pros and cons of household help

First I will say this, this may be an unfair, seemingly stuck up gripe,  and if you think this is offending, then stop reading now. This is written after a very frustrating, mistake riddled morning that caused added stress to the daily routine.

Second, I am very appreciative of all the work my mai bahn does and all the stress she takes off. Mike and I went back and forth for MONTHS about if we'd hire someone to help around the house. The first thing people would say when they found out we were going to Laos was, "The help's cheap." G Thanks for that, but most Americans aren't used to having someone do their stuff for them and are uncomfortable with the thought of having someone in their house all day. It's our first post, so we're not used to it all. After seeing our house for the first time we agreed it would be best to have a helper, someone to clean and cook dinner (my least favorite time of the day as all the kids seem to be have a meltdown at that time) and be flexible enough with her hours to be able to watch the kids every so often.The whole idea was to have another right hand, what I couldn't be doing, she'd do. I still do most of the laundry and wash dishes after we use them (I hate when dishes sit in the sink.) The kids also still have their own chores.

PROS:
Someone else cleans your house, which I might add has 7 toilets. I hate cleaning toilets.

Someone else cooks dinner, during the most stressful time of the day.

Someone else is here from the hours of 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., so if you need to run an errand while kids are sleeping, someone is here.

Every couple of weeks we can have a date night.

Most of the time she has information on where to find things around the city.

She can almost help translate when workers come to the house or when at a market trying to find something specific.

When trying to learn the language it'd be helpful to practice with the mai bahn.


CONS:
Language barrier. No matter how much English she seems to know, even if she doesn't understand, she'll nod and go on with her business. Then I find cooking oil under the stove tops when making oatmeal with a pleasant fire to start my morning, the morning after I specifically ask that she clean the stove tops after cooking because the spilled cooking oil smokes...

Things get ruined, it's a fact. Like $200 pots that weren't even taken out of the box more than 4-months ago, now have burned cooking oil at the bottom, because no matter how often she's told about cleaning  the outside of pots, she still doesn't do it and I get to spend a morning trying to scrape the oil off the bottom and showing her how to do it. It happens, and I understand that, but no matter how much I tell myself it happens, it's still frustrating when someone else ruins my things and not me.

I still have a hard time leaving Maggie with her she isn't sleeping or about to go to sleep. I often find that Maggie has gone into my room, even after telling both the mai bahn and Maggie, that she is NOT allowed past the office doors. I will come home to find Maggie covered in my deodorant and nail polish all over the carpet or worse, climbing the window grates while holding a steak knife and fork. Anytime I tell her to do something with Maggie, like put her on the toilet or in bed, she'll ask Maggie and when Maggie says, "no" she'll let it go; then Maggie pees on the floor. Finn and Tess seem to be just fine with her.

Mike warned me when I told him it no longer took half the day for her to tidy up the upstairs part of the house, she might get comfortable and start skipping some things...like cleaning the outside of the toilets that have a 2 1/2- year- old's food poisoning on the side, or not sweeping the floors before mopping, or leaving an entire bucket full of mop water in the cleaning closet where the 2 1/2 -year-old can and will find it then dump it all over the floor where a baby is laying.

No matter how often she's told the kids have chores, she will still try to clean up after them and then tell me Finn had a long day at school and shouldn't have to pick up his toys...why not he picks up his toys he plays with at school.

Sometimes I'll ask her to do something once, then I'll find her doing it all the time, ok. Other times I'll ask her to start doing something and she'll do it once.

Now with most of this being said, I understand that I'm the employer and I need to take a better approach to get my employee to do what it is I want. In this culture it's a bit hard, you don't want to loose face or cause someone else to loose face, so by telling her she's been doing things wrong or making mistakes, she can loose face. Now I have to find a way to politely show her the way I'd like things done, again.

our 4th of July tradition

Still lives on. I've just been busy, so I haven't had a chance to upload our photos from this year.

