"Hey," Nick says, wiggling a baby spoon in front of his daughter. She sits in front of him in a high chair, not paying a bit of attention to her father, refusing to open her mouth to eat her breakfast.
"C'mon," He says, shifting so he's directly in front of the baby. "It's peaches. You love peaches." He tries to move in with the spoon again and he's met with the same resistance, but this time it's accompanied with little unhappy cries as she reaches one hand up and out.
"What?" Nick asks, dropping the spoon back in the jar. Sometimes this whole dad thing feels a bit like trying to drive a race car when all he has is a learner's permit, and right now is one of those times. Aside from some early morning grumpiness, breakfast is usually an easy time. The only time he's really ever had trouble getting her to eat, especially first thing in the morning, is when she's sick. And then suddenly his mind is racing. Is she sick? She did sleep a little later than usual this morning.
"Do you feel okay?" He asks, reaching a hand out to touch the baby's forehead, but she ducks away from his touch and continues reaching with her hand, her little finger now pointing at something as the whimpers continue. "What?" Nick asks. "What do you see?"
He turns around to see what has her so distracted she can't eat her breakfast and notices the giant bunch of multicolored balloons tied to the back of a dining room chair. They'd had Hannah's birthday party two days earlier and some of the decorations still remained. They had been in no rush to take everything down and he liked it, it made their small house feel even more like home, a pleasant reminder that he had a family now, that they all had each other.
"Oh," he says, feeling like an idiot for not remembering the balloons were still there. He figures there's no harm in her playing with a balloon, especially if he's sitting there with her supervising. "You want to see a balloon?" He asks, setting the jar of baby food down on the tray of the high chair and standing up. The baby watches intently as he unties a bright red balloon from the back of the chair and brings it over to her, her face lighting up, a grin showing off the only two little teeth in her mouth as she reaches for it.
Nick laughs a little to himself, smiling, as he watches his daughter appear to carefully inspect the balloon, running her fingers over the smooth, rubbery surface and pressing her palms into it, seemingly fascinated with the way the balloon indents to match the shape of her little hand. After a few seconds, unsurprisingly, she accidentally lets it go and Nick has to reach out quickly and stop it from floating up to the ceiling. As he hands it back, she curls her fingers into the balloon and suddenly there's a loud crack as the balloon pops.
He's never been a jumpy person, but the pop is so unexpected that it even startles Nick a little and his jaw drops slightly as he sucks in a breath and braces himself for the inevitable wails of a scared baby. But as he looks at her, her little eyes wide, showing as much surprise as his, sitting with the broken remains of her red balloon in her hands, the tears don't come. Instead she looks at him, and her own surprised face gives way to a smile as she starts laughing.
Nick's expression changes to one of confusion as the laughs continue to come from his daughter, and as the shock of the popped balloon and her unexpected reaction wears off he can't help but start laughing himself, her little giggles contagious.
"Why was that funny?" He asks her between his own laughs, as he takes the remnants of the balloon from her fingers before they end up in her mouth, tickling her as he does, making her laugh even harder and squirm in her chair.
He's up throwing out the busted balloon, still laughing to himself, when June comes into the kitchen wearing one of his shirts, her hair still tousled from sleep, a smile forming on her face as she surveys the situation in front of her, Nick and the baby both still laughing.
"What was that sound? And what's so funny?" She asks as she drops down in the chair vacated by Nick in front of their daughter, picking up the forgotten jar of food and offering a bite to the baby, who now readily accepts a bite of her breakfast.
"Oh, a balloon popped," Nick says matter of factly, motioning to the bunch of balloons as he steps back over and stands next to where June sits, but she just looks at him like he's poorly explained an inside joke.
"...Okay," she says, still confused. "And that was funny?"
"She thought so," Nick replies, making a face at the baby, causing her to laugh again before smiling down at June. Sometimes he can't believe this is his life, that he gets to be here with her, that he has a family of his own.
"We might all need to go back to bed and get some more sleep," June says, still not understanding the humor they had found in the situation. She shakes her head as she looks up at Nick, finding herself smiling back at him too. "I think you two need it."
