Doūmak's Adventures in Babysitting

Doūmak wanted to cover his ears and cry at the wails of the twins that almost drowned out the rest of the chaos that was the natural disasters Minrin and Tod. He’d been gone five minutes to go to the restroom and had come back to this mess. Minrin was painting the walls with her food while her brother Tod was bouncing up and down on all of the furniture in the living room while music blared on the radio which he was singing along to loudly and off-key as he threw the snacks from the Ziploc bag Doūmak had given him. A much less calm bean would have probably blown a fuse, but Doūmak just felt like crying in a corner and wondering how it was that he had managed to be talked into this when he had two twins he had to care for anyway when the rest of his family was away at work or school.

The truth was, he knew exactly how he had gotten himself into this mess.

***

It was five in the morning and Doūmak was in his usual morning groove, he’d kissed his amazing husband Amor on the cheek and let him sleep in a bit more while he headed off to get ready himself. He was now hard at work cooking breakfast for the both of them as well as their five out of six amazing children before they went off to school for the day. It was still hard adjusting to having one less bean in the house even though Scotty had moved out some time ago. He was letting the pancake batter sit for a bit when he decided to bring out his copy of The Doctor Who Official Cookbook by Joanna Farrow and began flipping through the pages trying to find something to make to divvy out to all his bundles of joy for their lunches. Doūmak had just found a promising dish when the phone rang. It was a weird time for a phone call, but he went to go check the caller ID to see who it was.

It was Rainbow.

He picked the phone off the receiver and answered, “Hello Rainbow, what’s up?”

“I’m in desperate need of a babysitter,” was the breathless reply from the other side of the phone, “my regular babysitter cancelled on me on the last minute and I don’t know what to do. I have to get to the airport in two hours otherwise I miss my flight.”

“Calm down, it’s going to be okay. If you can’t find anyone else, I’m happy to ask Amor to cover me at the bakery while I babysit Minrin and Tod,” Doūmak responded, trying his best to reassure them.

“Oh goodness, would you really be willing to do that for me Doūmak?”

“Certainly, anything to help out a friend in need,” he replied as he picked up the bowl of pancake batter and went over to the stove top where the frying pan was, “I’ll have to talk to my husband about it first, but I’m pretty sure that we will be able to swing it and make it all work out so you don’t have to miss your flight.”

“Thank you so very much Doūmak, I don’t know if I can possibly thank you enough,” Rainbow answered emphatically.

“Don’t thank me just yet,” he chuckled, “I still have to get approval from the hubby.”

Apparently his conversation with Rainbow had woken Amor up because he was now coming down the stairs, handsome even in his grogginess and his mussed up bed-fur look, he came over and kissed Doūmak good morning before inquiring as to what was going on.

Doūmak quickly filled Amor in on the situation and what they might need to do if Doūmak were to indeed help Rainbow out and babysit Minrin and Tod. After this conversation, it was decided that Doūmak would indeed babysit the two while Amor covered him at work. It was certainly nothing that they hadn’t done before since they were still caring for their twin babies, Felicity and Micah, so they were still flip flopping who ran the bakery/sweet shop while the other cared for the twins. So they both had a great deal of faith that this would all go relatively smoothly.

So Doūmak called Rainbow back to tell them that he could babysit their two kids and Rainbow had them over at their place within the hour. At the time, they were sleepy little ones and Doūmak could almost be deceived that this would be an easy babysitting job without any problems.

Together, he and Amor worked on breakfast for themselves and eight children now since Rainbow had informed them that neither Minrin nor Tod had had breakfast yet this morning. So it was chocolate chip pancakes all around for everyone! As always, Doūmak didn’t make boring pancakes. Each pancake he made for each member of his family (as well as his two guests) were tailored to their interests. Since he didn’t know Minrin and Tod very well, he decided to ask them, which garnered various answers.

“A bunny!”

“Stitch!”

“Oh! What about a unicorn?”

“A Transformer!”

Doūmak chuckled, “Alright you two, settle down, I’ll make you both two pancakes then with those ideas.”

The pair squealed in delight, which then quickly turned to awe one the two them had received their pancakes.

The awe was short lived though as their hunger became more important than preserving the artistic pancakes and the pair or them quickly started in on demolishing their pancakes. Doūmak took advantage of the brief time he had while Minrin and Tod were eating, Jordi and Nato were getting ready for school, and Amor being the awesome husband he was by packing the food Doūmak had made for their kids’ lunches to feed the twins Felicity and Micah.

As soon as he was done feeding them, he returned to find that Minrin and Tod had been so incredibly messy about eating the pancakes that they were covered in syrup on their faces and hands.

I’m going to need to help them clean up once the kids go off to school, Doūmak thought to himself with a chuckle when he saw the pair of them.

