Happy, birthday Repmet! I hope you've had a wonderful day and that this meets your request. Enjoy!
Perfect
"Sybil, darling, she'll be fine," Tom said gently as he ran his hand in circles over her back.
"I know, but it's the first time we've left her and…"
"And my mother knows what she's doing," Tom interrupted, stopping Sybil from her fast-paced excuses as to why they shouldn't leave their daughter with Tom's mother. "She raised three children of her own and has helped in raising five grandchildren so far. Nothing's going to go wrong, Syb." There was a beat before he said, "Look at me." Sybil reluctantly snapped her gaze away from the sleeping child in her arms and looked into Tom's blue eyes. "You can trust my mother. She'll look after Poppy just as she looked after me and my siblings. And we all turned out alright, didn't we?"
"Well, your siblings did," Sybil retorted with a smirk.
"Hey!" Tom said, loud enough to make his daughter wriggle in her sleep.
"I hope you two aren't arguing now," Catherine, Tom's mother, said quietly, but firmly as she returned from the kitchen.
"No, everything's fine," Sybil said calmly.
"And we ought to get going or we'll be here all day," Tom interjected, prompting Sybil to hand their daughter to his mother. Once Catherine had hold of Poppy, Sybil leant down to kiss her forehead and Tom did the same before the two were on their way out of the house.
Together they had planned a picnic in the woods. Except, there was more grass than trees. Once the blanket was set out and the food had been unpacked from the wicker basket, Sybil leant against Tom and sighed, barely even looking at the food in front of her. Tom kissed her head and said in almost a whisper, "What's up?"
"You know what's up," she said, trying her best not to huff as she said it.
"Sybil, love, Poppy is fine. I know it's hard to leave her, truly I do. But this is the first time we've been out alone together since having her. And things aren't ever going to be the same as they were before we had her, and you and I both know that she's made our lives so much better than they were before, but for the next however many years, you and I aren't going to get too much alone time. So, I suggest we make the most of what we've got." Sybil sat up and faced Tom.
"You're right. Of course you are," she said softly before kissing him lightly.
"Aren't I always?" he said with a smirk that Sybil had seen multiple times before.
"Don't get cocky!" Sybil said with a laugh as she pulled away from him and gave his chest a swat.
"Do you want some wine?" Tom asked as he looked in the basket to his right.
"You brought wine?" Sybil said, astonished at her husband's action.
"Yeah. I know you couldn't have any when you were pregnant, and we've been so run off our feet recently with Poppy that we haven't had any time to sit down together and have a glass together. So I thought I'd bring some," he answered. "Do you want some?"
"Yes please." Tom poured some Riesling, his and Sybil's favourite wine, into two plastic unsophisticated cups, passing one to his wife. Sybil took a triangular quarter sandwich from the blanket in front of her as Tom opened the punnet of strawberries and the pot of sugar.
After a few minutes in silence, Sybil said, "You know what would make this better?"
"What?"
"Chocolate," she answered. Tom turned around to the wicker basket at his side and pulled out a few slices of chocolate cake wrapped in kitchen paper. Sybil's eyes widened at the sight of it and a smile broke onto her face. "Where did you get that from?"
"Mam. While you were feeding Poppy at mam's, she gave me two slices of chocolate cake. She had some sort of party with some old friends the other day and she's got a load of sweet foods left over. She thought you might appreciate a bit of chocolate, so she gave me a couple of slices before we left."
"I love your mother," Sybil stated as she leant over to take a slice. She took a bite and let out a moan of pleasure at the taste. "And she knows how to cook!" She paused before saying. "I know I was a pain about leaving Poppy with her. I'm sorry. I know they'll be absolutely fine together. And, you know, I really should have trusted her from the beginning. You're proof that she knows how to bring up children. You turned out pretty perfectly, if I'm honest."
"Admitting it now, are we?" Tom asked, teasing her, prompting her to repeat her words.
"I've always known it. So have you! I've told you so many times before!"
"Not since we've had Poppy," Tom said quietly.
"Really?" Sybil asked, raising the pitch of her voice in surprise. She stopped to think about that fact until she realised that it was, indeed, true. "Well, you are," she said tenderly, moving to sit beside him. "You're perfect and I love you. And since we've had Poppy, I've come to love you even more than I knew possible. You're a perfect husband and a perfect father and I don't know what I'd do without you." She placed a full kiss on Tom's lips, which he happily returned.
"I love you," he whispered.
"I love you more," she whispered back before kissing him once more.