I started babysitting Ella (now at the ripe old age of 13) when she was a two-month-old bundle. That was easy because once she was fed, I could just leave her sleeping on the sofa in the basement living room and go up to the ground floor to do the dishes (voluntarily). When she was a toddler, however, I couldn’t leave her, in case she woke up and tried to get off the sofa and fall over.
When she was two, she started to object to being left with me (or perhaps it was just not wanting her parents to leave her) and cry loudly. My countermove was to get down to her level and cry loudly back at her, with exaggerated facial contortions, which would flummox her and stem the tears immediately.
At three, Ella was ready for games, one of which was Hide and Seek. We confined the game to the basement living room, which was the size of two double bedrooms, with a ping pong table, two huge sofas, and a bathroom off it, so there were quite a few nooks and crannies.
At one point, I went for the duvet on one of the sofas, as it was big and fluffy enough to hide my shape. Ella took a while but eventually found me. Then it was her turn to hide. I sat there on the duvet on the sofa, waiting for her to go away and find a hiding place. She said to me, “Can you go on the other sofa? I want to hide under that duvet.”
When it was her turn again to hide, she caught sight of the three large transparent plastic boxes by the staircase, filled to the brim with her toys. As she started to take out the toys from one of the boxes, she said to me, “Wait, wait, wait. I’m emptying the box so that I can hide in it.”
(London, 2000–3)
No comments:
Post a Comment