quiet time or sugar crash?
This morning it's just Ana (5) and Xavier (4) and I, for about three (3!) hours. I'm officical caretaker while their mother (my sister) is off collecting the newly arrived cousin (with the American accent) and visiting the great grandmother.
All is grand as we set off on our much hyped 'coffee date', which both charges have been very excited about all morning. Even to me, it sounds a very grown up and sophisticated thing to do with their much-hyped 'New York' auntie, and I'm rather proud of my inspired suggestion. Ana and Xavier even want to leave half way through Justine (their favourite playschool presenter) reading about some mud loving, ever increasing in girth, backyard pig.
I've chosen Torquay's hottest little breakfast nook 'the Nocturnal Donkey', which is 'just around the corner'. By the time we've crossed the road, Xavier asks 'where the corner is?' When we actually reach the corner, home to Torquay's pub and one stop gambling shop, Ana asks if this is where we will be having our coffee date. A few more steps, and Xavier is hot and wants to know if the hardware store is where we get the coffee.
To kill time I begin a lesson on the meaning of the word 'nocturnal', which seems to distract from the already formidable heat at least long enough for them to decide they will order the very gender-obvious 'one strawberry and one chocolate milkshake'. 'But I thought you wanted something with froth, like I have with my cappucino?' They stare at me like I'm an alien and shake their heads. Apparently, just a milkshake, and then maybe an icy-pole... tres chic.
Except the Nocturnal Donkey doesn't serve milkshakes. Only iced/hot chocolate, or iced/hot coffee. Xavier may be swayed with the promise of marshmallows, but Ana is not having a bar of anything but a strawberry milkshake.
So, we go to the take-away bakery next door, and grab cartons of flavoured milk out of the fridge, which the obliging waitress back at the donkey pours into proper cafe glasses, and serves with silver spoons and straws.
Except the straw is a little high for Xavier, and the glass a little heavy, so a third of the chocolate milk lands in a puddle in his lap. I ask the waitress for a napkin. And the biggest coffee she's got. She brings a pile of paper towels served with a knowing, if not entirely sympathetic, smile, because 'you can never have enough'.
We manage some conversation about favourite kinder friends, and what's best about the beach, and I try to describe the difference between the maple syrup and what they are convinced is actually honey on the Dutch pancakes. Despite any faux European cache in the labelling of our breakfast, they are only interested in the icecream, the syrup and the icing sugar dusted around the egdge of the plate, which Xavier cleans off with a freshly and repeatedly licked finger.
Before the bill has arrived, requests for the next course of icy poles, or maybe ice cream have begun. This time I pull out the old faithful 'I Spy' to distract, and learn that 'Aunty Elle', begins with the letter 'L', and that 'Rebecca' is a legitimate answer for 'something beginning with R', even though this presumed real, but perhaps fictional being was not even on the Bellarine Peninsula, let alone dining in the 'Donkey.
By the time we leave, a dusty-wind of Dorothy Gale proportions has blown up, and I'm out of games. The kids shield their eyes agains the debris as we round the corner once more, and before too long crash on the couch in the airconditioned living room resorting to whatever 'abc kids' has to offer. (I have to confess to being oddly drawn into the will-they won't-they love affair between the blonde, french equestrian rider, and the simple but honest Aussie stable hand on 'Saddle Club'.)
By the time Cynthia is back it is time for lunch. There is still much talk of icy-poles, which Cynthia deftly ignores in favour of one ham and one cheese sandwich. Then it's nap time. From what I can tell there is only the standard amount of protest before the kids crash out.
So, while my rather feeble attempt at introducing my niece and nephew to cafe latte culture was perhaps premature, and while a later quiz on the definition of the word nocturnal was met with blank stares and the pronouncement from Ana that she was 'not good at anything and should be thrown in the bin', and while I can't be sure whether the kids were genuinely tired, or just crashing after being jacked up on flavoured milk and fried batter covered in sugar, I do now strongly suspect I am an aunty better suited to happy hour than brunch, and henceforth plan to do all my parenting as I do my cooking... with a glass of wine in my hand.
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