venta

It may surprise you (or, at least, any of you who have met me) to hear that I spent last week looking after a baby. Yes, a real one.

Some of you know, or will readily deduce, who the baby belongs to, but let's leave it anonymous. We'll call the baby Ginny. She's a year old, and her parents had a slightly unexpected childcare shortfall. I wasn't working, so offered to step in - and to my immense surprise was taken up on it. People are willing to trust me with sole care of a baby? The fools :)

Anyway. I popped over for a couple of days the preceding week to remind Ginny who I was, as she hadn't seen me in a few weeks. She seemed happy hanging out with me, and willing to trust me to feed her and so on. Her parents reported that she sleeps soundly at night, and I've observed before that she is a very smiley baby whom I've rarely heard cry. How hard could it be?

( Hello, little girl )

I require some assistance from the baby-aware among you, please. In a couple of weeks a sprog for whom I ought to buy a birthday present will be one. What does one give a one year old ? A boy, though I suspect that's not that relevant.

A while ago I happened on a craft stall selling nice wooden puzzles, and bought a brightly coloured, chunky jigsaw in the shape of a sealion. It has, I think, seven or eight pieces. Unfortunately, I'm now wondering whether perhaps that might be too babyish. Is he likely to be beyond it already ? What I know about the developmental stages of children could be written in quite large letters on a postage stamp.

So, er, any ideas ? If you were one year old, what would you want ? If you had a one year old, what would you want other people to give to it ?