Trouble of babysitting little Olive

“It would be my pleasure,” I said when asked to babysit my little Olive for two hours. Being six months old, she doesn’t do much other than sleep, eat and play a bit, so I was very confident that I could keep an eye on her all alone for two hours.

It’s not as if it would be my first time – I did raise three daughters – so I was rather looking forward to having her all to myself. I was quietly hoping that I could teach her to say her first word. Obviously, the word would be “oupa”.

The first 10 minutes were a walk in the park. She was asleep. Then her eyes opened. And her mouth, producing a shrill, moaning squeal. It was immediately obvious that she wanted something, but unable to tell me what, it was now up to me to figure it out.

Bottle, I decided. If she’s anything like me, she’ll want something to drink after a nap. Turns out she’s not like me. Check her nappy, was the next stop. Nothing wrong there. Maybe some music? The house was awfully quiet.

Well, neither three blind mice nor the wheels on the bus did the trick, so I decided to try some action. Popped her in her pram and took her for what was supposed to be a stroll. Turns out we do have one common love: speed. The faster we raced around the patio, the louder she laughed. Until I was huffing and puffing and sounding like a wolf about to blow someone’s house down.

A bit of reading, I decided, just to catch my breath. Google suggested Humpty Dumpty and London Bridge Is Falling Down. It did not have the desired effect. She wasn’t laughing any more. But I couldn’t blame her. So much death and destruction.

Her bottom lip was starting to quiver again, so I was forced to do a few more laps with the pram. And that’s how I spent the next hour and a half: alternating between resting and racing. She alternated between crying and laughing.

I was exhausted by the time I was relieved of duty – and ridiculed. Turns out little Olive is teething. All she wanted was to chew on her teething ring.