He misses her.......

This morning, on our way to send our son to my MIL's house, I noticed that my son was just staring out the window with a sad look on his face. He looked sad too yesterday evening on the way back from her (MIL's) house.

I think my son misses the former maid. He is not telling or he does not knw how to express himself yet. He plays games of counting cars,trucks, buses, constructions lorries and what nots with the former maid in d car during journeys to and frm my MIL's house everyday. It brings lots of laughter and giggles as they 'fought' to see who gets the most number of vehicles!

With this new maid, he just looks out the window with a sad look. Even when my hubby and I tried to play the same game with him this morning, he refused. It hurts 2 see him sad....

This is the 3rd change of maid that he has had to endure in his young life. The first time we had a change of maid was when he was slightly a year old. At that time, my MIL's maid was taking care of him and he was closer to her than our own maid since my MIL's maid was the one who took care of him since birth.

She (MIL's maid) went back for a short break of 6 months to her home country. During the first few weeks of her absence, since he has yet to fully understand the reason for her going back, he felt anger and betrayed that someone who he was close to, left him. He threw tantrums almost daily for almost 3 weeks b4 he could finally accept the fact that she is no longer around.

Before this, I never really believed in separation anxiety, until it happened. When we brought him to see the peads, after explaining the symptoms, the 1st question the doctor asked us was whether there had been any major changes in his life.

According to the doctor, in cases like this, the child normally blames the parents or people close to him for the maid going back. He thinks that we have all betrayed him by sending the maid back. We were encouraged by the doctor to explain to him over and over again the reasons for her going back. That is it not us that sent her back, but it is she who wants to go back to see her family. Children can understand when things are explained to them, but we just need to reason out with them and reassure them that we love them very much.

Now that my son is older, I hope that he is more able to accept the departure of the former maid and may this phase past quickly. I have already started talking to him and explaining about her reasons for going back. In fact, I have prepared him for this many weeks ago, but I guess the reality has only sunk in with her departure. He understands, but, I think, he still misses her.