Maid / Helper Courses Singapore

While we are very lucky to have a live-in helper here in Singapore, it is by no means the "glamorous" life that some perceive it to be.  While YES we would not have survived the last few months particularly, (with me on complete bed rest) without her - it is also not as easy as you think!

There are many frustrations that employers of FDW (foreign domestic workers) experience.  For us at the moment it is consistency!  We employed our helper with focus on her ability to care for our children while at work, rather than her cooking ability.  However, we do have high expectations on hygiene and this has extended to the kitchen.  SO this being our second helper here in Singapore and not wanting to just "give up" on her we have tried our hardest to help her understand our expectations.  However, sometimes it just takes that different experience to reinforce and well ultimately we want to give her a better understanding.  So I went in search of some courses that she could attend while Master 6 year old is at school at Master 3 year old is at Kindergarten.

It was NOT as easy as I thought.  While there appear to be lots of options available to the Singaporean/Chinese employer, there were not so many for us!  However I thought for those other mums out there a list in 1 place would be handy.

In February our helper will start the basic cooking (including hygiene) course at -

http://www.expat-kitchen.com/

and I hope to get her into a course on Safety / First Aid / Hygiene / Play for babies before our bub arrives in March at -

http://www.motherandchild.com.sg/first_aid.html

While these are not cheap - they definitely offer the quality that we are looking for and when it comes to our kids, spending a little extra on their care is more important!

Here are some other courses of interest -

http://www.thebluehousenursery.com/figi-uk.htm
http://www.bayanihancentre.org/v2/education.asp?id=stp

I found this post on singaporeexpats with a list of different organisations (I don't know how up to date this is or how reliable it is)!  I tried searching for some of them with no luck.
http://forum.singaporeexpats.com/ftopic47544.html?t=47544

DIY Ikea Hacked Trofast Kids Lego/Train Table - Part 1

Idea from http://www.ikeahackers.net/2011/04/trofast-play-table.html


For sometime now my husband and I have eyed off those great kids train / play tables.  Well our 3 year old and 6 year old are completely into Lego at the moment and this is a great way of storing and playing with their Lego at eyesight level for them (if they sit on a chair).

This is the one from Ikeahackers.

So after finding the ikeahackers website by chance, inspiration was found to create our own table and that exact night (DAY 1) at about 8:30pm my husband went in search of the shelves from Ikea!!  In Singapore there are 2 Ikea stores and 1 happens to be 5 mins away from our house!  (That might be a bad thing).  Even though the website said they had them in stock unfortunately there were NONE!  So back home to wait until next shipment (or so we thought).  However next day (DAY 2) on checking with the other store (which happens to be all the way over the other side of Singapore) we found they were in stock - so off he went for shelves and paint!

BUT as usual the adventure did not end there.  LESSON LEARNT - Even if 4 staff in a store say that a type of paint is suitable for a certain job doesn't mean that IT IS!  My husband and kids were almost finished painting the shelves when I ventured out of bed for a few mins to take some photos!  Only to discover that as the paint was drying it did NOT stay on the shelves!  So an hour of painting meant 4 hours plus of removing paint and sanding!  AND not to forget that it meant 2 new tins of paint and not able to return the unopened paint tins either (but they can be used for MDF anyway and another project I will update on later).

Yes I am covered in paint!  But I'm having fun!  Actually they were both really careful about wiping their brushes and not spilling the paint everywhere.  They did a great job!

DAY 3 (today) began with a hunt for MDF.  My husband and 3 year old set off for a street (area) that apparently has MDF and will cut to size for you!  First quote $180 - NO WAY!  Keep looking please!  Finally hubby found little shop willing to do it for $1.50 per cut and approx $21 for MDF!!  WOW - So top and bottom of table and 4 edges for less than $40 all cut to size and ready to paint!!

So afternoon will be spent repainting the storage shelves and painting the MDF.

COST =

Ikea
Trofast wall storage shelves pine x2 = $120
Rill Braked Castor x2 = $24

Paint = $24 a tin (primer & 2 colours) = $72 (we will have leftover to use on another project)
MDF = $35 approx

Extras = Nails, Screws, Sandpaper, Paintbrushes

SANTA FOUND!

Well after a number of phone calls to some of the major Shopping Centers we finally FOUND Santa. This year he will be at Great World City Singapore for Photos! So within half an hour our 2 boys were dressed and showered along with Nana, Grandad, Aunty and Uncle and off to find Santa.

www.santasworkshop.com.sg

I wish I had found out about this website earlier. I gather this is the site to check every year for where Santa will be!

Lets just hope now my husband can get both the 3 year old and 6 year old to sit at least next to Santa!

SANTA IN SINGAPORE?

Well it seems that Santa is nowhere to be seen in Singapore?! AGAIN in 2011!

Last year our boys were very dissapointed after we turned up 20mins after Santa had left (on Christmas Eve - the last day)! THAT was after an all afternoon chase around Orchard and its many malls to try and find 1 Santa for our kids. Everywhere we went staff in shops looked at us like we were crazy!

This year seems to be just the same - have tried looking up the same mall again online and there is no mention at all of Santa. That goes for nearly all the other malls I can think of as well. NOTHING!

NO blog posts or any mention online that I can find of where you might actually SEE Santa here in Singapore. We have 2 days - AND because I am still in bed it is even harder!