I was talking to a family member the other day about J. He reminded me of the old house we used to live in. When we moved in, the garden of ours and our neighbours, did not have a fence or dividing wall.
This meant J would just wander over the boundary. The neighbours had a big trampoline, and J would often sneak over to it. The neighbours were fine about it and said he could use it.
As I had a toddler as well, who is now 6, I was busy with caring for him too. I was not in the garden at all times. There never seemed to be anything to worry about. Both our gardens were secure on the other sides, so there was no escape route to the outside for him.
One day the neighbour popped round with some children yogurts. I was a little puzzled. She explained that J had been popping into their kitchen, and fridge, every opportunity he got, and would sit at their table eating their yogurts. He would only have had a small window of opportunity to have done this, but as we have now learned, J is very sneaky, and observant.
He had no verbal skills back then. I imagined the family just watching this silent child munching all their yogurts.
If the embarrassment and shame was not enough, she said he'd been doing it for months.
Why hadn't she told me?!
I was mortified. But she said she understood about him, and welcomed him in. Her children just accepted he didn't talk.
Soon after we moved, as I finally was able to buy our own house. I wrote Jaffa Cake Mountain about the new garden, and what happened when we first moved. The Jaffa Cake Mountain part is further into the post.
Yogurtgate can make me laugh now, but back then it was a no no.
