A/N: I really need opinions on this. I started writing it months ago and I only decided to publish it on a whim. I have the full story finished (although I'll probably tweak bits before I upload each chapter). This chapter is more of an introduction to the characters. Reviews will be highly appreciated for this

Chapter 1

Claire's POV

I heard Shane groan and roll over beside me as Carrie, our three-year-old daughter, jumped on him to wake him up. I laughed under my breath at him and held open my arms for Carrie to fall into.

"Good morning, Miss Carrie," I said as she lay her head on my arm.

"Morning," she sang.

She rolled onto her side and, looking me in the eye, said "We're going to get ice cream today."

I laughed at her and raised my eyebrows.

"Oh, really? I didn't know about this."

"That's because I just decided," she said, matter-of-factly. I smiled at her and looked up at Shane who was trying to roll back over without Carrie noticing. Just as she was about to turn to him, Shane grabbed her and started to tickle her, both of them laughing hysterically.

"Daddy! Daddy, stop!" she yelled. Her and I both knew Shane wouldn't stop.

"Promise not to wake me up?" he asked, grinning down at her.

Carrie grinned back, and she was the spitting image of Shane when she did that. They both had tears of laughter rolling down their cheeks and were trying to catch their breath. Shane raised his eyebrows as if to ask the question again, to which Carrie nodded and said: "I promise."

"So… ice cream?" I asked and Carrie jumped up, treading on Shane's arm in the process. Luckily, barefoot three-year-olds don't do much damage.

"Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!" she jumped down from the bed and ran back to her own room.

After a few minutes of just lying there enjoying the peace and quiet, Shane looked over at me and smiled, puling me into his chest in a hug. I breathed in his scent and raised my head to meet his lips. It was only a short kiss, interrupted by multiple 'get up I need ice cream's from Carrie. For a three-year-old, she could be extremely demanding.

Just then, I heard my phone buzz on the dresser on the other side of the room and I sighed, silently praying that it was just Eve or Michael, or my mom or dad and not someone like Amelie or Myrnin. In an attempt to get Shane and me out of bed Carrie ran off with it. I rolled my eyes and heard Shane start counting backwards from ten. Not because he was trying to calm down, but because we knew she'd come back. Sure enough, by the time he got to zero, she'd come running back in and was reading the screen.

"Eve! It's Eve!" she said, looking proud of herself for being able to read the name on the screen. I held out my hand and she placed the phone in it.

"Thank you, honey," I said, getting her best smile back in return.

I noticed that she'd started to get herself dressed, and so far had socks on, one inside out, shorts that weren't done up and her pyjama top. It was an odd ensemble. Shane bent down to do the shorts up, and then sat her on his lap to sort her socks out while I read the message from Eve.

Hey CB,

Sam and Ellie are bored out of their minds.

Want to do something with them and Carrie today?

Love ya,

Eve

I rolled my eyes at how Eve still called me CB (short for Claire Bear) even though I was 25. Shaking my head at her, I started to write a reply.

Hey Eve,

We're taking Carrie out for ice cream if you'd like to join us. I'm sure she wouldn't mind. Also, it isn't cool calling a 25 year old a nickname ending in 'Bear'. It wasn't cute/cool when I was sixteen.

Claire.

I knew I'd get a lecture for telling her off for calling me Claire Bear, but I didn't care. I looked over at Carrie, who was now sat in an almost acceptable outfit, besides the pyjama top.

"Is it okay if Sam and Ellie come with us to get ice cream?" I asked.

She looked up from the game she was playing on Shane's phone. "Are they? Yay!"

Before I could do much more that chuckle at Carrie's reply, my phone buzzed again. This time it was a message from Michael.

Hey Kiddo,

Eve says stop telling her what to do. She says it was adorable when you were sixteen and still is, although, granted, Carrie has taken some of the adorability from you, but she's 3 and you're not.

Michael (technically Eve as she told me what to say, but I'm not supposed to admit that)

As I got to the end of the message, another one came through, again from Michael.

Also, we'd love to join you guys for ice cream. Meet you there.

I shut off my phone and, leaving Shane and Carrie debating whether the Big Bad Wolf could actually blow down a house made of straw or sticks, went to grab a shower before we went out.

Shane's POV

"So, you're telling me that the Big Bad Wolf could not, in fact, blow down two of the Little Pigs' houses?" I asked.

"Yes. His breath would not be strong enough, because the sticks and the straw would be stuck together otherwise it would just fall down!"

I'll admit, I didn't really know how to respond to that, so I just sat and let her explain why the Big Bad Wolf can't blow down a house made of sticks and a house made of straw. Carrie had definitely inherited at least some of Claire's brains.

"…Even if he could, it would take him a loooooong time and the Little Pig would be able to run away, so there would be no point in trying. He should just knock on the door," she said, so matter-of-factly that I wondered if anyone wouldn't believe her.

She jumped down off my lap and picked up her book to show me the pictures in it.

"Look, that breath is not strong enough to blow down a house. It wouldn't even blow down one stick or piece of straw," she said, pointing at the Wolf's breath, and then the houses.

"Okay, I believe you," I said, and she turned to give me a hug.

