Home alone

I am trying out something new - leaving the kids alone in the house for short, say 10-minute, durations. The first experiment was done last Saturday - between the time I left for work and the time V could make it home after getting stuck at a traffic junction. I left explicit orders not to open the door if anyone rang the bell since V had a key to the house and would open it himself. They did express some fear in being alone, so I switched on the TV and gave some papers to Ash to draw something. My only worry was Mira bullying/picking up fights with her brother, a favorite pastime of hers these days.
Today I tried it again - the interrugnum between my departure and our partime maid Kala's arrival. Hardly 5-10 minutes, but after I left I worried if I had switched the heater off and if they would lock themselves in accidentally. I latched the kitchen door and told them not to go in there. Ash was happy with his books and Mira with the TV, and there were no casualties.
If Ash had been a normal, healthy child with the maturity of a 6-year-old, I wouldnt have worried or I would have tried this earlier. But the sickness has kind of made him helpless and less in sync with his surroundings, and he often behaves like he is the younger sibling.
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With just a month to go for their summer vacation in Kerala, we have shelved plans to find a maid through an agency, and are instead managing with Kala, who stays from 12 noon to 1.10 pm when the school van arrives. And when they return from school, another old hand of mine (who has kindly consented to help out though she doesnt need to work for a living anymore) sits with them until we arrive.
We are talking Kala around to accepting a full-time nanny-cum-cook's role from June when school reopens. And she is not averse to the idea since she is finding her present work profile too exhausting - sweeping-swabbing-washing clothes and utensils at 4-5 houses until lunch time and 2-3 hour cooking assignment at a Brahmin household in the evening. But I only hope she wont try to squeeze in a couple of chores at a couple of other houses while she dons this full-time role for us. She is just not used to idling, while many of the locals we had considered for childcare hated to tax themselves. The Kerala maids, in comparison, work very hard. Or maybe it is city life and awareness about workers' rights that makes the locals so finicky.
What I am hoping for is that in two years' time, the duo will be able to spend the afterschool hours alone at home.