"Erica, if you don't stop wiggling, I'll never get your hair done."
"Elsa, Mom," she tells me, sounding very exasperated.
I roll my eyes, grabbing her shoulders to keep her between my knees, trying to finish braiding her hair. "Well, Elsa, if you don't stop wiggling, you'll never get 'Elsa hair,' so just calm down for a few minutes." Her little body relaxes a bit and I run my fingers through the ends of her long blonde hair, twisting the last few inches into a braid. I start plucking at the sides, pulling it out a bit in my best approximation of a cartoon character.
I will not be sad to see that movie go.
It's cute, and I actually enjoyed it at first, but the girls watch it every single fricking day. I no longer want to build a snowman and am incapable of letting it go. It keeps them quiet and happy, though, and it's actually really adorable to watch them act out the whole thing. Not surprisingly, they know every word, every lyric, every tiny nuance of that cartoon.
It's even less surprising that they wanted to be Anna and Elsa for Halloween, really. I knew it was coming months ago, which I think is the only reason they have costumes close to the real thing. This made me a hero in their eyes, which is nice, especially since Erica is already showing signs of becoming a willful, hard-headed teenager.
What is surprising is that they managed to talk their brothers into dressing up as Sven and Olaf. Actually, Jack wasn't a hard sell—William was the one who was skittish about it, mainly because he was worried about what people would say if he dressed up like a snowman. Jack just offered to be Olaf instead; he doesn't particularly care about the antics of other kids, nor does he seem to be interested in caving to peer pressure. I love his laid-back attitude about things like that, and I think it's going to help his siblings immensely in the coming years. Jack's perfectly fine with dressing up like a reindeer, so William's finally getting into the spirit of the whole idea.
"And remember, Mom," her majesty says, getting my attention. "She's Anna."
"Yes, dear." My youngest has only been answering to Anna lately, her little-girl imagination giving her the ability to completely ignore me and her father when we call her pretty much anything else.
I sigh, putting tiny little fake-diamonds decorations in Elsa's hair. Nope—won't be sorry to move out of this phase.
"All right, milady. Turn around, let me see you." Erica turns to face me, her big brown eyes wide with excitement, and even though she's becoming a pint-sized pain in the butt, she's still one of the sweetest little girls anyone could hope to meet. "You look great."
"Do I look like her?" she whispers, her body shivering with excitement, and I just nod.
"You look better," I confirm, and she throws her arms around me. I kiss her cheek and give her a squeeze.
"Thank you, Mommy," she says, and I just hug her tighter.
This sort of behavior is exactly why she gets away with murder when it comes to her father; she can go from total diva to adorable little girl in about half a second. Her sister hasn't learned all of the tricks yet—she's still mostly just "adorable little girl," but that's enough to melt Chandler every time, too.
She lets go of me but stays between my legs, her back pressed against my thigh, her eyes focused on this year's airing of "It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown." Jack's sprawled out on his stomach while he watches the cartoon that's older than all of them put together, his face lighting up even though he's seen this almost every year of his life, laughing at all the right moments. I would tell him he's going to squish his costume, but it's basically a brown sweat suit with fur. The antlers won't go on until we're almost ready to leave.
He makes a really damn cute reindeer.
"Hi! I'm Olaf, and I like warm hugs."
I look to my side and grin—there's William in his little snowman costume, looking so cuddly I could squish him forever.
"Hello, Olaf," I say, giving his carrot-shaped felt nose a tweak. "It's nice to meet you."
"I don't have a skull. Or bones."
I snicker a little bit. "Thanks for letting me know."
And just like that, he scampers off to sit next to his brother—I don't know if he'd admit it to anyone, but I'm pretty sure he likes to watch Frozen as much as his sisters do.
Jack, on the other hand, has no trouble admitting to it, though he doesn't watch it every day the way they do.
"You want to sit with your brothers?" I ask Erica, and she just shakes her head, leaning into me, and I think I could melt. I love that they're still young enough to cuddle.