I'd just finished changing Carrie out of her pyjama shirt when Claire walked in and asked if we were ready to go. To which Carrie responded by running down the stairs to put shoes on and then jumping up and down by the front door.

Michael's POV

We met Claire, Shane and Carrie outside the ice cream shop, and Carrie immediately started talking to Eve about the Three Little Pigs story and the Big Bad Wolf. Eve looked slightly confused, but very amused at the way Carrie was criticising a who-knows-how-old children's story. Claire just gave me a look and mouthed 'all morning'.

"Hi, Carrie," I said cheerfully, interrupting her flow of words. She hadn't stopped talking since she learnt how, and I really did feel sorry for Shane and Claire sometimes. Not because she was annoying or anything like that, but because a lot of what she said was so… out there that sometimes that even Claire, the smartest person most of us had ever met, couldn't come up with anything to respond with. It's a little bit of a self-esteem let down when a toddler can outsmart you.

She looked up at me, waved, and went back to talking about the Three Little Pigs. I had Ellie, mine and Eve's two-year-old daughter, in my arms and Sam, our son, had gone to Shane's side and they were talking about baseball.

"Oh, by the way, I'm not a kid," Claire said. It took me a second to understand what she was talking about, but then I remembered that I'd addressed her as Kiddo in a text earlier.

"Force of habit. Sorry," I said. Claire rolled her eyes and, after a 'what am I supposed to say?' look from Eve, tried to shut her daughter up by distracting her with the list of ice cream flavours.

Eve's POV

When we got in the ice cream shop, Shane, Carrie and me went up to order while the others found a seat. Shane picked Carrie up so she could see over the counter.

"What can I get you guys?" the guy serving, his nametag read Brad, asked us.

"Everything," Carrie replied. Brad chuckled and so did a few other people queuing behind us.

"Alright, so everything for you, what about the rest of you?" he asked Shane and me.

"If I've had everything they can't have anything," Carrie said. Brad looked thrown for a second, like he didn't know what to say. He also looked a little ashamed that he hadn't thought of that.

"Carrie, don't get smart with him," Shane warned while putting her back down, "go sit with mommy."

She frowned but ran off to sit with Claire. She may talk a lot, but that girl has no time for arguing with people. She's so Claire's daughter.

After the struggle to get everyone's ice cream to the table, we actually had quite a fun afternoon. The kids were testing our patience quite a bit, but you gotta love them for trying to sneak onto the playground outside the shop. Carrie had dropped the subject of whether or not the Big Bad Wolf could blow down houses and was now criticising Shane's ability to get a hair cut.

"But daddy, it's too long. It's nearly as long as mine!" not true, because her chestnut-brown hair was halfway down her back, but being me I found it hilarious having someone else insult him for once, especially his own daughter. I thought they didn't reach the insulting stage until they were teenagers. He just stuck his tongue out at her and took some of her ice cream. She then took all of his and they ended it with a prisoner's exchange and an eye roll from Claire.

Later On in the Day

"Seriously, though, wanna swap?" Claire asked me as we made dinner. She was talking about the food we were preparing; she had the onions.

"Kids or husband?" I joked, winking.

"Both," we both laughed and got back to cooking.

"You're outta luck, Claire Bear. My husband is way more awesome than yours and, okay Carrie is adorable, but… I'm not smart enough for her," I said.

"Um, I'm pretty sure Shane is better than Michael. And all you gotta do with Carrie is nod along and ask her why she thinks things," after a pause she said slowly and with a lot of thought, "They like to gang up on me…"

"I have to see that," and we both laughed again. Ellie waddled in looking lost.

"What's up, sweetie?" I asked her. Her blonde hair was bordering on an Afro at the moment. It needed a brush and some hair straighteners, but she's two and Michael said that, no, I absolutely cannot straighten our two-year-old daughter's hair. So I told him that it's his fault her hair is curly anyway. He had no comeback. Eve, 1, Michael, 0. Depending on when you're counting scores from.

"I tired," she mumbled, rubbing her eyes. She was still learning to talk.

"Aw, dinner's nearly ready, honey. You can take a nap after that if you want,"
"I go sleepies now," she said and raised her arms, silently asking me to pick her up. So I carried her into the living room and gave her to Michael. She curled up on his lap and grabbed a worn out teddy bear, one of Carrie's, who quickly came to its rescue before Ellie could start chewing the ear or something.

Claire's POV

After Eve and Michael had left, I helped Shane tidy up the kitchen while Carrie picked out a bedtime story.

"So, tonight are we going to hear why snowmen can't magically come to life and fly?" Shane asked with a smile as he finished putting the last of the plates away. He loved it when Carrie went off on a tangent about books, even if he didn't know what to say to it half the time.

"Don't be stupid, Carrie only reads seasonal books. She wouldn't read a book about a snowman in the summer," I joked.

"Ah, of course. Maybe it will be the reason that the distance from here to the moon isn't an accurate measurement of how much someone loves someone else," he replied.

As Shane predicted, it ended up being Guess How Much I Love You, her favourite, although she was too tired to question any of it.

"Night, baby," I whispered just as she fell asleep. She mumbled something that I'm guessing was 'goodnight' back, but it wasn't audible.