I glance at Nosipho. She looks completely freaked out. There is no way I can ask her to hold the baby while I prepare dinner for Ntheko.

I pull out one of my many secret weapons – the baby pouch. I have no idea whether Mrs Khumalo is into baby-wearing or not, but it doesn’t matter. All babies like it, even if they’re not used to it. And I don’t like using other people’s slings or pouches because mine is more comfortable.

“This is going to be your best friend when you have the baby,” I tell Nosipho. “A baby pouch. Our grand-mothers might have carried their babies on their backs, but I’ve never got the hang of it, so I do this instead. It frees up your hands so you can do stuff, and keeps the baby happy.”

I tell her not to worry about trying to remember how to put it on because the one she ends up getting will probably be different to mine. I put my pouch on and pop Bontle into it. I have to walk up and down a few times before she stops crying and settles down. By this stage, Ntheko is pulling at my leg and saying, “Up! Up!” so I have to pick him up too.

“Hey, Ntheko,” I say, pressing my nose against his in a way that always makes him laugh. “Are you hungry, my boy? You ready for some supper? Yum-yums?”

His little legs start kicking excitedly. “Yum-yum! Yum-yum!”
“I’ll take that as a yes.”

His mom left some sausages and mashed potatoes out for him, so I warm them up in the microwave.

“No vegetables?” Nosipho asks disapprovingly.

I laugh. “You’re already turning into that mom who judges all the other moms for not feeding their kids right.”

“No, I’m not! Am I? Okay, maybe I am. A kid should have some veggies with his supper. Isn’t it, like, the law or something?”

“I wouldn’t go that far, but watch this.”

I get Ntheko into his high chair by distracting him with a toy. Then I cut his sausages into bite-size pieces and put them on a plastic plate with the mashed potatoes. Then I take some raw broccoli out of the fridge and put it on the plate as well.

Nosipho watches with an open mouth as Ntheko ignores the hot food and goes straight for the ice-cold broccoli. He starts gnawing on a floret like it’s a lollipop.

“Wow!” she says. “That kid is a rock-star. You wouldn’t catch me munching on raw broccoli like that.”

“Me neither,” I say with a small shudder. “I’ll eat it if it’s mixed with something else, but it’s not my fave.”

“How do you get a child to eat raw veggies like that?” Nosipho looks like she’s ready to start taking notes.

“There literally is no formula for success. Some kids just like the taste. And the weird thing is, they often grow out of it. At some stage they wake up and decide all veg-etables are yucky and will only eat food that’s beige. That’s when you have to start grating and mashing and hiding vegetables inside other things.”

Nosipho looks at me like I’m Batman and Gandalf and a Jedi Master all rolled into one. “How do you know all this stuff?”

I try not to look smug. “Oh, you know. Just paying attention over the years. And looking after babies and kids forever.”

“You’re amazing.”

Ha! Respect at last! Now if only I could turn this knowledge into something useful, like better marks for History.

Ntheko munches away at his supper, trying a piece of this and a piece of that. I’m not sure how much is actually going in, but it doesn’t really matter. Eating isn’t a huge deal in their lives at this age, especially when they’re still drinking milk. I decide to take advantage of the lull by feeding Bontle.

Mrs Khumalo has put three pre-sterilised bottles of expressed milk in the fridge for us. All we have to do is warm them up. I show Nosipho how to use the bot-tle-warmer, but she doesn’t look very interested.

“I’m planning to breastfeed, not bottle-feed,” she says.

“Everything I’ve read says it’s best for the baby.”

“Oh, absolutely,” I agree. “But are you also planning on never leaving the house for two years? What about finishing school? What about going out to have fun? You must be able to leave the baby sometimes, and the best way to do that is to have bottles of breastmilk handy. You need to know this stuff, girl.”

“Hmm … okay.”