The show ends and Jack rolls over, yawning, his hands behind his head, looking as if he could go to sleep at any moment. He's never grown out of that. I'd swear he was a stoner in a past life—his greatest joys are eating and sleeping.
"Stand up, Sven," I tell him, and he blinks at me slowly for a moment before grinning.
"Do I have to?"
"Only if you don't want to miss out on trick-or-treating."
That gets him—he definitely doesn't want to miss that part. He sits up and smiles at his twin. "Hey—when did Queen Elsa get here?"
She smiles at him for a second before she clears her throat, standing up straight. "Sven can't talk."
He just nods sagely and clamps his lips shut. That's another great thing about my oldest—he's wise enough to know which battles to pick, and that most of the time, when it comes to his twin sister, it's easier to just smile and nod.
"You could make reindeer noises," my little snowman suggests, and Jack lets out an odd braying noise that sends his brother into fits of laughter.
"Do you wanna build a snowman?" a tiny voice asks suddenly, my youngest child's hands suddenly appearing on my knee.
"Well, hello, butter bean. I see your hair hasn't gotten too messed up," I tell her, giving one of her braids a little tug.
It wasn't terribly hard to get this one ready for today—she's been insisting on wearing her hair in pigtails for about six months now, desperate to be just like Anna. Even Chandler's managed to master the braid by this point.
"The sky's awake, so I'm awake, so I have to play."
Oh, good. We're only speaking in movie quotes tonight. Haven't done that in about a day.
She looks over at her sister, her face lighting up. "Elsa! You look just like her!"
Erica grins at her little sister. "Thanks, butt munch."
I groan, giving her a nudge. "Erica, don't call her that." Neither girl looks at me and I sigh, realizing my mistake. "Elsa, don't call her that."
"Sorry, Mom." Erica still has mixed feelings about having a little sister, though it's not because she feels like she's getting less attention; she has a twin and William's barely a year younger, so they're all used to Chandler and me having to split our focus in different directions. It's more that her little sister worships the ground she walks on. She's forever chasing after her, copying her, doing whatever she's told, just so Erica will want to be around her. Sometimes it works out—sometimes it doesn't. There's a large enough age gap that they haven't found a whole lot of common ground yet, and it seems that Erica doesn't know how to handle being idolized, even though it usually means she gets her way when they're playing.
Even with this; it never once occurred to either of them to take any other roles. It goes big sister, little sister. Elsa and Anna. Not the other way around, as I've been told by the both of them.
Erica slides away from me, going over to her brothers, and I grab little Anna's arm before she can get very far, tugging her back to me.
"Hey," I whisper. "I know it's not in the movie, but do you think Mommy could get a kiss from Princess Anna?"
She giggles at me, giving me a quick kiss. "I'm not really Anna, Mommy," she tells me in a whisper. "I'm just pretending."
"Ohhh. Thanks for letting me know." I kiss the top of her head and pat her butt as she runs over to her sister.
"Do the magic, do the magic!" she exclaims, jumping up and down.
Erica looks at me out of the corner of her eye and I shake my head. "Don't even. You can throw the glitter outside and nowhere else." If she throws it in the house, I'll be finding it for years. As it is, it'll probably be months before we're not finding bits of scattered in their beds and on their clothes.
Glitter—the herpes of the craft world.
Not to mention we bought biodegradable glitter specifically so they could throw it outside and we wouldn't have to worry about the mess.
I have a feeling we won't be terribly successful with this.
Jack pats his lap and his little sister sits down; William stands next to her and says, "I'm Olaf, and I like warm hugs." She grins and throws her arms around him.
"I love you, Olaf!"
Unlike Erica, Jack and William unabashedly adore their little sister, both instinctively trying to protect her. They dote on her endlessly, fascinated by this little pipsqueak of a person. I'm sure if she followed those two around all the time, they'd be a little less interested, but for now, it's really fun to watch.
She is really cute, though, so can understand the allure.
William starts dancing around, doing his best imitation of Olaf's song and dance, and I pull my phone out of my pocket, switching it to record as fast as possible. Our phones and computers are filled with endless amounts of pictures and videos of our kids, all impossibly cute, and this moment is no exception. The little one's eyes light up, grinning from ear to ear as she rests against her big brother's chest.
