A Tale of Two Kiddies

We enter the elevator to see a baby strapped to a helper. The reason I notice the helper with the baby boy, who looks about a year old, is because when Little Miss and I enter, they’re standing/ hanging in a corner of the lift, and it isn’t going anywhere. In a nod to what I shall dub Parent Karma (that is someone’s baby and you try to do the best you can because you can’t be with your own kids 24 hours a day and you hope somewhere out there someone else who encounters your kids when you aren’t around is also doing the best they can) I try to make eye contact because I’m guessing the helper is new and lost while handling someone’s baby, but she steadfastly does not look at me.

So I turn back to key in the communal floor that is our destination. Slowly, making sure she can see me, because I also suspect she doesn’t know how to use the lift, which has laminated instructions right next to the button panel because it’s slightly more complicated than the regular lifts.

I roll the stroller off on one of the public floors half expecting Helper With Baby Attached to follow, but she doesn’t. Ok, so maybe she’s going home instead and forgot to key her floor in, I think. Until two minutes later when we see her exit the lift again, cast me a very sheepish look and quickly disappear around a corner while I’m just entering the next lift, still with baby attached.

My first thought is Wow She Is So Lucky The Baby Still Hasn’t Complained 😀 and I take it she had quickly learned to key the same floor she had watched me key. Except I’m not sure she then knew how to get back to her own apartment. But she’s disappeared too fast and the occupants of the new lift are looking at me expectantly.

That’s when I notice the Asian toddler in the stroller. Except the woman attached to the stroller is Caucasian. (Well one of our pastors who is Caucasian adopted 4 kids, 2 of whom are from the Mainland, and has taxi drivers ask him “Do you have two wives?” which is all manner of funny when you think of the taxi driver assuming the Chinese wife then also just has killer DNA :D) …The little boy in the other stroller has taken quite an interest in Little Miss’ ride, and is pointing to the large wheels and saying “tractor”.

“No, that is not a tractor, those are the big wheels on the stroller. Can you say that?” He dutifully attempts to repeat as many of the words as he can, and when Little Miss reaches over to examine his ride (so not the shy one, of my two kids), I explain “She’s very comfortable with older boys because she has a brother…. He’s a bit over 5-and-a-half though…”

“He’s two, how old is she?” The other Asian woman in the lift who replies must be his mother. Ah, so the woman pushing his stroller must be his nanny/ English tutor. His mother says something briefly to him in…… it’s not Chinese, but it’s too few words for me to hazard a guess…. Korean? Japanese? Rockstar is around quite a few Korean friends and schoolmates and has better Korean-dar than me, but of course he’s at school.

The lift door opens, and the Korean? Japanese? boy and his nanny exit, still practicing a few English phrases, as his mother follows along…

Back to Baby Attached To Helper. She wasn’t carrying anything – not diaper bag, not bottle, nothing, just the baby, so I really hope she found her way home. If she hung about the lifts long enough one of the reception guards would probably come find her, since they can see her on the CCTV – our helper tells us she got stuck in one of the lift lobbies and they helped her out. Not sure about the corner of the park this helper’s disappeared into, though. It occurred to me this new helper didn’t want to admit to her employers that she has no idea how to navigate the lifts or parks, or else she didn’t want to tell them she still didn’t know how to, after they’d showed her. And she’s obviously been left alone with this baby for the moment. Maybe for the day.

It occurred to me the two children Little Miss and I met this morning live in this pretty nice development, but the care they are receiving is just worlds apart.

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OK I get mildly peevy messages if I don’t post something about the Rockstars (Uh, no, people don’t come here to read what I write. They tolerate what I write because of pictures :D)

So here now, Little Miss stars in a 5 second skit titled “Going, going, gone.” Guess why?

(I KNOW. One little biscuit stick, so many faces.)