“I'm sorry, that was the last time,” Lisa apologized.
In Lisa's experience, family members were allowed to cook without permission. Especially when they were making a nice meal for everyone. She was wrong again.
6
Lisa's job was primarily looking after the two-year-old toddler, Luca. She knew that children in this age range were in their exploratory phase. They wanted to wander around all the time. They wanted to explore everything. They wanted to touch everything. This child in particular was confined to a room. Lisa would play with the baby in the labyrinth. She played with a toy kitchen that the baby had. She built puzzles. She played for hours and hours and hours.
The baby was never tired. Lisa was busy all the time. She was always playing something with one of the children. Or she was exploring the unknown world with the baby. Every day she had to rediscover the whole world with the baby. But, she was confined to the labyrinth and toys in the baby‘s room.
Once, her host family went to a folk festival. They left the toddler at home with Lisa. The parents knew that the baby would cry the whole time if they brought him alone. So, Lisa stayed home alone in the giant house with the baby. They were essentially locked in a small room. They played for hours and hours that day. It must have been five or six. They were playing with the little plastic kitchen, pretending that they were cooks.
“B-butter, bre-ead, honey,” the toddler tried to pronounce the words. “Bre-ead, b-butter,” he repeated. These were the only words the baby could say. Lisa listened to him attempt to say these words every single day, eight hours a day.
Around the sixth hour, Lisa realized she had to pee. The baby had taken off to sit in the corner and play with a puzzle. Lisa thought about what she was going to do.
“Do I take the baby with me?” she asked herself out loud. She watched him playing with the puzzle.
“No. He isn't my child.” She figured he would be fine while she quickly ran to the bathroom. At the moment, the child was busy with the puzzle and ignored Lisa. Lisa thought that theoretically nothing bad could happen if she left the toddler alone for a very short time.
“Okay,” Lisa thought, “I have only thirty seconds to run to the bathroom and come back.”
Two minutes later, Lisa came back. The child was still busy with the puzzle. They played until evening.
At dinner, Lisa was informed that Luca had broken the TV.
“You are guilty for this, Lisa. You shouldn't have left the baby alone,” the host parents yelled. Lisa felt bad enough without the parents yelling at her. She didn't mean to let the baby wander off. She didn't think anything was going to happen while she was gone for a few minutes.
“The baby probably saw the remote control and pressed it very hard. One must never leave the kids alone,” Lisa thought.
“I was with the child every second. I only left to pee,” she explained herself.
“It doesn't matter. It's your job to take care of the child. You're doing a bad job taking care of him, obviously,” Nick yelled at her. Lisa didn't bother responding to the child.
“Did you think about what would happen while you were gone?” the parents continued.
“Babies put their fingers into an electrical sockets, Lisa,” Nick yelled in the background.
Lisa shook her head again. She wasn't a mother. She didn't know that leaving a toddler alone for three minutes would give them enough time to hurt themselves.
“Now we have to pay for the repair. Or, maybe you should have to pay since it happened on your watch,” they continued.
“Children, Lisa is only human and not a robot. Sometimes she has to visit the bathroom,” the grandmother said, trying to protect her.
Lisa sighed. She had to pee. She was only human, after all. Maybe they wanted her to be a robot. Or, to wear a diaper for seven hours so she wouldn't leave the baby to use the washroom. Lisa was so inexperienced that she could not imagine that if she left the child alone for only some minutes, he would instantly do something bad.
Lisa thought her host family hated her. Although, she was not guilty at all. Luckily, her host family didn't make her pay for the repairs.
7
One night, Clara and her husband were heading to the opera. There was a premier and they wanted to go. Clara had planned for this evening. She was dressed so fancy before she left. Her dress was long, and it glittered. She looked glamorous. Lisa imagined how everyone else would look at the opera. They would look rich and classy, like Clara.
Before closing the door, Clara informed Lisa, “Take care of the children. Cook noodles for dinner.”
Lisa did as she was asked. At eight pm, she put all the children down to bed. This was their regular bedtime. Then, she headed down to her room to enjoy a bit of time alone. Less than an hour passed when Nataly came down to her room. She knocked loudly and when Lisa opened her door, she heard the baby crying.
“Lisa, the baby wants to play,” she whined. Lisa sighed.
“Our baby does not follow any regime. Sometimes he wants to play at night,” her host family once told her.
There were times the baby wanted to play at night because he had slept through the day.
This was going to be one of those nights.
Lisa followed Nataly up to the baby’s room. Nataly went back to her own bed. Lisa took the pink, screaming baby in her arms. It didn’t take two minutes for Lisa to stop him crying, and got him to smile up at her. Lisa played with the baby. She was exhausted. She hoped the baby would play for an hour and then feel tired. But hours passed, and the baby was still wide awake.
The host parents came back after midnight.
“Thank you for taking care of the baby,” Clara said.
“You are welcome,” Lisa answered, then went back to her room.
She was even more exhausted than before. But, she was kept awake by the nightmare she was living in. How was she supposed to explore the country, if she was always looking after the children? How was she supposed to learn the culture or customs if this family was all she was around? She was trapped in this golden cage. These spoiled children took all of her energy.
Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.
8
Sunday morning was Lisa’s day off. It was the first day off she had had in a long time. She took a deep breath and enjoyed the moment. Suddenly her peaceful, momentary rest was soon interrupted by the sounds of little feet running towards her.
At seven o'clock, the kids jumped up on Lisa’s bed. She looked at the baby and with a bleary-eyed, tired smile, forced herself to get up.
“Play with us!” they shouted.
“Okay,” Lisa said, even though she hadn’t slept enough. She didn’t know how to reject the kids.
“Where are their parents?” She guessed that they wanted to spend lazy weekends, having enough sleep and not being distracted by the noisy kids.
They played peacefully. Lisa read them a book aloud. She washed and combed their hair and brought them downstairs to the kitchen. Afterward, all four of the children rushed down to the cellar, playfully pouncing on Lisa.
“Play with us Lisa!” they shouted.
“Okay, but let’s play a quiet game,” Lisa said, trying to hold onto the blissful silence for a few moments longer. They settled down to play a board game right there on the table in the cellar. The hum of the huge fridge was louder than their voices, so loud in fact that it caught little Nataly’s attention!