Stu World Class Au-Pair
We arrived at Alcira at 7 with a bottle of cheap pinot in hand and empty
stomachs. Mine was particularly empty due to a bout of what we believe to be
self inflicted food poisoning. Her grandsons, Juan and Augustin and her
answered the door and we headed upstairs.
There I was put in charge of babysitting a 3 and 6 year old, who I did not know,
good not understand well and did not have the patience for my slow Spanish. We
began by cracking walnuts, which was going well and good until Augustin decided
that we should play tennis in the house, so he raced into the other room to ask
for a tennis ball, which he was quickly denied (thankfully). I was then told
to keep them out of the kitchen and Ashley and Alcira were making a ricotta
cake. I tried to draw their attention by smash a walnut with my hand on the
floor. For some reason Juan thought this meant it that he should thought the
nuts on the ground and stomp on them. Not wanting to hurt the kid, cause him
to cry or call for help we began a game where Juan would throw a bunch of nuts
on the floor and I would try to snatch them out from under his stomping feet.
I got bored of this game quickly, and gave up to a degree.
After finally stomping on a couple Juan became bored and decided a better use of
his time would be to throw the nuts under the couch. “Que haces?” (what are
you doing) I asked him repetedly. For all I know he attempted to explain it to
me, but a foreign language spoken in toddler talk is impossible to understand.
On his final trip to the couch he step on and spilt the bowl of nuts all over
the floor. Augustin called for Alcira and I, suddenly aware of how large a
mess I allowed these kids to make scramble to put them back in the basket.
Augustin then did one of the most diabolical older brother things I have ever
since a sibling do. He stopped me. He actively removed the nuts from the
baskets as I plucked them out, making sure that by the time Alcira got there it
was a full blown mess that he could paste on his little brother. It was at that
time I decided that both of these kits were just evil and I used the only weapon
I know how to use against children. Trading cards based on Japanese cartoons.
This mollified Augustin and Juan reverted to watching TV. And all was right in
the world.
I was feeling pretty horrible at my attempt at baby sitting until dinner. It
became apparent that I was not ready for these two kids. Alcira, a mother of
four, seemed as though throttling them had crossed her mind more than once, and
their father Ben was a jungle-gym as he hand fed both of them at once.
The food and company was great and my ability to understand Spanish has
progressed to the point that I get most conversation. Ashley and I were both
stuffed to the gills on a milled the had a soup course, main course and two
desserts.
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