Reader, last night my seven year old cousin stayed over (largely to allow her parents to go to a Christmas party) which gave me a taste of what it must be like to have kids. As it's me doing the looking after, of course, there was quite a bit of baking, which mostly involved me making her wash her hands every five minutes because she's got a cough. Also there was lots of 'Can I lick the bowl?' 'No, it's got raw egg in it', 'what about this bowl?' ' That bowl too' 'what about this one?' 'That's got flour in it' 'But can I lick it?' (thinks about it) 'go on then'....'GAH! It tastes horrible!' Life lesson learnt there. Not sure what life lesson, maybe 'not everything in a cake bowl tastes like cake' but I feel like that's some serious parenting right there.
The other thing that came about was that little cousin taught me some life lessons. She tried some cookie dough *what is it about kids having to try everything* and went 'OW' then told me it was far too hot and she'd burnt her tongue. Being a smug grown up, of course, I tried some, only to yelp when my tongue singed. So what life lesson is that 'believe kids when they tell you not to do something'? To be fair, this is the same girl who won't use our loo without someone standing guard outside because there's a mermaid picture in there that freaks her out, she claims when she looked at it, it widened it's eyes at her (she watches a lot of Dr. Who), to try and calm her down, I told her the picture granted wishes, but she just said 'you can have my wish then'. Clever girl.
Because little cousin wanted a proper girly sleepover, we snd set out the sofa bed in the gym, where we watched Hoodwinked (which she loved). The only thing was, little cousin got to sleep pretty early and slept through all night, whereas I was up about four times, checking all the tree lights were off, checking Dad had got in ok, at one point I even got worried the little one might get hypothermia, so I went and got another blanket out to lay on top of us. Clearly little cousin had no such similar concerns for me, as when we woke up in the morning, she had turned herself into a sort of blanket larvae, and I was shivering like a little frost bitten match girl. At which point she was cheeky enough to go 'It was lovely and warm last night, wasn't it Ash?'. No, no it bleeding wasn't. Currently, she's pretending to be a spy with my dad, who's telling her she needs a fake tache as a disguise. She's convinced spying just involves hiding, but she is clearly wrong.
It just reinforces the idea in my head that I don't need to have kids yet. I have more than enough young cousins that I can look after them for a day, get my parenting fix and then pass them back to their parents when I need alone time. Easy peasy. None of this having to sort them out when they misbehave nonsense, just the fun watching cartoons bit.
Also, last night, my friend Kate popped over with her lovely mum and gave me some home made truffles. Am I excited about eating them? I've been thinking of little else since they arrived. Today is my last weigh in before Christmas, which means I can actually enjoy Christmas food from now on! Hurrah!
8 more sleeps till Christmas Reader!
Ash
x
P.s. hopefully you'll be getting the festive cake blog soon!
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