Six Days of Stella.

My brother and sister-in-law decided to go on holiday for a week, leaving me to look after their home… a home that came complete with a sick two-year-old; a new, lunatic puppy; and builders working on the house.

Okay, before I get too dramatic, I’ll admit that my job was shared with a daily nanny and a well-equipped tenant on the property, as well as a couple of visits from the child’s grandmothers; but let that not detract from the scale of the operation of six days of looking after Stella…

 

Day One.

My niece makes me ride her teeny tiny bicycle, made for ants, and I’m told I may not hover over it – I must sit down on the bike and pedal, like her. So my babysitting job starts with me balancing on an uncomfortable, too-small saddle six inches from the ground with my knees up around my ears. I think I injure a hip flexor. (God, I feel old.)

Then Stella unexpectedly throws a large ball into my face at point-blank range. I get such a fright that my immediate reaction is to shout at her angrily,

“NO Stella! DON’T DO THAT!”

Her face scrunches up in horror and she starts to wail; she runs away from me, sobbing, and throws herself down on her bed while I’m left stunned – in both senses of the word. Should I be feeling bad, for something she did, that hurt me?

I feel like there’s a lesson somewhere here but I’m not sure exactly what it is…

I tell her that what she did was not nice but that all she needs to do is say sorry and then it’ll be fine. She refuses to say it.

Eventually I try another approach and give her a gentle hug as I say, “Stellie, I’m sorry I screamed at you. It was because I got a fright when you threw the ball at my face, and it was sore. I didn’t mean to scare you… I’m sorry.”

She looks up at me and with all her innocent cuteness says, “I’m sorry Tessie.”

I think I just learned the lesson;)

Later in the evening Stels needs to take medicine for her tonsillitis, but she refuses to swallow the foul-tasting liquid (why aren’t all kids’ meds made to taste like strawberry sherbet?!).

After trying to coax (read: bribe) her in every way possible, Nita and I are resigned to force feeding. She pins Stella down and holds her head back, which I think is not right because she could choke like that, surely?! But Nita has a lot more experience with children than me, so I tentatively push the syringe into Stel’s mouth as she writhes in protest and screams bloody murder, coughing up and spitting out this white devil paste with tears and snot and absolute hatred for us. The noise is so loud I wonder if the neighbours think we’re exorcising a demon in here.

Then suddenly she’s dead still and quiet and I panic as my mind does a split-second somersault, “Oh God she’s choked! She’s inhaled this fucking paste into her lungs like Eric once did as a child with an almond twig and he had to be rushed to hospital and now I’ve done the same to Stella but it’s already too late and she can’t breathe and now she’s dead… I’ve killed my brother’s baby…!!!”

I’ve never been so happy to hear her start screaming again. It’s amazing how many disturbing thoughts a mind can think in a fraction of a second when dealing with little people.

As a reward for her bravery I tell her I have a present… I give her my pink hairband that she’s always tried to take from me. The look on her face is something I don’t think I’ve ever been given from a two-year-old, and I feel a mixture of embarrassment and inadequacy. This babe ain’t impressed. (Note to self: the size of a present should be directly proportional to the level of trauma experienced. This particular incident probably deserves a pony…).

At bathtime I have to coax her again to let me brush her teeth and I start to wonder if parenting is simply the perpetual art of bribery and/ or blackmail?

After her bath I ask Stella to show me which of the three creams on her dresser I should put where on her body (I’m worried I’ll put something Vicks-like on the wrong part…). I laugh that I’m asking a baby for help. Nita laughs more when she finds me slathering Stella’s bum with way too much cream, like I’m icing a cake. I feel like both the baby and the adult are looking at me with amused eyes that say “amateur.”

After what felt like a long first day, I’m excited to put this kid to bed. I read at least four stories to her (usually she gets two) and try to say goodnight but she’s having none of it as she points to her pink skipping rope and tells me what I must do next. By now I think I’m on some kind of parental auto-pilot mode and the next thing I know, even though I am exhausted, I find myself skipping in her bedroom for her entertainment.

If she had hoops, I’d probably be jumping through them too.

 

Day Two.

My alarm clock walks into the bedroom at a rude hour, looks at me and says, “You’re not Mommy and Daddy.” Yes and you’re not my child but let’s get on with it shall we?

I’m still tired from yesterday. Stella drags me out of bed to show me what she wants to wear today… it’s a pink and yellow Earthchild dress that I’d given her, so I feel quite chuffed that she wants to wear it.

My momentary delight dies when I walk back to my room and discover that my brother’s golden retriever puppy has chewed straight through my new phone charger cable.

 

As soon as the nanny arrives I duck to go home and eat my breakfast in peace and stare at my charger in pieces. I wonder if God thinks that making young things so darn cute nullifies their unruly behaviour? Or is it just to prevent us from leaving them on someone else’s doorstep in the middle of the night?

After work I return to my brother’s house to find Stella napping. Gloooorious! Taking full advantage of my freedom, I decide to tan in the garden.

I have just found my spot in the sun when the child pops up out of nowhere, buoyant as ever, wanting me to help her change into a different dress. It’s like she had smelled that I’d arrived and was far too comfortable.

I do crack a smile though, when I see that she wants to put on yet another one of the dresses that I’d given her. Am I finding some sort of parental validation through her choosing my gifts? Or is this another one of the kid’s innate abilities to soften an adult like a pliable piece of Scooby Doo wire in preparation for the next manipulation?

