The Outcome

What happened next?

R left me her keys, contact telephone numbers, some money to order pizza and casually dropped it into conversation that this was the first time that they had left P with someone overnight (!). On top of that, my dad freaked the shit out of me by saying something like” Say they give her some drugs and go off and then you’re the one left to deal with that….(!)”! WTF Appa?! Why would you say something like that?! So I was in freaked out overtime!

Leaving work – I looked like a right dishevelled nutter and I may have been muttering to myself slightly about what to do!
Arriving at the nursery (first part a success having found the nursery and not getting lost – who said I didn’t have a sense of direction?!), I was pleased that they remembered who I was and let P know I had arrived. She ran up to me and again gave me a knee hug (she’s getting better at those!). She made to run off but I asked her politely to hold my hand and she did. As we walked down the stairs, I heard the inevitable.

P: Where’s mummy?

Scrumps (S): Mummy’s at work my love. She’s working late with daddy and they’ll be back soon.

Phew – no further questions your honour. She put on her jacket and sat in her buggy (pushchair) for me. First proper hurdle. Trying to push a buggy with a child who’s probably (clearly) too heavy to be in it. I was all over the place to begin with and she probably felt a bit queasy after it but didn’t say anything.

We stopped at the sweet shop and bough some sweets. R told me to buy her whatever she asked for. She chose a sweet that probably had the highest sugar count known to man but who was I to stop her – I didn’t want a tantrum!

I managed to find our way home and promptly texted R to let her know. This was what she was most worried about – again, me? No sense of direction? Hell to the no!

S: So P – what shall we do?

P: Baaaaaarneeeeey!

S: OK. Barney it is. Where are your DVDs?

P proceeded to open a box and fling out a few DVDs. Now I am not one that’s clued up with technology. I can operate my phone, turn on a computer, just about manage to turn on my TV at home with the DVD box but games consoles are not my thing. So imagine the horror when I see that they use their X-Box © as their DVD player. Bollocks! Luckily P knows how to use it – but I for the life of me could not fathom out how to change the channel to receive the picture. After a few tries, I give up. P luckily and happily agrees to do something else.

P: Puzzles! Yay!

So we did some puzzles. At the same time, P is covered with in sugar from the sweet that she chose. So I tried to negotiate with her.

S: Shall we order some pizza now?

P: Yes.

S: Shall we put the sweeties away until after dinner.

P: Yes *whilst shaking her head*

So I ordered the pizza. Upon arrival, I managed to get P to sit down and eat something that wasn’t sugar. This wasn’t that easy. After dinner, we sat and watched some rubbish TV.

An hour later or so, I asked P is she was ready to go to bed. She said yes and I remember thinking to myself – RESULT! I didn’t manage to get her to change into her pyjamas – well I managed to get her to put the bottoms on and that has got to count for something.
As I tucked her into bed – I was still reeling at the ease of it all. What do these young frazzled out mothers complain about?!

P: Can I have a story?

S: Sure you can honey. Which one to do you want?

P leaps out of bed (but I just tucked you in!) and chooses about 5 different books.

I’m still smiling. I can do this I mentally tell myself!

So I read them. Some of them are interactive. P needs to join in. But then it gets absurd. She has chosen a French/English translation book – how the hell do you manage to change random words into a story?!

*pen/un stylo* S: The pen is blue.

P: No it’s not. It’s green. *giggle giggle* A lot of fumbling about on the bed.

S: No it’s not P. Come on, let’s not jump about on the bed.

P: What time is mummy coming home?

S: Soon my dear. When you open your eyes in the morning, she’ll be home.

What succeeded was a lot of me reading random stuff and trying to get P to fall asleep. This took about 90 minutes. Finally she fell asleep (around 9:30 ish) as I was reading Dr Seuss. Thank the Lord almighty!

I didn’t manage to get to bed until midnight. I kept checking to see if she was still breathing. As I lay in bed – every sound managed to freak me out. I did doze off and at 1:00, P came into my room telling me she wanted a drink. This was easy enough as I had made on earlier. And off she trotted back to bed.

3AM, P wanders in again – she needs the bathroom. Not a problem – and she manages to stumble back into bed once more.

5:30 AM – she wanders in and needs the toilet again. Sure P, I tell her. But she doesn’t wander back into her bed. Because now; P is WIDE AWAKE! Oh dear Lord. It’s 5:30 I tell P. Shall we try and go back to bed I ask her. Sure she says. But she wants to get into my bed. OK… I can deal with that. I close my eyes to make it clear that I want to sleep but I feel her eyes boring into me.

I open them and ask her what’s up! Baaaaaaaaaaaaaarneeeeeeeeeeeeeey she replies.

I guess it’s time for me to get up! 5:30 AM on a Saturday. Luckily – Saturday morning TV is totally geared towards little children. So we sat there watching Milkshake, Thomas (who is by far my favourite), Tom & Jerry amongst so much more!

I managed to get her to eat breakfast and we managed to play with a lil’ bit more play dough. R text me to let me know what time she’d be back and I remember thinking to myself “only need to keep P occupied for 2 more hours – phew!”.

I managed to make the last few hours go by quite quickly by playing hide and seek and creating a fantasy world where P was the princess and I was the evil dragon (yeah – I’m bad!).

Despite the fun P and I had, I can not tell you how happy I was to R. Not that P was any trouble at all but there’s only so much play dough I can take!

It can't have been that bad because apparently P asked R when I'd be coming around again! Yeah, not for a while I remember telling myself!