“Pay attention to me!” by Kirsten McCulloch

“Pay attention to me!”

Liam showed us recently what happens when you ignore a four-year-old, or worse tell him to sit down and shut up. On Saturday morning we were readying ourselves and our small people for my brother’s wedding. We wanted to look nice. We wanted to be clean and for Liam and Mikaela, our five-month-old, to be clean. We wanted to be on time. And we wanted Mikaela to have a good sleep before the wedding, while the rest of us got ready in the granny flat we were renting in Moss Vale – three rooms with no door between the living room and bedroom, and the only mirror in the living room.

We were all a little tired. We’d left home predictably late the previous day and spent perhaps an hour-and-a-half running errands (including having a late – four o-clock – lunch) and were just heading out of Canberra on the Federal Highway when my mother called.

“Where are you up to?” she asked.

“About two hours out,” I replied only an hour after I’d told her I hoped to arrive. She had driven up with my brother earlier in the day for a wedding rehearsal.

“You’re not still at home?”

“No, we’re just leaving Canberra.”

“Did you bring your iPod?”

“No, why?”

“Murray left his iPod at home with the music on it for the wedding. I was hoping you’d have something appropriate on yours.”

Home, in this case, meant my mother’s home in Kambah. Needless to say, we turned the car around and turned what should have been a two hour trip (minus all the errands) into four hours. Mikaela slept for ten minutes at the beginning and ten minutes at the end. In between times, she cried.

Not content with arriving in Moss Vale over an hour past Liam’s bedtime (and hours past Mikaela’s nap time, let alone bedtime), we then turned around and went to Peppers Manor House, where everyone else was staying, to have dinner. And didn’t get ‘home’ until eleven o’clock that night. So yes, we were a little tired.

Meanwhile, Liam was in fine form, rearing to go. We didn’t actually say ‘sit down and shut up’, but the sentiment was definitely there. After a while he began entertaining himself reasonably quietly, playing with the house keys and murmuring about locking and unlocking things, making sure no-one stole anything. So we continued to more or less ignore him (he was all ready to go) while trying to blow-dry hair and the like without waking Mikaela. A brief “Quietly Liam!” from time to time was all he seemed to need.

We discovered the things we’d forgotten. In my case, just ear rings, and I had another pair which would do. In Chris’s case, his belt. A couple of frantic phone calls later (no, no-one had a spare black belt with them) we decided to stop in Moss Vale on the way and buy one.

Finally ready to go, I sent Chris to strap Liam into his car seat while I did a last minute nappy change, then looked for the keys to lock up. Oh, that’s right, Liam had been playing with them. Where did he put them?

“I buried them,” he said, innocently, “So no-one could steal them.”

“Where? In the house?”

“No, in the garden.”

Insert appropriate expletive, muttered under breath. Starting to panic now. “Near the back door?”

“Yep, near the shed.”

The shed was relatively near the back door – relative to the size of the garden which was half an acre – but not near enough to be reassuring. And either way, both were surrounded by ivy and other thick leafy vegetation.

Did I mention that we were on the way to my brother’s wedding, we had to stop on the way to buy a belt, and of course we were already running later than I’d planned?

“I guess that’s what happens,” I said to Chris on the way to the wedding, once I’d calmed down, “when you ignore a tired four-year-old and expect him to stay quiet for an hour. At least it gives me a good story to blog about.”

We hadn’t found the keys. We just left the place unlocked and prayed to whoever was listening that Liam would remember where he buried them when we got back. Thankfully, he did.

Kirsten McCulloch (2006)
To visit Kirsten's blog Click Here 

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