Before I know it, I’ve become a horse for Stella, who is ordering me to follow her maniacal dog Mango around the garden. I came here to tan; I will not leave here before crawling around the grass on all fours, in my bikini, getting scratched by an exuberant puppy while carrying an over-excited toddler on my back who is screaming at full volume and highest pitch directly into my inner ear canal and slapping the back of my head like it’s a rodeo show. I think my eardrum is perforated.

Whatever this babysitting game is, I feel like Stella’s leading it by ten points to nil here.

 

Day Three.

It wakes me up at 6am. It comes and lies next to me and coughs and sneezes in my face. I’m still sleepy so I prop up my phone with one hand to play a video for her while I try to snooze; my other hand covering my face in a feeble attempt to keep her germs away.

She says she wants to watch me riding so I find my most exciting round on Supersport – jumping the South African Derby (the biggest event in SA showjumping). I’m quite proud of this achievement and flattered that she’s interested in it…

Halfway through my round she yawns and says she wants to watch something else. Never rely on children to massage your ego.

She fetches a mop and tells me to get onto it behind her so we can ride it like a horse. And I must make neighing sounds. Yes, I can see how this is so much better than watching the Derby. I laugh as I get onto the straggly grey steed behind her and say, “Okay, this is called double donkey,” and she spends the next half hour terrorizing the puppy by chasing it around with the mop and screaming at the top of her lungs,

“DOUBLE, DOUBLE!!!”

While Mango’s got her tail between her legs and is skulking away from the crazy toddler, Stella’s taken the mop out from between her own and is swinging it wildly around the house. I shake my head and wonder why children – even when sick – seem to have hyperbolic energy at the exact moments when adults and even animals are at the opposite end of the enthusiasm scale and would love nothing more than to sleep.

This kid and her mop are a beast of their own.

 

Day Four.

Stella says the one word I really never want to hear: “poo.” Time for me to pull up my sleeves and get my hands dirty; the kind of dirty that makes you wish you were wearing rubber gloves and a gas mask. This is one stinkin’ diarrhea nappy. There is literally runny brown shit everywhere and after taking a deep breath and holding it tight in the naive hope that I can clean up this mess by the time I need to take my next one, I realize that was futile. Exhale.

I try to fold the overflowing nappy as quickly as I can but dexterity fails me and the stinking sludge seeps onto the white cabinet. Stella is wriggling and giggling and I’m holding the nappy in the air with one hand while grabbing wet wipes with my other hand and hurriedly swabbing them across her bum with fast but seemingly ineffective strokes and at the same time trying to block her from putting her feet down and squelching them in the crappy mudslide that is now slowly spreading out beneath her. I feel like I’m drowning in the bog of eternal stench; stewing in a stream of never-ending shit that I’m afraid might leave its smell lodged in my nasal cavities for the rest of the day; maybe my lifetime.

I think I’ve reached a DEFCON 1 level of sensory disruption and need of a babysitting break. I’m so relieved that work is taking me away for the rest of the day and night so I won’t have to deal with another shit storm for at least the next twenty-four hours…

I wish my olfactory senses were damaged instead of my hip flexor, ear canal and ego.

 

Day Five.

I ask Stella what she wants for breakfast; she says toast with almond butter. I make it for her; she whines that she doesn’t like it. Ugh. Maybe I hadn’t listened properly and she’d asked for macadamia nut butter? Or maybe she’s just being a brat.

I ask her if she wants cheese with her whine but she says she wants it on her toast so I slice pieces of cheese and start adding them. She gets upset with me and states emphatically that she can put it on all by herself. Fine. You do that, little girrrl. Maybe you can change your nappies all by yourself, too?

Finally she’s eating her toasties. She happily wipes her butter fingers all over my clean pants; then orders me to get a cloth to wipe her hands.

I never thought I’d one day be a butler to a toddler.

 

Day Six.

Stella has to have her last dose of antibiotics and Nita and I finally realize that the best way to get them into her is by blending the meds with ice cream. In a gesture of surrender (read: hopelessness), we feed the child ice cream for breakfast. I know the parents would probably have heart failure. I don’t care. I’m the captain now, and I intend on keeping this ship afloat just long enough to abandon it.

Unsurprisingly, the kid turns into a sugar monster. A dairy-fueled delinquent. It goes completely bonkers. It dances hyperactively and tells us that we too MUST DANCE!! It pulls me into bed with it, then shouts at me to get out, “YOU MUST GO AWAY FROM ME!!”

It runs around the house in a frenetic whirlwind of Tasmanian devil-esque mind-blown kinetic energy, producing more noise than anything its size ought to. The puppy joins in the ruckus. It’s like a tap has been opened and all of the crazy is busy pouring out…

I stare at this mayhem with a somewhat sinister smile as I think of my siblings who’ll arrive home tonight. Oh my dear brother, you are so very welcome 😉 And gooood luck with that.

 

******

You might have noticed that my daily reports get progressively shorter. Like my energy. And patience. And my countdown to the day I can give it back to its owners.

Jokes aside, I’d like to think that I’m an awesome auntie and a good godmother to this little girl. And I do love my niece.

I also love to give her back to her parents.

I spray my hands with sanitizer, smile and saunter away in slow motion like a Hollywood heroine from a massive bomb exploding in the background. I survived six days of Stella. My job here is done.