

nanny interview guide and orientation checklist

I have no recollection whatsoever of me ever being so organised. While searching through my external hard disk looking for an old work document, I stumbled upon two really useful files. I actually had a nanny interview guide and a nanny orientation pack, both I wrote more than a year back (L was only 10 months old then) when we had to resort to advertising in search for a stranger as nanny.

I'm so happy. I can just update and re-use the orientation checklist when the new nanny arrives. Po-Po and I have been preparing the kids about having a new nanny so that it won't be a shock to them. Both kids have different reactions whenever the topic is broached.

H: Remember what I said, I don't need a new aunty <getting into his complaining mode>

L: I want the pink aunty

I'm not sure if L really understood us when we told her that she's getting a new nanny. Po-Po asked which one is the pink aunty (we met 4 aunties that day so perhaps L has a preference over one of them). But for the life of me, I don't remember what anyone of them wore. I've never been the observant type. Maybe hubs will remember - must remember to ask him tonight.

 

Here's a copy of the interview guide. Please PM me if you'd like a copy of the orientation pack for reference.

Our nanny search (Part II)

It was a hectic weekend for us. We spent the whole Saturday interviewing prospective nanny candidates. The kids were with us the whole time. I felt really bad that we have to drag them along, but there was no one to look after them at home. So the whole time we were out, we kept getting asked the same questions over and over again where are we going?

L: We go where?
Me: Not we go where, dear. Where are we going (see that's what I meant by bad English)
L: Where are we going?
Me: We're going to meet a new aunty
H: I don't want a new aunty
Me: Then who's going to take care of you and mei mei
H: Mommy and daddy
Me: But mommy and daddy need to go to work. Who's gonna take care of you when we're at work?
H: Kakak lina

I've had the same discussion with hubs before going ahead with the nanny search. Is a nanny really neccesary now that the kids are somewhat independent? I mean, H is already in preschool and L is definitely ready to stay in nursery all 5 days a week. My mom (the kids' Po-Po) are with them most afternoons anyway. My maid, who's so far been quite trustworthy, can start to take over the nanny's duties. But after much debate, we figured we should still have another trusted adult at home so that Po-Po doesn't have to be tied down and we would still need someone to cook dinner anyway.

So we've now confirmed a new aunty to come for a one-week trial period starting 3rd week Oct. Hopefully the kids will accept her well. If not, we have another 2 back-ups :-)

If only I can take the kids to work...

Our nanny search

So far our search for a nanny has been less than promising. There are a few new criteria learning from our experience with our current nanny

1. The nanny must speak good english, else none at all - we don't want our kids to pick up broken english since they will be spending more time at home with her than us.  Hubs gets mad each time he hears H speaking with 'lahs' and 'mahs', and we get worried over L's pronunciation and grammar since she's still at the impressionable age of 2. It was difficult telling our current nanny not to speak english to the kids as we didn't want to hurt her feelings. We tried the roundabout way of telling her we wanted the kids to learn cantonese, etc. but this didn't quite work. Finally hubs had to be straight forward with her. Not sure if she really understood him but after some failed attempt of speaking to the kids in cantonese, she reverted back to using her limited english. This time round, we figured it will be much easier if we tell the non-english speaking nanny upfront during the interview that she is NOT to speak english to the kids
2. The nanny must like to cook and can cook up decent meals - this is high on hubs list of requirements, not such a big deal for me since I don't care much for food. But I do agree that the nanny should at least put in some effort when she cooks. We've been practically eating the same food every day for a year, and they are rather simply whipped together. Zero effort! Some nights I would have to teman hubs out to grab dinner cos he can't bear eating the same food over and over again. Really defeats the purpose of having home cooked meals if you have to go out and get your own dinner. We're not expecting 5-star michelin quality dinner, but some effort into cooking would be nice.

I've spoken to 24 candidates over the phone, interviewed 3 (out of which 1 is on my 'maybe' list), about to interview another 1 this weekend (I have quite high hopes on her since she's the only one who speaks english, hopefully she doesn't disappoint), and another 2 more hopefuls whom I have yet to set up interviews with. So the search goes on...

Finding a local nanny

Hubs and I, we are strong believers of outsourcing. Not that we are bad parents, we dote on our kids, but we believe that there are things that we need to be personally involved in (i.e. value added stuff like reading to them, communicating with them, giving them lots of hugs and kisses, etc.) and others which can be outsourced (i.e. mundane non-value adding chores like feeding and washing, etc.). So to cut the long story short, our nanny has just informed us that she is resigning so once again we are on the look out for a new nanny for the kids.

I remembered how we panicked when our previous nanny (whom we got through a friend's recommendation) resigned. This time we know the drill. Our friends are usually curious (slanting towards disbelief) when we tell them we have a live-in local nanny. We usually get asked "really? how did you find one? is it difficult? etc etc..."

So for those of you wanting to get a local nanny, here's what you do:

1. Place an ad in the local chinese dailies. I was told "Zhong Guo Bao" (which we tried previously) but found that the quality of applicants are better in "Xing Zhou" and "Guang Ming" (both these papers are related, so you get a 2-in-1 package deal). Just call the papers, tell them your requirements and they will do the ad write up for you.
2. Be prepared to be bombarded with calls. OK that's a slight exaggeration but you can expect at least 3-4 calls a days or more which isn't at all bad. I would normally run the ad for 6 consecutive days so you do the math (i got 34 calls the last time). So better get organised else by the end of the week you'll be utterly confused.
3. Make appointment to meet the shortlisted candidates. This is quite tricky - i must admit i've not really mastered the phone screening process (most of the time i ended up listening to them talk rather than the other way round, and mind you some can be really long winded). On one hand you'd want to have face to face meetings with everyone who sounded decent over the phone, on the other hand you just won't have the time. For us, we can only have the meetings on weekends, and normally you'd need to find your way to parts of KL you never knew existed (thank god for GPS) - very time consuming indeed. Note to myself: have a script ready with a checklist of questions to ask and do a proper first round screening over the phone. 

Now wish me luck in my nanny search :-)