Bye-bye, Bibik!

Sorry for the lack of posts lately. I was busier than expected at work, so whatever free time I had was used up to ease the Mommy Guilt (i.e. spending time with the boys including Daddy) as well as attending to Household Administrative Matters (i.e. paying bills, some of which were overdue!).

Anyhow, as you can tell from the title of this post, our maid Bibik has left us to go home for good. We sent her to the LCCT on Friday morning and I was glad that she was happy and excited to go home although I knew she would definitely miss the boys - especially Adik.

She arrived when Adik was exactly 2 months old and in the car on the way back from the Maid Agency she coo-ed at Adik and he smiled back at her. What a lovely way to welcome her to our family. Abang took awhile to get used to her, being 2 and half years old at that time he was firmly attached to his Daddy, Wan and Mummy - in that order - and this complete stranger was, well, a stranger. Still, over time, they got to know each other better and by the night before her departure he was hanging out in her room with her, watching and "helping" her do some last minute packing, giving her the weighing scale to weigh her luggage and generally spending some final moments with her.

We had already prepped him during the week that "Bibik is going back to Indonesia and she won't be coming back to our house" so he understood what was going on. We told Adik the same thing but being much younger he didn't - still doesn't - really fully grasp what it meant. Once in awhile now Adik will ask for her, "I want Bibik!" or he'd go to her room and call for her, "Bibik? Bibik?" So we just keep explaining to him where she is.

The morning we sent her to the LCCT was rather extraordinary. First, the Maybank near our house didn't open until 10am and I had planned to change her money for her before we left for the airport at 9:30am.

So on the way to the airport we had to stop by another Maybank slightly further from our house which I didn't want to do because parking there is impossible. I had to do the unthinkable and double-park, ran in to the Bureau de Change and asked for some Rupiahs. They had only half the amount I needed so I said Never mind, I'll take whatever you have.

At the airport, the check-in queue was the longest of all the queues. That bought me some time to go walkabout with Adik to change the rest of Bibik's money for her. When we got back, they had barely inched forward. Wan and I decided to pump the boys up with some fries at McDonalds, ye ole standby. Finally, it's Bibik's turn to check-in! She had to go immediately to the departure gate and we said our thank yous, goodbyes, she hugged and kissed the boys and went in.

When we were walking to the exit, I saw the sky outside look very hazy. Hmm... I don't recall it being hazy lately. Aaargh! It's not haze ... it's ... it's ... very very heavy rain! And none of us thought we'd need an umbrella because it was bright and sunny when we arrived. Oh well, nothing for it, Mummy will just have to run in the rain to get the car. But first, let's pay for parking at the Autopay station.

Dig, dig, dig. I could have used an excavator in my handbag and still not find the parking ticket. Oh no, I must have left it in the car. Sigh.

I ran in the heavy rain and was completely soaked by the time I got to the car. (Honestly, if I had bigger b**bs I could have won a wet t-shirt competition.) I looked around for the ticket and couldn't find it. Checked on the ground (yes, in the rain) around the car in case I dropped it and it wasn't there. Spent a good 10 minutes looking for it, including looking in my handbag for the third time. Finally, I dumped the entire contents of my handbag onto the passenger seat and went through each item to make sure it wasn't the parking ticket.

That's when I saw it. A chip coin. A @#$% chip coin! No wonder I couldn't find it, I was looking for something that didn't exist! Ok back out into the rain, only this time with an umbrella, to the Autopay station, paid for parking, collected Wan, Abang and Adik who were kept occupied with Smarties and M&Ms. Hooray for funpacks.

We got home, fed the boys and I put Adik down for a nap on our first maid-free day. It's not been too bad so far. I think we'll be just fine.