Poor May Blossom. She is the mother of a most troublesome child. Cupcake the Filthy Doll, generally known his family, friends and the local constabulary as Baby, has been up to a fat lot of No Good.
He wasn’t a bad baby to begin with, but about six months ago I began to hear tales from his mother about various crimes and misdemeanours for which he was responsible. First there was the broken wall near our local post office.
‘What happened here?’ May Blossom asked me.
‘It looks like someone might have driven into it,’ I told her.
‘Oh,’ she said, seriously. ‘That was Baby.’
‘I didn’t know Baby had a car.’
‘He doesn’t. He stole it.’
Well shit.
After that, Baby morphed fairly quickly into a one-doll version of Gone in 60 Seconds. When we were out driving, we’d see many cars on the road that May Blossom reported as stolen by Baby. We worried about his future enormously.
Since we’ve moved house, the car theft seems to have stopped, but it’s given way to a graffiti bender. Drawing on the walls is Baby’s new thing. Within an hour of arrival, before the furniture had even arrived, he had tagged the wall just inside the back door with a marker pen.
Then followed several weeks of May Blossom telling anyone who would listen, and several who wouldn’t, about how Baby had drawn on the walls and what a naughty thing that was. Foolishly, we believed this to be a fictional crime, until one day I peeked behind the armchair in the playroom to discover some wall art of Banksy-esque proportions. Bloody Baby.
And now the kitchen lino has some fetching pink highlighter drawings right beside May Blossom’s table and chair. Coinicidence? I think Baby’s trying to set you up, my love.
We’ve tried keeping the pens out of reach, but Baby is a determined climber. We’ve discussed it often with his mother and she agrees that his behaviour is a cry for help. Baby wants more attention, so we’re working on ways to make that happen.
Yesterday, out of the blue, May Blossom told me that ‘When life gets easier, Baby will stop drawing on the walls.’ What am I supposed to do with that information? Seems to me like Baby has it pretty good already, but perhaps if his poor mother wasn’t as restricted in her television viewing and if I were even freer with the biscuits and ice-cream, then things might ease up for the little blighter. And our house might look a little less like the mouth of a train tunnel.