I'm sure this sort of thing doesn't thrill Erica all the time, either, watching people fawn all over her little sister. At least she tends to go the exasperated route instead of turning mean.
I really hope they grow out of it.
I look over at my little queen Elsa, who looks a little bummed, and I hold my arm out for her. She slumps against my side and I kiss her temple. "What's with the puss?"
She shrugs, humming "I don't know." I haven't told her yet that it drives me nuts—I don't need any of my kids with that sort of ammo, so I'm hoping she'll grow out of it before she accidentally teaches it to her siblings.
"Get in there and play. Go sing your song."
She shrugs again, but I can see her starting to smile. She loves singing—all of our kids do, actually. That probably comes from us not letting them bury themselves in tables and iPads on car rides; instead, we either sing, have conversations, or they can read actual books.
Chandler and I are a little old-fashioned that way, but I think our kids are better for it.
However, out of all of us, Erica's the only one with genuine singing ability—we're not sure where she got it from and it's sure not something that Jack wound up with, but I think she has a genuine talent. Of course, I could be biased, being her mother and all. They're all usually willing to get up in front of people and perform in some capacity, though—they're all little hams—which has led to many an impromptu "play." They've tried rehearsing—it doesn't usually end well. Too many egos. They work much better on the spur of the moment.
"Go ahead," I encourage her, pressing the record button on my phone again.
She tiptoes over to her siblings, tapping her sister on the shoulder. "Hey Anna. The snow glows white on the mountain tonight…"
She gasps, her eyes growing wide, and she scrambles off her brother's lap, kneeling in front of her sister. Erica used to sing to her when she was a baby, and it's still one of the things that makes her happiest. Even the boys lean forward, watching in fascination.
I know in their minds that they're actually in Arandelle, standing on a snowy mountain; they can hear the music in the background and they're seeing Queen Elsa build a castle of ice and magic.
Tears prickle the corners of my eyes—my children are amazing and wonderful and so incredibly creative. Again, I know I'm biased because I'm their mother, but I think all of those things would be true no matter what.
Erica climbs the couch and I cringe, even though I know she's not going to fall off, and if she does, she's not going far. That poor couch that we've had for more than twenty years—before Chandler and I ever started dating—and was in great shape for most of that time, somehow managed to look grungy and beaten up about an hour after the kids realized they could climb on it; we finally retired it to the basement playroom area a couple of years ago for the kids to trash even further. It serves its purpose, though, going from a snow-covered mountain, to a fort, to a bridge they have to traverse when the ground suddenly becomes lava, and a million other places in between.
Being a parent is so much fun because my kids are so much fun, no matter how squirrely they get with each other from time to time.
Her highness is coming up on her big finale and I feel Chandler's arms slide around my waist. He kisses my neck but remains silent, watching our daughter show off. He presses his cheek to mine and I can feel him grinning.
She hops off the couch, arms spread wide, and looks at my phone, smiling. "The cold never bothered me anyway."
Everyone breaks out into applause and she curtsies enthusiastically. Her sister pops up and wraps her arms around her waist. "I love you, Elsa!"
"I love you, too, Anna."
Chandler kisses my cheek again and I wipe at my face with my shoulder—I don't know if I'll ever reach a point where the cuteness of my kids doesn't turn me into a pile of mush.
"Mom, you still recording?" Erica asks suddenly.
"Yeah. Why?"
She shimmies toward me. "Because you know I'm all about that bass, 'bout that bass, no treble."
"No," I warn her, unfortunately without much conviction.
Too late; Jack jumps up, bouncing over to his sister to join in. "I'm all about that bass, 'bout that bass."
"No treble!" the other two exclaim and I shake my head at them, cringing.
Chandler tilts his head away from me, giving me a look. "Gee. I wonder where they heard that song."
"I have no idea," I insist. "But does it make you feel better to know that they only know the radio version?"