The Declaration of Independence written out somehow. This year we did 2 ways, wrote it on our wall and Mike and the kids wore it on their shirts, now that we have 3 kids it works great!
Tess is Life; Maggie is Liberty; and Finn is the pursuit of happiness :)

Our 4th of July weekend was jam packed with FUN. Well, almost. The actual 4th Rocked thanks to a group of Embassy people who organized an Embassy party. Looking forward to next year.

Lao Zoo

On our way back home from Nam Ngum, we stopped off at the Lao Zoo, which was far better than I expected, especially after visiting the Bangkok Zoo. The animals seemed much happier and healthier. There was a small restaurant and plenty of bathrooms around the trail.

Mike and the kids road an elephant, which was a first for them all, and was something the kids have talked about ever since we found out we'd be moving to Laos. Finn also fed the elephant some cucumbers...do elephants like those? He seemed pretty happy.

The Gibbon seemed to be playing games so Maggie decided to play peek-a-boo; he turned his back on her.

About a gabillion crocodiles at the zoo.

Sassy pants

First elephant ride

They liked it in the end

Finn fed the elephant; he's well trained.

Ang Nam Ngum, take two

Saturday morning we woke up, a bit lazily after the 4th of July Embassy reception. We'd planned on going to stay at a villa in Vang Vieng, but the other couple who was going with us heard that the roads were flooded and shouldn't be attempted. So we decided to try a "resort" closer to Vientiane. Dansavanh Resort on Nam Ngum in the Mountains, sweet! So minus the other couple, we drove that way and made great time. Only 2 hours to the "resort".  This is what the "resort" advertises http://www.dansavanh.com/namngum/index.html.

I seriously wish we'd taken a picture of what it actually looked like. I thought I was going to get a disease just touching the room, the pool was drained and it cost $40 to take an hour boat ride. Just plain run down and dirty! Mike wanted to look at the rooms, and in each one my eyes kept getting bigger and bigger and my NO WAY JOSE face kept getting stronger and stronger. At one point I was even shaking my head at him, but alas we ended up taking a deluxe room....the resort also advertises a "mini" zoo. I am glad I didn't see it but apparently it is just 2 bears in small cages in the back parking lot. AH! Thankfully Mike came to his senses after walking around and realizing there was NOTHING to do and was a huge rip off, we totally bailed!

I was praying we'd just turn around and go home, I desperately wanted a shower, but we pushed on farther North and ended up back in a small fisherman's village, called Thalad, this time going a few hundred meters farther than our boat restaurant and ended up at Longngum View Resort. http://www.longngumview.com/index.html Much, much better than the last place, but most of the rooms were booked, so we got a room that was fairly small with a king size bed, for half the price we would've paid for the craptastic resort before. I wouldn't say it was the best, but it was charming and this is Laos not Hawaii.

We slept in bed with Finn and Maggie crammed between us, HORRIBLE, and Tess got her pack-n-play AWESOME. She was the only one to sleep through the night. The weather was clear the whole day, but that night it rained, all night and Mike and I kept waking with fears that the roads would wash away or worse, but none of that happened. We got up early that morning, ate breakfast and Mike rented a kayak. He took the older kids out to explore the islands that were created when the dam was put up. They had a rockin time, but no pictures since they were on a kayak, we didn't want the camera to fall in the water.

They did find an island with a huge "rocket" and cows...Mike and Finn decided that cows crashed their rocket on the island and were stuck forever. The "rocket" is still questionable...

While Mike took the older kids Tess and I hiked around the lake. She's finally big enough to fit in our hiking backpack, which I would've killed for when we were car less.

A little exercise in the morning

Heading out, Maggie didn't like it at first

Please come back happy :)

Didn't quite make it in time to get them returning



She'll get used to this

 After everyone got back, we had lunch, packed the car and headed back for home. A successful trip in the end. As usual we have to fail to succeed.