I fired my driver a couple of weeks ago. It hasn't been an easy or successful arrangement for lots of reasons, including him not picking us up one morning because he had to exercise in that morning, but the last straw was when it was freezing outside and our former driver refused to turn on the heater in the car and instead rolled down the window because he thought that Sydney was sick and he was concerned that Sydney would get him sick. She wasn't even sick so I don't know what he was talking about. I had decided to fire him right then. But then he went on to advise me that I need to just dress Sydney warmer so that we didn't need to use the heater. At first I wasn't sure that I understood him because my Chinese is still pretty remedial. So I called my friend Sam, who is fluent in Chinese, and unfortunately, my understanding was correct. I demanded that he turn on the heater when Sydney was in the car and he did turn it on. But then he started griping at me, in very rude and condescending tone, that Sydney wasn't dressed warmly enough and it was my fault that Sydney was cold. He even held up his leg to show that he had on 3 pairs of socks to Sydney's one pair. Sydney was dressed in jeans, a sweater, a coat and a hat. And yes, one pair of socks.
I sent an email to his boss and fired him but unfortunately, they didn't have another driver available for me until after Chinese New Year. The new driver was supposed to show up today at 1pm but he didn't so I terminated my contract with the rental company. I am now scrambling to find another car and driver so that Sydney won't need to be waiting out in the cold for a taxi to get to and from school.
Now on to my Ayi:
She is still doing a phenomenal job cleaning the house and an ok job with taking care of Sydney. Ultimately, I trust her to be alone in my apartment and have all of the utensils accounted for and to be alone with Sydney without her being locked in the bathroom or sitting in front of the tv all day. And in the end, it is all that matters. HOWEVER, she is still driving me insane. For a while there she kept asking Sydney if she wanted to go home her, or if Sydney wanted to sleep in ayi's room, or if ayi could sleep in Sydney's room. Sydney always replied no. But then the ayi started trying to talk Sydney into saying yes and the longer she pressured Sydney, the more confused and hesitant Sydney looked. Sydney doesn't want to do what the ayi is asking but she also wants to please. I thought it was unfair and selfish for the ayi to put Sydney in that position. I finally had to ask the ayi to stop asking Sydney those questions because it was stressful for Sydney. She said ok but I can tell that either she didn't understand or didn't believe me. But she stopped asking, and that's all that matters to me.
I told our ayi that we are returning to the US at the end of June so she tried to talk me into staying for another year. One of her arguments was that the US is a very violent place where everyone shoots each other. She saw in the news last year about a multiple shooting. I agreed with her that people sometimes shoot each other in the US but since it wasn't the government doing the shooting like in China, we'll take our chances. She also thought that there was more pollution in the US. I just ignored her at this point.
Our ayi showed up today with gifts for Sydney for the new year. One of the presents was a Mickey Mouse puzzle. Sydney loves to work on puzzles and she LOVES Mickey (but not as much as Elmo as she is often to say, "Sydney loves Elmo more". Sometimes she says this after she says, "Sydney loves Momma." How can I possibly compete with Elmo?!?!) so it was a very considerate gift. But when I saw that the puzzle had 300 pieces, I thought she was just asking for it. And sure enough, when I returned from the grocery store today there were 300 puzzle pieces skattered throughout the living room. When the ayi was picking it up she said that she didn't realize that they were so many pieces and that they were such small pieces. I didn't have the heart to show her the front of the box where it clearly said 300 pieces and it was pretty obvious, at least to me, that they would be very small pieces. But it was still very considerate of her to think of Sydney.
I would love to find another ayi to watch Sydney for me but since we are switching drivers and I only have another 5 months here, I am going to keep our ayi.
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