She starts paying more attention to my bottle tutorial. She even holds Bontle’s bottle for a while as I feed her. I notice that she’s not exactly besotted with the baby, like I am. But that’s fine. A lot of women aren’t crazy about other people’s babies, but love their own. Nosipho is already in love with her bump. She rubs it, cuddles it, and even talks to it when she thinks I’m not listening. It’s kind of adorable, actually.

“So, what now?” she asks as Bontle finishes her bottle.

“Okay, well, did you notice how she was turning her head away towards the end? That tells me she’s had enough milk, so I’m not going to warm up another bottle at this stage.”

“Aren’t you only supposed to give them a particular amount?”

“This is breastmilk, so she can have as much as she wants. If it were formula, I wouldn’t go over the set amount.”

Nosipho thinks about this, then she shakes her head. “Okay, I give up. Why not?”

“Because the calories in formula can makes babies obese, but the calories in breastmilk can’t.”

“Why not? Are they magic, or something?”

“They actually kind of are. Even if a baby gets hugely fat on breastmilk, it’s not a problem. That fat will just melt away. But the weight they put on from formula can turn into a real issue later on, so the amount you give them has to be very carefully controlled for their age.”

“Huh. I never knew that. So, now what?”

We look over at Ntheko who has now reached the throwing
food-on-the-floor stage of his meal.

“Well, this dude seems to be done. If he were still hungry, he’d still be eating. Now we take them both to Bontle’s room so we can give her a bath.”

Nosipho looks panicked again. “What are we going to do with the little boy while we bath the baby? Don’t expect me to look after him. I never know what to say to kids.”

“It’s cool. He’s not expecting conversation. I’ll just do exactly what I would have done if you weren’t here. Pass me my tog bag, please.”

As she hands it to me, I unzip it and take out my secret weapons. These are toys that travel with me from job to job. They are guaranteed to keep kids happy while I’m bathing their little siblings. And then, while they’re sleep-ing, I make them disappear again before they can beg to keep them forever and ever.

We traipse up the stairs with me carrying Bontle in one arm and holding Ntheko’s hand with the other. While we are walking, she brings up about three winds, so I take the opportunity to explain the importance of wind-ing to Nosipho.

I pop Bontle into her pram and wheel her into the bathroom with me while I fill up the little plastic bath. I’ve learned from experience not to leave toddlers alone with their baby siblings while I’m in another room. They do weird things like load stuffed animals onto them or poke a finger in their eyes.

The bath goes well. Ntheko plays peacefully on the floor with the shape-sorter and Mega Bloks truck I brought for him. I show Nosipho how to tell if the bath is the right temperature, and how to wash a baby’s hair. She watches while I rub a mixture of aqueous cream and water onto Bontle’s tiny body and then rinse it off in the bath. When I take her out and wrap her in a hooded towel, Nosipho surprises me by asking if she can dry her.

“Of course.” I step back and let her take over. I’m happy to see that her technique is just right. She is gentle, but firm and not hesitant. Babies don’t like to be handled by anyone who is nervous of them. It makes them scream. Bontle stays calm and alert while Nosipho dries her and rubs more cream into her skin.

“Well done!” I say. “You’re a natural. You’re going to be a brilliant mom, Nos. Don’t cry,” I add as her eyes fill
with tears.

“Okay, you can cry for a little while, but then you have to stop. We’re going to watch Netflix once these guys are in bed. I don’t want you getting tears in the popcorn.”
Nosipho wipes her face. “I’ve already stopped. It’s just that when you said I was going to be a good mom, it was the first time – the very first time – that I thought I could actually do this. That I might actually cope.”

“Of course you’ll cope.”

“Yes, but I didn’t really know that. Not for sure. But when I was drying Bontle, I thought, ‘Hey, I can do this.’ It was a good feeling.”

To build her confidence some more, I let her slip Bontle’s vest on, and show her how to lay a Babygro down with all the poppers open, then place the baby on top of it, and clip her into it. By the end of the process, her face has lost its anxious expression, and her normal smile is back.

***