As I’ve said, sometimes I feel like I have control over my own home. I don’t love having a million people in here at all hours, but the alternative would be: doing everything myself, doing it half-ass, bitching about it, and probably getting divorced. The secret to a Happy Fancy Marriage? Household staff. At least that is what my therapist says.
Anyhoo, in another shining example of where my staff has done something with the best of intentions, let me tell you the story of TC’s dummy. The one I saw in her mouth yesterday morning.
The girls prefer American dummies. Why wouldn’t they? We call them pacifiers and don’t insult their natural need to suck on something buy implying a negative level of general comprehension. This does create a little issue, however, in that it can be difficult to get more dummies at the drop of a hat. We have them shipped over by family or I pick up about 20 when I’m home. (The people at Babies R Us think I’m odd, stocking up on Carters blanket sleepers in 3 sizes and every single Soothie in stock). Anyway, suffice it to say that I’m a bit of a nut about not losing the dummies.
So a few weeks back I was walking down the street in our neighbourhood when I saw, to my horror, one very yellow and orange American style dummy lying in the street. With tire tracks. I couldn’t say for absolutely certainty that it was TC’s but come on. How many American dummies in orange and yellow can there be in central London? I hesitated for only a second before reaching down and, while looking to make sure no one was watching, popping that sucker right into my purse. I didn’t actually intend to return it to my precious little baby. But I thought, just in case of a Dummy Emergency, I’d have a back-up plan. Not ideal but better than an angry, inconsolable infant, no?
Well, you know what happened next, don’t you? I cleaned out my purse and put said dummy in a corner next to some random junk. I can’t say for sure but I imagine that it was then discovered by one of the housekeepers who “helpfully” returned it to the dummy basket in the kitchen. From there it probably worked its way down the stairs and into their room, landing in TC’s cot. And then her mouth.
Maybe if I were the kind of Mum who changed the cot sheets, I’d have intercepted it. But I’m not. So I can’t really complain when I see a dirty, scuffed slightly mangled dummy hanging from my kid’s mouth, can I? I just smile and swallow. Hard.
