Three hours with Solomon … [Part I]

I like challenges, but taking care of Solomon for three hours when his mom is away was no trivial. For long, she wanted to visit a salon and waiting for Solomon to grow up. Shanthi’s flower-arrangement-teacher [Rieko] had promised to take her to her friend’s Salon. After consulting with me, they decided to go on last week Sunday at last. Rieko-san told me that Shanthi will need about an hour, and once inside the Salon, I will not be allowed with a kid anywhere near her for it was too dangerous [I could not imagine why?]. It’s dangerous probably due to the blades, steam, etc … Anyway, the best and challenging part was, taking care of a 1 year old for ~1 hour. But when the time came for them to leave, I decided I will stay back home with Solomon, which means that I will have to take care of Solomon for 3 hours [1 hour each for Rieko and Shanthi + travel time] …

When it was time, I took Solomon to the parking lot, to bid good-bye to Shanthi and Rieko. They were leaving in their car. Till the time we all reached the car he was happy, probably thinking that we are all going together, somewhere. Once we reached the car, I stopped back with him, and Shanthi got in, he was still smiling, and when Shanthi and Rieko started waving their hands and telling me to take care of him, the expression in his face changed. I could not decipher, but it was strange and cute. For once, it seems that he thought his mom was playing “hide and seek”. So when we returned home from the parking lot he checked every single room, including the toilet, bathroom and balcony. After 10 minutes he stopped his search, I would never know what made him stop. At this point his facial expression changed, it was like, if not in the house, then where IS she? … I was enjoying all his strange faces. Super-imposing my guess over it. For a moment I thought I will pull out my camera and snap these moments. Those faces left a very deep impression in me that I decided not to disturb the inner picture with a photo (selfish me …)

My goal: Make sure, he does not cry for a minute, and just repeat the trick (loop for) 180 times. It looked simple. The time taken for me and Solomon to return home from the parking lot and his search inside the house had consumed some 12 minutes. We had earlier decided to take him to his friend, Teja’s home, which happens to be in a different building inside the same apartment complex. So to start off, I spent around 2~3 minutes in making him wear his shoes, going to the elevator, playing with the elevator buttons … We took another minute or so walking to Teja’s house. All these times his strange face remained. Looking at his face, I started feeling sorry. I only wished if I could get a peek into his feelings. After reaching Teja’s home, he started looking around for his mom, again. I guess he would have thought that she is playing a big time hide and seek … But it was not, he found out that she is not in there, too, so he wanted me to take him out, immediately. I was hoping he spend around 30 minutes in Teja’s house … sigh !!!

(will continue in Part II) …