Last Sunday, we looked after Temo while his parents went out for dinner in West Hampstead. And it all started out quite well...
He didn't seem too worried when they left, which was encouraging. We pottered about from the living room to the kitchen and back again a few hundred times, taking bites out of random pieces of fruit, and then we read Spot, lifting all the flaps. So far so good. Jules made him an omelette, which he pretty much rejected, picking out the occasional bit of broccoli and leaving the rest.
Then he had a bath, cooperatively lifting his arms and legs up to get undressed, and splashing about happily for a good twenty minutes or so. Getting him back into his pyjamas took a bit more negotiation i.e. I chased him around the house trying unsuccessfully to push the top half over his head while he did other activities. Eventually he submitted - and then I remembered Ruth saying something about two singlets, one cotton and one wool, but I figured I'd quit while I was ahead.
At that point Jules reappeared with more adult-sized omelettes, with bacon on the side. It turns out that Temo likes bacon - even more than broccoli - and thinks nothing of filching a rasher off someone else's plate and taking it away to a quiet corner to consume!
Shortly after that, he started rubbing his eyes and looking a bit grumpy, so I thought I'd try to encourage him to go to bed. To cut a long story short, that was where it all went wrong. Half an hour later he was standing at the top of the stairs down to the front door, sobbing and stretching out his arms towards the door in a piteous 'why have they abandoned me?' gesture.
We fed him some pear as a temporary distraction but still, by the time his mum and dad got back, he was all red and blotchy and looked like we'd been torturing him for hours. Spent the next half hour in a subdued hiccoughing heap on Ruth's chest, not at all sure it was safe to go to sleep.
Still, he seemed to have forgiven us by the next morning, so maybe it was a bonding experience after all! Or perhaps he had just blocked it out, like all things too painful to remember...
1 comment:
Did Jeremy not tell you that Temo just loves Ring of Fire and would probably recognise it even if played on a violin?! Basically he seems to enjoy any kind of music. However, we say well done!!! for apprentice baby sitters you did well. You just need more practice!
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