***

It was now noon and Doūmak was hard at work preparing lunch for Minrin and Tod as well as his own twins, Felicity and Micah, when he heard the high pitched squeals of Minrin and Tod coming from the living room area. He stopped amidst putting together sandwiches for Minrin and Tod, heading over to the living room he stopped dead in his tracks as he gazed upon the scene which lay before him in both unmitigated horror and shock. Minrin was actively working on painting the walls of the room with what appeared to be what had been leftover from the baby food that he had made for the twins while her brother Tod was hard at work bouncing up and down on the furniture as if he was on a trampoline playing “the floor is lava” game with the controller to the stereo in his paws which were covered in...what appeared to be jam. How in the world had he gotten his paws on jam? He hadn’t given them anything with jam in it or a part of it. However it was that Tod had managed to get his paws ahold of jam, he was now applying said jam on his paws to the controller of the stereo and had not only turned it on, but had also cranked the volume up really loudly.

It was at this point that the twins Felicity and Micah started to cry, quite understandably in Doūmak’s opinion. He almost felt like crying too at the sight of everything that was going on. It was also about then that the hypoallergenic cat he had gotten for Amor walked in...covered in jam and drawings done in some sort of marker pen.

He inwardly groaned because he knew that he would have to bathe the cat as well as wash the faces and hands of the two little scamps who were wreaking havoc in the living room, not to mention the fact that he was going to need to clean the living room as well once he was done. Before any of that, he needed to put an end to the chaos, so he went over to where Tod had dropped the remote on the couch and lowered the volume on the stereo before pushing the power button.

Now that silence had fallen, Doūmak put the remote down and came over to Tod who was still bouncing around on the furniture. As Tod made a leap for the sectional couch from the chair that he was currently bouncing on, Doūmak moved to catch him in mid-flight, which he was thankfully successful in doing. It was jarring for certain as well as terrifying as had he not managed to catch Tod, he would have surely wound up obtaining a serious injury for himself.

He hoisted the boy up onto his shoulders and brought him to the bathroom, where he set him down on his feet. He then grabbed a washcloth, got it wet with some warm water and started to wash off Tod’s face, then brought over the step stool and had Tod wash his hands.

With Tod now clean, Doūmak placed him in the penned off play area where he would put the twins to play in order to keep Tod out of trouble while Doūmak took care of his sister Minrin. Who had apparently moved on from painting the walls with food while Doūmak was cleaning all the jam off of Tod and was now on a new and exciting creative venture:

Cooking….something.

Doūmak couldn’t help but notice that she definitely hadn’t washed her hands since painting the walls, so whatever she was making it was best not to let her eat it.

“What are you making Minrin,” Doūmak inquired softly as he looked over her shoulder at whatever it was that she was in the process of making.

“It’s a sorry sandwich. Ta say sorry,” she replied, beaming up at him.

It almost broke his heart that he would have to throw away the sandwich, “That’s very thoughtful of you Minrin,” he began, “I really appreciate it, but how about you go ahead and take a break and go wash your hands and face while I go ahead and eat this.”

“Okay,” she exclaimed as she ran off towards the bathroom.

Doūmak chuckled and shook his head as he watched her run off, then quickly picked up the sandwich she made and threw it into the garbage, making sure the lid closed so she wouldn’t be able to see the sandwich should she ever go snooping.

By the time that Minrin had returned, the sandwich had been disposed of completely and Doūmak had put away all the ingredients she had used, being sure to throw out anything she might have contaminated with her hands.

“Didja eat it,” she asked, looking up at him with big round eyes.

“Yes, I did, it was very delicious! Thank you for making it for me,” Doūmak replied, expertly lying to her to save her feelings as well as his own health.

“Yay,” she exclaimed, throwing up her arms, which Doūmak took advantage of to scoop her up and take her over to the playpen where he had dropped off Tod in earlier. He dropped her off there, gave the pair of them their lunches and then fed the twins. He then spent several hours working on cleaning all the furniture and walls that Minrin and Tod had gotten dirty.

By the time he was done cleaning up everything, it was four o’clock in the afternoon and by four-thirty, Rainbow had come back to pick up the twins who were now fast asleep.

“How were they,” Rainbow inquired as they put the pair inside the stroller.

“I’d be lying if I said that they were perfect angels,” he chuckled, surprised to hear Rainbow laugh along with him.

“Trust me, I know what little terrors they can be,” they replied, “I hope they didn’t cause you too much trouble though. Thank you again so much for babysitting them on such short notice.”

“It was really no trouble, I’m used to it by now having raised so many children, even if most of them were adopted,” Doūmak replied as he took the cash that Rainbow handed him.

Once they’d left, Doūmak moved to go crash on the sofa, until Felicity and Micah began to cry, making him have to get up and get the pair of them out of their crib. He sat down on the rocking, reclining chair with each of them in one arm as he rocked them to sleep, smiling at them until he found himself falling fast asleep. Clearly, he was more exhausted from the day’s events than he had thought.