"Peggy! Are you free to babysit on Sunday?"
"Uhh, no, sorry, I'm… busy"
Ignoring Eliza as she rolled her eyes, Peggy flickered her hand dismissively to the door, eyes staying glued to her phone,
"Damn, it's a shame that Alex isn't free for you to babysit on Saturday,"
"Yeah, totally, it sucks man."
Looking up in alarm as her sister cackled, Peggy mulled over the conversation for a second, stiffening as she realised her mistake, tuning back into Eliza's gloating,
"-rop him off at 6am Saturday, he'll still be sleepy, then he'll pick him up again at 10. Bedtime is 6, try and get him to eat as much as you can, right? But make it healthy, he needs to grow—"
"'Liza this is all good and well, but I cannot handle children."
Patting her sister condescendingly on the cheek, Eliza threw a quick
"You'll be fine, dear,"
and flitted through the door before Peggy could collect itself.
"Well shit."
Holding a child, Peggy decided, was A Lot harder in practise, the toddler seemed to melt through her arms, an arm, leg, or god forbid a tiny head, slipping through a gap in her awkward cradle as she fumbled with him at the front door. Smiling gently, Maddison helped her rearrange her grip, waiting until the boy was settled to kiss him softly on the forehead, squeezing Peggy's arm and smiling assuredly,
"You'll do fine, just be yourself, he'll love you."
Watching her last chance of salvation get into the car with Jefferson and drive off, Peggy glanced tenderly, if not a little nervously, at the child in her arms, deciding to lay him in a nest of pillows she had made in the living room in preparation.
"G'pa? Maddi, Thoma?"
As Alex roused from his sleep after a few hours, Peggy shushed him gently, wondering about the sheer stupidity required to leave a child with a complete stranger.
"Hey Alex, I'm Eliza and Angelica's sister,"
"Angel, Betsey?"
As Alex stretched his mouth adorably round the 2 nicknames, Peggy nodded,
"Yeah, I'm Peggy, their sister!"
Bending down close enough that her breathe tickled hair that curled around his ears, she exaggeratedly loudly whispered
"Don't tell anyone, but my real name is Margarita!"
Giggling softly and pawing his ear at sensation, Alex gave a hesitant
"Maggie?"
Laughing at the absurdity of the new name, Peggy scooped up the boy, swinging him onto her hip and heading towards the kitchen.
"Sounds good, how about breakfast?"
"Cereal? Toast? Porridge? Bacon? Eggs? Bacon AND Eggs?"
Sighing in exasperation as Alex shook his head at each breakfast food, Peggy leaned over the counter to where he sat in his high-chair, and crooned temptingly;
"Waffles, with chocolate, and bananas, and raspberry compote?"
Alex stopped short in his chair, cocking his head in curiosity as he sounded out
"Waf-fle?"
Gasping loudly, Peggy flipped her hair over her shoulder and rolled up her sleeves,
"Well this Will Not Do, we're gonna have to make some so you can try them, aren't we?"
Clapping his hands in response, Alex nodded enthusiastically, reaching for the half-filled bottle Peggy prepared to tie him over while breakfast was made.--
The laying out of the ingredients, Peggy thought, should have been the easiest part, but as a cloth in the sink lay yellow with the yolk from a broken egg, and Alex licked up a concoction of flour and sugar that covered them both, she figured that Alex was going to challenge her every assumption.
"Okay, the ingredients are set and ready; now we just mix!"
Multiple hours later, Peggy and Alex stood hand to hand in a kitchen covered in food Peggy didn't know she had, a wiped down counter holding plates bursting with differing kinds of waffles, surrounded by bowls containing a multitude of toppings.
"Cleaning?"
Looking down at the toddler gripping her hand, she nodded gravely, pulling out her phone and clicking onto her music playlist;
"We're gonna need music to survive this."
"FERGALICIOUS DEFINTION MAKE THEM BOYS GO LOCO,"
Alex went adorably cross eyed as Peggy bopped him on the noise, shaking his head and continuing to crawl around on the mop-heads Peggy had taped to his knees and hands
("Hey, I saw it on Pinterest first")
"YOU COULD SEE ME, YOU CAN'T SQUEEZE ME"
Accenting the singing with a swing of her hips, and a quick wring of her cloth, Peggy gave a final flourish with her cloth, before turning down the music and shucking off Alex's cleaning apparel.
"And I think we're done here!"
Beaming adoringly up at Peggy, Alex clung tight to her as she sat up at the table, dishing up 2 plates of waffles, piled with a small amount of each topping.
As Alex devoured his food, Peggy looked guiltily up at the clock; breakfast had run very, very late.
Looking down affectionately at the boy in her lap as he slobbered over his tiny fist in efforts to get all the honey he may have missed, she poked him teasingly in the stomach,
"Do we have a little Winnie the Pooh here?"
Alex smiled and nodded hesitantly, his eyes shining with confusion,
"Do you know who Winnie the Pooh is?"
At the shake of his head, Peggy rolled her eyes in fond exasperation of her sister's inability to introduce Alex to the essentials, and sat patiently while he finished his breakfast (Now late lunch)
"How about we fix that then?"
Nodding around a mouthful of waffle, Alex mustered all the childish energy he could, and tore through the rest of his meal, too excited to think about how much he was eating.
As the familiar tune of Winnie the Pooh plodded its way through Peggy's living room for yet another episode (She had coveted all the VHS' she could from her childhood, and was reaping the benefits as she watched Alex look at the characters, eyes shining) she grabbed her knitting basket, discretely pulling out some orange and black wool, and after quietly googling a pattern, fell into the rhythm of her task, only halting when Alex crawled upon the couch next to her, curling into her side.
"Hello?"
A familiar call roused Peggy from her slumber, her eyes blinking open as she took in Jefferson smiling amusedly at the scene; An awkwardly positioned Peggy, Alex sprawling across her lap, a tigger hat firmly pulled over his curls, mouth still smeared slightly with chocolate.
"Have a good time?"
Flipping Jefferson off, Peggy went to haul her ass up off the sofa, but was stopped as Thomas placed a hand on her shoulder,
"I've got him, you stay put."
Scooping up Alex, he paused to let Peggy give him a fond farewell kiss on both his cheeks, startling a little as a tiny
"G'night Maggie,"
dropped sleeping from the toddler's mouth.
