Flexible work arrangements are helpful but not a solution on its own. I‘m fortunate to have flexible hours for the longest time so that I can send/fetch the kids and do dinner and bedtime with them.
But FWAs are scratching the surface - I still clocked 55-57 work hours most weeks, more than my sleep; the kids still didn't get enough of me coz it was a rush on weekdays and I was mostly too tired on weekends; Kai had zero human interaction when he was home alone with helper and he told me only two Saturday nights ago that kakak ignored him on weekdays.
Last Monday, I started working part-time - 8 am to 2 pm every day. But I started on Monday leaving the office at 5 pm coz of a pre-scheduled meeting with partners. I decided to go since it would be my last time chairing that meeting. I was on leave on Thursday. By the end of Friday, I found that I had worked 29 hours - just one hour shy of my 30 hours for a full week.
I'm still doing handover so I give myself a bit more time to settle into part-time. My colleagues have been most supportive. Let's see whether this is sustainable.
On the home front, I'm happy to report that I managed to read a long-ish story to Kai on Tuesday. He wasn't terribly pleased with this activity but a couple of days later, he told me that he read that story again on his own and he liked it!
Even better, I came back today to find him reading another story on his own. While I was changing, I heard him exclaim, "Oh!" from the book. A short while after I sat down next to him with my own book, he told me that he was reading silently just like me. I'm so proud of him :)
Secretly took a picture of him :p
Last Wednesday, I didn't go home straight away; I went to fetch Yang back. Waited a bit coz he was halfway through his tea and took some time to finish sugarcane juice which he didn't like. We went home to practise some songs coz we missed two consecutive lessons due to his tummy ache and concert.
He did well despite close to three weeks of no playing :)
We had some fun at the coffeeshop playground in the evening before I fetched Yu home. Hope to do outdoor every day :)
Came back early enough to play after dinner and shower!
Brought Kai to try the new bubble tea downstairs and had him pick a lot for fun
He said he doesn't know Chinese but hey, there's English!
The Chinese version is better haha!
Today, we went downstairs to play scooter. Rather, he was scooting around while I was doing arm exercises with his water bottle as weight. Hope to exercise more now that I have more time!
And I no longer dread 9 pm. In fact, I love my nights now. Look, I'm writing happy stuff instead of emails and slides! Heh... I would fall asleep with the boys but I think it's good that Yu doesn't need me to lie down next to him in order to fall asleep now. Anyway, I had a cold last Wednesday to Friday so I scooted out of their room asap to avoid getting too cold.
It's wonderful to spend time with the boys without work at the back of my mind. Actually, it's there but the psychology of part-time is quite different from that of full-time. We set expectations from the beginning. Keep to the hours. Keep performing. Don't expect high performance grades. Part-time allows me to truly compartmentalise my life.
Time spent with Kai in the afternoon isn't the most productive of time. Sometimes, he wants to just play on the laptop. Like this afternoon. So I packed for Legoland - something I could do on weekends too. But when he called me, I was there to listen to all the Candy Crush moves. I could tell that he liked it. And he pretty much told me so when he suddenly told me he loved me while we were waiting for the lift :)
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