Will my daughter bring me a dead bird?
Today marks two weeks that we’ve been in lockdown. So, what have I learnt thus far?
Mainly that my co-workers are a little crazy. One of them keeps wanting me to dance for them, while another is constantly requesting to see my belly button.
I should probably clarify that I’m referring to my children as co-workers now. Why? It amuses me. Especially when I threaten them with written warnings from HR for bad behaviour.
One such co-worker, Jasmine, who turns two in June, has taken to bringing me all manner of things. Seriously, she’s like a cat trying to impress their owner. Thankfully, I haven’t got any small dead animals yet, but I wouldn’t put it past her.
Here’s a list of some of the things that I’ve received from her in the past fortnight:
•  Three baby dolls. She was trying to carry these all at once. I should report her to child services as one of them had their head dragging along the ground.
•  A bottle of moisturiser. Jasmine had somehow got the lid off it and was smearing it everywhere. She avoided capture when I tried to get it off her and hid the moisturiser somewhere in the house. It is yet to be found. I imagine it will be spilling its contents as you read this. [HR Warning #1]
•  A bottle of sweet chili sauce. Thank God she didn’t get the lid off that.
•  A cactus.
•  14 pairs of socks. Jasmine vehemently refuses to wear socks at the moment. Perfect heading into winter.
•  My work diary. She’d managed to smuggle it out of my office, scribble on pretty much every page of the year and then proudly return it. If I didn’t have OCD for neatness I’d consider this as cute. But I do, so I don’t. [HR Warning #2]
•  A tray of ice cubes. Seriously. We’ve got kiddie locks on our freezer and all. I’m still not sure how Houdini managed this one.
•  Countless books.
•  My bookmark, but not the book it was in. [HR Warning #3]
•  A glass of water. Unfortunately for Jasmine she’d managed to stealthily sneak up on me, so when I turned my chair around it spilled all over her. She was NOT impressed.
•  Her brother’s undies.
•  Grapes. Grapes. Grapes and more grapes. We’ve got a vine outside which Jasmine has just found so whenever she spots an open door is straight out there. It appears that she’s trying to make wine down the hallway with the number that have been trampled into the carpet.
•  Some bad stenches from having an almost exclusive grape diet. [HR Warning #4]
•  A balloon, snap watch, magnets, and pretty much every toy that’s in the lounge or her bedroom. I feel like I’m moving house every day with the amount of stuff I’m lugging around.
•  My glasses… all smeared in fingerprints. I’d issue an HR Warning but I’m typically too busy trying to avoid losing an eye. Seriously, is there anything quite as terrifying as a one-year old who is charging at you with a pair of glasses, demanding to put them on you? It’s a precarious situation because they’ve got a vice like grip on the glasses and a look in their eye that suggests they would rather smash your glasses into a million pieces than let you prise them out of their hands. The only way out of the situation is to let them put the glasses on you while you try and help steer their hands. You just have to hope like heck they don’t come in hot otherwise you’ll likely get your eyeball caved in… for the third time this week.
•  Her brother’s LEGO. Closely followed by him screaming that his LEGO has been stolen. Nine times out of ten this will be when I’m on a work conference call.
•  And, my favourite so far… A bowl of frozen mixed veggies. She’d somehow managed to pilfer it off the kitchen side and had eaten about half the bowl on the way down the hallway. I’d give her an HR Warning, but, to be honest, I’m just glad she’s eating something other than grapes.

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