At the start of lockdown, I just couldn't get my head around outdoor meetings with prospective parents. I thought it was such a shame that they couldn't see your set up etc.
However, I had an outdoor meeting with a prospective parent the other day. She brought the older child along too. The two children were into everything - I just had a few vehicles out for the little one, but they managed to just find things to cause chaos with and I found myself saying, "Oh we don't touch that" etc etc. At one point, the older child found a tennis ball under a bush. He kicked it and it hit me hard in the shoulder! His mum laughed and said, "He's got such a kick on him!" I couldn't believe she didn't apologise or ask him to apologise! I had to ask him to stop throwing and kicking it in the end because I would worried about the neighbour's greenhouse. Lots more little things annoyed me, but that was the general flavour of the meeting.
When they had gone, I found DH, DD and the dog 'hiding' upstairs! They were in a front bedroom but could here all the shouting and screeching going on in the back garden. We were all shell shocked, lol.
Anyway, it made me really grateful that it was an outdoor meeting. I'm sure something/several things would have got broken if we had been indoors. I'm not sure I ever want to go back to inviting strangers and their children into my home for the first meeting.
