When push comes to shove...

It goes to show how much the average Malaysian family comes to depend on the services of foreign maids in their daily lives.

Our Indonesian maid returned to her home-town of East Java for a month's holiday after more than 2 years of her stay with our family. While my in-laws offerred to help out - mum-in-law especially was all prepared to come over from Singapore to ease our burden in Bibik's absence - I figured this would be an opportune time for our family to be independent.

We have been pretty dependent of the services of maids since our son was born in 1999. The first one was from Pattani, Southern Thailand, the second from Acheh, Indonesia and now, this one from East Java, Indonesia.

So it was that we all now have to chip and put in our two cents worth around the house. Well, we still haven't really gotten the hang of total independence yet; hardly a week into Bibik's leave from duty, we will be travelling down to Singapore for a 10-day vacation.

But in these few days of being maid-less, we seem to be doing pretty well...goes to show that push comes to shove, anything can be achieved!