He sighs and shakes his head. Sometimes I may get a little lenient about the music we listen to in the car—I don't want to completely warp their minds, but I've got to be able to hear something from time to time that doesn't make me want to jump out of a moving vehicle—but I try to keep it clean. At least the message of this particular song is positive, and I'm almost a hundred percent sure that none of them get what being "about that bass" is supposed to mean.
"That's enough," he tells them, stopping them before they can get past the chorus.
"Can I just say one more thing?" Erica asks, batting her eyes at her father, a trick she learned when she was about a day old.
"What?" he asks warily, and she turns to her sister.
"Every inch of you is perfect from the bottom to the top." Little Bit grins, bouncing up and down on the balls of her toes and I can hear Chandler trying to suppress his laughter.
"It's cold outside; does everyone have warm stuff?" he asks, clearing his throat to cover a chuckle.
Jack spreads his arms, showing off his fur-covered sweat shirt and pants. "Dude."
I bite my lip as I put my phone back in my pocket; he's such a smart ass at times. Can't imagine where he got that from.
"Don't 'dude' me, dude," Chandler says, ruffling our eldest's hair. Jack swipes at him playfully and I hand over the antlers, watching as they're put in place.
"I make a good reindeer, don't I?" he asks, looking very impressed with himself.
"Reindeers are better than people," William answers, coming to stand next to his brother. I give a little tug at his top, which is really just a white sweatshirt filled with stuffing. The bottom part was a little trickier, but being a mom meant that, somewhere along the line, I learned how to sew. I'm not great at it, but I do it well enough to get the kids in costumes every year. "Am I going to be warm enough, Mom?"
"I think you're going to be fine," I assure him, fussing with the black pipe cleaners on his head for a second. "But I'll have extra layers in the in 'Mom bag' just in case." I see Erica tying a cape around her sister's neck, who's still bouncing with excitement. They both come to stand in front of us, ready for inspection. "You, too, your highness."
Erica's eyes grow wide. "But…the cold never bothered me anyway."
"Yeah!" her sister throws in defiantly, always ready to defend her big sister's poor decisions.
"Well, the cold bothers your mother, so you're wearing a cape, too," I reply, and the tone of my voice is enough to make me mentally cringe; I sound just like my mother.
Chandler grabs it off the chair next to us, kneeling down in front of the kids. I can't help but snicker at him.
"I think your mom is laughing at your old man, guys," he whispers conspiratorially, making all of them laugh.
"Kristoff, Mom," Jack reminds me, pointing at the fuzzy hat and vest his father's wearing.
"Yeah, except I call him Sven," William adds in, readjusting his carrot nose. "At least for part of the night."
These kids are so literal sometimes.
Chandler stands, giving his vest a tug. "I think I make a pretty good mountain man, don't you?" he asks, giving my cheek a kiss.
I turn my face to his, running a hand over the scruff he attempted to grow to make himself look a bit more rugged. "You look fantastic," I tell him softly, pulling his face to mine, kissing him gently.
"Ewwww!" The kids exclaim simultaneously; Chandler and I just laugh. We're good for grossing them out; it's hard not to sometimes, though. We're still obnoxiously in love with each other. I'm sure we'll manage to embarrass them publicly for many years to come.
"Why aren't you dressed up, Mom?" Jack asks me.
"Somebody has to keep you knuckleheads in line," I tell him, grabbing Chandler's camera off his shoulder. "Besides, all the good costumes were taken."
"You coulda been Anna, Mommy," a tiny little voice tells me, tugging at my arm, and I run a hand over her dark braids.
"Thank you, sweetie, but I think you're much better at it than I am."
She grins, looking bashful, still holding on to my arm, and William grabs everyone's trick-or-treat bags, passing them out.
Chandler and I are going to a Halloween party at Leta and Derek's tomorrow anyway, and we'll be in costume for that. He's been giddy for weeks over the idea, mostly because it's been a few years since we've been to a costume party that didn't include children. I'm just hoping that parties for adults don't still include most of the women dressing as skankily as they possibly can. I don't know if I can handle a bunch of forty-somethings dressed as naughty whatevers.
