And in many ways I’m thankful that it’s not my own.
Now that I’m a married man I suppose it’s just the sort of extraneous object that one finds oneself inadvertently in posession of – after all, you can now put me in the box ‘recently married, reasonably settled and responsible’.
Even I would question the last assumption but nevertheless, it was made, and so I found myself in posession of a seven month old baby whose name I didn’t even know (it was Dutch and unpronouncable).
After the mother rather tentatively made her exit, Rebecca and I found ourselves standing in a stunned silence, not quite sure what we’d let ourselves into with our less than limited experience of dealing with babies.
The great thing about small children is that they find the most boring things the most entertaining. And so it was, that after a generous half hours wimpering and griping, the small child (let’s call her Beatrice) became fascinated by a box. This suited me perfectly as I soon discovered, as any babysitter worth their salt would, that I could watch TV whilst cleverly propping her up with a well positioned knee, safe in the knowledge that I wasn’t neglecting babysitting duties.
I wasn’t quite sure about feeding ettiquette so after a bit of a discussion, Beatrice and I came to some kind of an agreement that she could play with the box and enjoy her lukewarm milk simultaneously. This was obviously after she’d rejected my suggestion that she should sit down to eat/drink.
Rebecca took over soon after, nurturing those mothering instincts with great trepidation but somehow getting Beatrice to sleep – with no small thanks going to the assortment of plush pieces she’d brought back from Disneyville.
In conclusion, small children are great for a short time but I have found them to be all too limiting on getting on with things. That’s about it really.