This week didn’t go well for me. My son fell sick and we brought him to the paediatrician. While he’s ok with taking the medicine, his nap and overnight sleep got affected. Coupled with the effects of having the cold and cough, he has been more cranky and difficult at times. He also couldn’t go to preschool and had to stay home with us or be at my parents-in-law’s place place during the day. Fun times. It doesn’t help that my wife also fell sick (from my son) but she couldn’t take days off to rest because major issues came up at work that she had to be involved in. So she was struggling to get through each day and couldn’t help out as much with the household workload.

As you can imagine, this household workload starts spilling over to my helper and I. She’s not getting enough rest because my son can’t sleep properly at night and keeps waking her up. And she doesn’t have that window in the morning (when my son would normally be at preschool) to catch up on household chores and get some rest. Before long, she’s also not feeling well but it’s not as bad as my wife. Not forgetting all 3 of us took the 2nd vaccine jabs during these 2 weeks so none of us were really at 100% to begin with. I ended up running around making sure everyone is fine and things are still being done. We relied heavily on my parents-in-law to take care of my son on some days and even for food as well because my family was too tired to cook in the evening. So we just ate leftovers from their place and it was enough for us.

All it takes is for my son to fall sick to reveal whether the support infrastructure for my family is in place. It’s a test of how much flexibility we have in our jobs when working from home, whether we can still manage the household workload when family members are unwell, how willing are our parents to step in to help out. We were obviously under more stress & pressure than usual and it showed. All of us got frustrated, angry and annoyed more easily. Conversations could be short & tense and usually with a screaming kid in the background. I can’t remember the last time I had a bad week like this on the home front so I’m looking forward to the weekend for it to be over.

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Anyway, I still had to squeeze out time to manage the financial affairs of my family. Other than buying into the dip/correction on cryptos and Chinese tech stocks recently, another area of focus that is not investing came to my attention. I have been reading up on insurance and realised that not only is my knowledge of it low, my family has been really careless with our insurance coverage. Perhaps it’s my son growing up but it just hit me that he’s actually a dependent. I mean, not that he wasn’t one before when he was a baby. I just feel it more now as he gets more interactive and I realise he’s depending on us to make sure we have him covered until he becomes a working adult.

Both my wife and I have personal and corporate medical insurance coverage. This has helped to cover our visits to the doctor, paediatrician and hospital. Next up is life insurance. We have whole life insurance policies that were bought by our parents when we were young that we have taken over the payment of premiums after starting work. The payout or sum assured in the event of death and terminal illness is low because the whole life insurance policy was bought when we were kids and had no dependents of our own. Even after we started working and got married, there was no arguably no need to increase the life insurance coverage because both of us had jobs (parents were still working), not much financial obligations and still no dependents.

Things change once we have a kid. Our parents have retired and no longer draw salary income. We now have a dependent and will have a big mortgage. The low payout or sum assured in the event of death and terminal illness from the whole life insurance policies is not sufficient. And I need their cash surrender values for our private property purchase downpayment that is coming up in the next few months anyway. So I have started the process of surrendering my whole life insurance policy first to see what’s the amount that is credited into my bank account. I have also initiated the purchase of a term life insurance policy that has a much bigger payout or sum assured in the event of death and terminal illness. The coverage is for 25 years and that should cover my prime earning years as well as when my son becomes a working adult. The annual premium payment is almost the same but there will not be a surrender value for the term life insurance policy. I will probably do the same for my wife after this.

There has been a whirlwind of events in the past week. After letting the helper go, I took over the night shift for the baby and still went into work. It was very tough to sustain and I was wiped out by mid-week. I was going into work late because I was helping my wife with the morning routine. And it was difficult focusing and getting stuff done in the office.

We knew it was not sustainable and was rethinking our decision to let the helper go after a week and a half. My mother-in-law had been speaking to the helper and us separately to understand what the issues were and whether they can be resolved. Turns out it’s mainly about being patient and managing expectations.

So we decided to give the helper another chance and let her come back mid-week. The situation has improved since then and she’s doing better in our household now. We are also doing a better job training her with clearer instructions and a more organised daily schedule of tasks. With an emphasis on the baby but also a greater awareness of the household chores.

It’s interesting how my performance at work started to improve once the situation at home started to stabilise. Goes to show that every aspect of your life is connected together and it’s about managing the balance of priorities. Otherwise, your life is going to spiral downwards quicker than you think.

The low point was on Wed night when I broke a glass cup in the sink even though it was the only thing I washed after dinner. My lack of sleep the night before combined with a bad day at work translated into a general lack of focus, distracted attention and a short temper. The helper had just returned and I decided to let my wife & her manage the baby and everything else that night.

I had uninterrupted sleep overnight for the first time in a while and things just started getting better after that at work & home. On Thurs, I got the news that my corporate maternity insurance claim had been successfully processed after fighting the insurer on a non-eligibility clause for weeks. The cash benefit claim was credited into my bank account on the same day.

My monthly salary was credited on Fri so it was like a double pay day because the amounts paid were quite similar. Things are finally looking up and I have time again today morning to blog. I seem to be falling sick with a bit of cold and fever but that’s probably the fallout from the intense week I had.

The good thing is that I’m in a position to rest while the baby and household chores are still being taken care of. I’m just grateful to have this luxury and thankful that I have been given the time to recover. I would like to think I’m not weak and I do contribute to the household. But it’s clear I still have room for a lot of improvement.

It has only been a week but I feel like we have grown just a bit more as a family. Anyway, my wife and I are going out to a steakhouse tonight for our Valentine’s Day celebration. There’s a whole bunch of personal care appointments we are going for this weekend but we are still taking the time out to date and catch up with each other. Looking forward to it!:)