"Speaking of costumes, though, where's the baby?" I ask Chandler, looking over his shoulder.
"Pouting on the stairs. I don't think he wanted to dress up as Prince Hans."
I laugh only partly in sympathy. "Poor guy. But he looks so dignified."
"Yeah, dignity isn't his thing." He leans into the doorway, calling up the stairs. "Come on, buddy—you look great."
Silence follows for a few moments before we hear trudging down the stairs. "Aww! You look so cute!" I tell him when he reaches my feet, staring up at me forlornly. He snuffles and gives himself a shake, tags jingling.
"C'mere, Rocky," Jack says, tapping his thighs, and our little mongrel goes bounding over to the kids, looking a little less distressed over his costume for a moment. They all scratch his wiry fur and he pants happily, basking in the attention of his people.
The latest addition to our family—the baby, as we often refer to him—came just a couple of years ago; Chandler correctly assumed that the kids would want a dog at some point, so he worked on his phobia. He's gotten much better about it, especially since Rocky's taken such a shine to him. Of course, we were still in the early stages of discussing dogs when we literally stumbled into an adoption fair, and this four-year-old mutt captured the hearts of all of my kids. That was that. He came home with us that day. He's the sweetest little thing and loves our children dearly, alternating which bed he sleeps on every few nights. The name was Chandler's idea because he figured this was the underdog, the one that wouldn't get a home because he wasn't a purebred or a puppy. We didn't want a puppy, though—we've potty-trained four kids, and that was plenty. Rocky came to us with great manners; whoever owned him first taught him well.
Now, we can't imagine our lives without him.
"Okay, everyone—squish together," I tell them, and my family circles around the dog. Jack stands under Chandler's arm, ready to be the Sven to his father's Kristoff. William kneels down next to the dog, resting his hand on Rocky's head, who looks up at him adoringly. The girls wrap their arms around each other, hugging each other tightly, and the whole scene is so sweet that I think I could melt.
Some people really are worth melting for.
I roll my eyes to myself—I shouldn't be able to quote this movie to myself with such ease. "Everybody say freeze!"
"Freeze!" they all yell out, with varying degrees of smiles; the dog barks at me in his version of "freeze," and I press the shutter button on the camera, taking rapid-fire shots of the Bings, all looking ridiculously happy.
"Okay; let's get going," Chandler says, herding them up the stairs, the sound of the five of them rushing to the first floor like a pack of elephants, a brief chorus of "Do You Wanna Build a Snowman" filtering in through the din. He grabs my waist, turning me to face him, his lips finding mine once more.
"What's this for?" I mumble, trying not to break the kiss, putting my hands on his face to keep him close.
"I love you," he answers. "And you're such a good mom, getting all of these costumes ready for the kids so far in advance, and for letting the girls go by 'Elsa and Anna' even though I know it's driving you up the wall. And I still think you're the sexiest woman to ever walk the planet."
"Keep talking," I tell him, smiling against his lips.
"The kids'll be hyped up on candy for a while tonight, but they'll crash pretty hard after all the Halloween excitement. We'll probably have some guaranteed alone-time."
I wrap my arms around his neck, standing on tiptoes to reach him better. "I like the way you think."
"We could pretend we're still in our twenties," he whispers, moving his lips down to my neck for a few seconds, "and have the raunchiest sex imaginable."
"We can't swing from the ceiling, honey. Just because they'll be asleep doesn't mean they'll be in comas."
"Fine," he sighs playfully, kissing me again. "We'll only have moderately raunchy sex."
Before I can answer, our kids are yelling down the stairs for us. "All the candy's gonna be gone!" William exclaims, sounding genuinely distressed at the thought, and we break apart, laughing.
"Wouldn't want that," Chandler mumbles to me, heading up the stairs.
"Sure wouldn't." I reach out and tweak his butt, smiling when he jumps.
"You're killing me, Mon," he tells me, looking over his shoulder for a second, and I just grin, sliding my hand under his vest, rubbing my fingers gently on his lower back.
We've still got it.