KlutzOnToast

Warning: The following ‘funny story’ is a true account of a night of babysitting and contains screaming, poop, and nudity. It is not recommended for pregnant audiences.

Parents leave. I smile at children willing them not to cry. They head in opposite directions.

I run around like a sheepdog in a rabbit warren – inside, outside, push the swing, run back inside, gulp down food while fending off child, run back outside, clean up poo, push swing, back inside, shove food in mouth of kid who is resisting as if I’m feeding him aforementioned poo, outside, push swing, inside, find missing kid, cuddle on couch with both kids for a few blessed minutes while playing peekaboo, run back outside to play basketball, back inside to make sure flood hasn’t begun and plasma is still in tact, find kid in toilet, praise profusely then try to work out why he’s screaming for the toilet cleaner, pull distraught kid out of bathroom and distract til smiling again, run back to other kid on swing, run bath, still running from inside to outside to keep an eye on both subjects, strip off nappy and clothes, put in bath, prevent from biting each other, get saturated head-to-toe as they splash, wait, watch water drip down face and flood bathroom  floor as they continue to have fun, finally go to grab one out only for kid to start screaming, return kid to bath, warm up bottle as bribe, try to remove child from bath with bottle in sight, starts screaming again, put back in bath, finally one kid pulls plug so I grab one of my subjects and try to dry, dress, give bottle and put to bed before bath finishes draining. Fail. Juggle two kids, rewrap child A who is crying because I didn’t do it properly the first time, put nappy on child B before accident occurs, put clothes on before bottle is empty, dump into bed, repeat process with child A, dump into bed. Put child B to bed for the second time with another bottle, check on child A who is snoring happily (despite not eating a thing), put child B to bed again, but have to turn airconditioner back on to stop from crying (despite it being freezing) because he likes the noise, leave quietly and huddle under blankets to try to get warm… Three bottles, four attempts and 27 renditions of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star later, finally both subjects are asleep and all is quiet.

I let the feeling of success wash over me. No kids are hurt. Place is mostly clean. Both kids asleep by reasonable hour. Victory.

I creep to the bathroom, barely daring to breathe in case I wake a child up, and with a big sigh of relief, sit down to pee. Then I realise the entire toilet paper roll has completely disappeared.

I begin to laugh, maybe somewhat hysterically.

Two weeks later, it is still missing in action.