Playing With Lachlan Again?

Bree and I were waiting outside Stella’s front door when the Supergirl arrived with her mum in the car. As they drove down the driveway, Stella’s mum lowered the excited little girl’s window so she can pass on the good news to me. Still strapped to her car seat, we could hear the Supergirl calling out, “@#%*-@#%*, we are going to the park to see Lachlan!” Yes, Stella (soon to be turning 5 in April) is still strapped into her very stylish looking booster seat for every car ride. Unlike some other mums, they will be continuing to strap Stella in for a while. This was why they invested in a car seat that fitted older child passengers.

I was almost just as eager to get to the park as Miss Stella. While she was eager to see her little friend, I was eager to check out his nanny. No, don’t get me wrong. LOL. I just want to see if the nanny that I knew was really gone. I also wondered if I would get along with the new nanny. Stella looked around everywhere for her little friend but Lachlan was no where to be found. The girls went to play without him. After 15 minutes of running around the toddlers’ area, I sat them down for their afternoon tea. The girls and I sat at a picnic bench munching Marie biscuits while Stella filled me in on what she did at school. Then I heard crying and instantly looked up. Children’s crying at the park is quite common and it didn’t bother the girls one bit. Other than us, there were approximately 5 groups of adults & children at the park at the time but I could hear that the crying was not coming from their direction. As I turned back to look at my charges, I noticed the child crying. He was in his buggy and was coming our way. It was Lachlan! Stella saw my reaction and turned instantly to look behind her. Normally, she would have approached him to warmly greet her little friend and his nanny. Today, she turned to look at me for reassurance. I am still not sure if it was because she couldn’t recognise him (because of his new hair do) or if it was because he was crying and that frightened her a little.

We waited for them to come over but we were wrong. He was pushed past us, heading towards a bench not far from behind me. As he passed us, Lachlan put out both hands for me, gesturing as he cried for his nanny to join us. He was truly miserable. I have never seen him like that before. As soon as he was off his buggy, he ran over to us. His nanny barked at him to not disturb us. She came over to him and ‘bribed’ him back to their bench. I wanted to explain to her that we knew him but I was caught up with Bree asking for more biscuits. I had to remind Stella not to give her biscuit to her because not only do I not allow food sharing, Bree has a pretty strict food ration around this time of the day. So, as soon as I got the girls cleaned up, we went over to greet him. I tried to introduce myself to his nanny but she wasn’t all too chatty. Supergirl Stella is usually very chatty and would usually invite him to play but she was all quiet. So, I did the talking, inviting Lachlan to play with the girls when he had finished his biscuits.

The girls went on the swings together. There was one junior seat and one baby seat; perfect arrangement for the girls. After a while, Stella went over to this equipment that was closer to Lachlan. Despite years of working as a nanny, I never found out what this piece of equipment was called. It’s like a type of see-saw except that it looks like a balance and hanging off the ends of each arm is a disc swing for a child to sit on. Younger children need help from adults to get it going. Lachlan and Stella love this equipment. In the past, they have had lots of fun hanging on for dear life as the swing swung around going up and down at the same time. LOL. Stella stood near this piece of equipment watching the boy and his new nanny. Just when I was about to distract her, she summoned up the courage to ask him if he wanted to play on the see-saw. They call it the see-saw. The equipment has 4 arms and therefore 4 disc swings for up to 4 children. I helped them to get on and got it going for them. Scared that Bree might get stomped if she walked in under the moving swings, I put her on one of the empty disc swing without a partner. I had to support her from behind to prevent her from falling out accidentally. This see-saw/balance (whatever it is called) is not made for little tots. Bree was just as happy. She was probably thinking that she was part of the game with her big friends. LOL.

A few minutes later, Stella and Lachlan got off and ran over to the play structure for older kids. Bree wanted to go as well and I had to follow her to keep her safe. We all went down the tall spiral slide. (By the way, I love slides!) There waiting at the foot of the slide was Lachlan’s nanny. It was time for him to go home. Stella didn’t want him to go. He didn’t want to leave either. I didn’t know why he had to leave so soon. Lachlan sat down on the ground crying like it was the end of the world. The new nanny is not very tall. Instead of lifting him, she just ‘propped’ him up from behind and ‘walked’ him back to his buggy. As he continued crying, he tried to stop what she was doing and she ended up lifting him. Once he was strapped in, he kept calling out for me. This frightened Bree and she began to cry. Stella, a sensitive child, was very quiet. Seeing that Lachlan was leaving, she walked back to Bree’s buggy thinking that we were leaving too. Lachlan’s cries and the look of Stella’s facial expressions saddened me terribly. As the nanny pushed Lachlan’s buggy past us, she gave me a faint smile. The weird thing was that she hardly said anything to give him any comfort. I don’t know what came over me but I took Bree with me and stood in front of his buggy and told him that we will play again next week if it is OK with his parents. As I said that I looked at the nanny’s face. I also told her that it would be nice for Lachlan and Stella to play together like they used to. The nanny just gave me a blank look. Stella remained seated on Bree’s buggy this whole time.

Before the girls and I left the park, a parent came up to ask me what happened to the other woman looking after the little boy. I wasn’t able to answer because I really didn’t know. The girls were very quiet on the way home. Lots of things went through my head. Lachlan’s crying, Bree’s crying, Stella’s reaction, the nanny’s action (or lack of it) and the whereabouts of the other nanny were all playing in my head over and over. I was even surprised that a parent noticed the change of nanny. At this park (as in most places in my opinion), nannies and parents (especially mums) do not mix. All that had happened at the park bothered me all the way home.

Note: I did try to call the old nanny again but it went straight to a message informing me that her mobile phone was not turned on.