So first one-shot! This one takes place two weeks after the twins have been born and Jay is going back to work, leaving Erin for her first full day alone with three kids. Hope you guys enjoy it!
"Please don't leave me alone with them," I plead, only half joking as the two of us linger in the doorway, the heat of a Chicago summer pelting down, the tiny baby resting in my arms not really helping with that and Percy weaving around my legs.
We were worried about him interacting with the babies at first, he is a very big dog after all, but he's been so calm and so gentle, the same way he has always interacted with Lucy. He loves the twins, often curled up by their swings and after seeing him with them, I don't why we ever even worried.
"You know I'd love to stay, but I have to go back to work. We talked about this," He tells me as he places his hand on my cheek, running his hand down my face.
"I know," I groan, "but if you come home tonight and your children have exhausted me and I'm lying on the floor dead, it's your fault." I say, only half joking again. I'm already running on less than three hours of sleep. Liam's a pretty good sleeper, he's been waking up only two or three times a night, which according to Nat isn't bad at all. But Ava, good God. She's up every hour, at least, sometimes more. It's almost like they coordinate, making sure they get their sleep but we never get ours. They never wake up at the same time, they tag team it and it is exhausting.
The two of them have been sleeping in bassinets in our bedroom just to make things easier for now, but recently Ava has started this new thing where she doesn't want to sleep unless she's in mine or Jay's arms. I can almost always get her to fall asleep in her bassinet for a couple hours at the start of the night, which is when I usually sleep, but after the first time she's up, it's all over. And even if she is asleep, I'm still awake, sitting up in bed with her in my arms. Sometimes I can get her back into the bassinet, but last night was not one of those nights.
And very honestly, I don't really know how I'm still standing. Wait yes I do. Coffee. Lots and lots of coffee. So much coffee that I'm thoroughly convinced that my body is at least 60% coffee.
"Why are they only my children when they aren't being perfect little angels," He asks jokingly.
"Well I pushed one of them out of my vagina and the other one got to be cut out of my stomach, so I get to say whatever I want for at least another six months," I say with a grin.
"Okay babe," He says with a laugh as he presses a kiss to my lips. "And I will see you later little bird," He says as he plants another kiss on her forehead. "Daddy's going to miss you,"
"Believe me, I'm going to miss you more than any of the kids will," I say as I shove him out the door.
"You'll be fine, I'll be home before you know it," He assures me.
"Shut up and go to work," I tell him, almost longing to go with him. I love my kids, I do, more than anything in the entire world and I'm sure that if I actually left I would miss them. But I do want some time where no one is throwing up on me or screaming at me or falling asleep on me.
"I love you," He tells me.
"You better," I tease. "Be safe, make sure Ruz is watching your back,"
"I will," He calls as he waves behind me, making his way towards the 300. And I shut the door behind him, I realize for the first time that I'm alone. Completely. Alone. With a six year old and two two weeks olds.
We've been barely holding it together with the two us working as a team, but I don't know how how this is going to work. But hundreds of millions of women have been doing this since the start of time, I can do this.
"We got this baby girl, Mommy can do this all on her own, right?" I tell her, mostly trying to assure myself. She coos up at me in response. I'm going to take that as a solid yes. And well, at least she's not crying.
"Mommy!" Lucy calls as I meet her back in the kitchen.
"Hey baby what's up?" I ask, trying to hide my near extreme exhaustion.
"I'm hungry," She tells me. Of course she's hungry. She's used to having breakfast around 7:20 when school's in session and we've been trying as hard as we can to keep her schedule. Which, very honestly has been difficult, but we've been doing an okay job. But with Jay leaving today, it's nearing 8 AM. Luckily the twins are already fed, so I won't have to worry about them for maybe 2 hours.
"Of course, what do you want?" I ask as I place Ava in her swing, adjacent to Liam, who's asleep in his.
"Can I have cheesy eggs?" She asks as she climbs up onto a bar stool across from me
"Yeah of course," I say as I run to grab the stuff from the fridge. Cheesy eggs. Eggs with cheese. Should be easy enough.
"Can we go to the park today?" She asks as I begin to make her breakfast.
"Yeah sure," I tell as I a pour the eggs into a pan, met with a strong sizzle. "After breakfast we have to get everybody ready and then we can go. You want to be Mama's helper?" She nods at me enthusiastically. "That's my girl," It's takes a hell of a lot of effort to get out of the house with everyone, especially when it's by myself, but I haven't been out of the house in the last couple days except for errands and I'm starting to go a little stir crazy.
Literally the second I slide her eggs onto a plate, Ava starts screaming. Again.
It's weird, I didn't think I'd be able to tell them apart, but my kids have different cries. And I've gotten almost scary good at identifying the differences between them.
"Mommy, Avie's crying," Lucy states as I rush over to her. I have to bite my tongue to avoid snapping at her. I know she's crying. Trust me. I know. I know she's crying. God I just hope she doesn't wake her brother up. And then Percy starts barking at the back door. Perfect.
"Baby can you let Percy out to the backyard?" She groans and doesn't move.
"Lucy," I warn, my voice raising.
"Mama do I have too?" She groans.
"Lucy Claire Halstead, I am going to count to three. 1,2,-" I warn.
"Fine, I'm going!" She says with a dramatic sigh.
"Thank you," I snap at her. I've been told that this is normal. She's usually pretty good as has been since we've had her, but since the babies have been born she's has these little spurts of attitude. And we are not having it.
I hold Ava to my chest, pressing what I think is her pacifier into her mouth. I don't know, it could very well be Liam's. But I'm so sleep deprived I really don't care. It's making her stop crying and it hasn't been dropped on the floor, that's all that really matters to me right now.
What I've learned in this past two weeks, is that is a lot easier to be the perfect parent when you don't have kids. Or in our case, when you don't have babies. If you would have asked me two weeks ago if I would even considered putting something into my kid's mouth that I wasn't sure what was hers, I would have said absolutely not. In my head everything was going to be color coded and labeled with their names, but this is real life and we're just doing what we need to do to survive.
I know that if I put her down, she'll spit out the paci and start screaming bloody murder. So I will be returning to doing everything with one hand. Fantastic.
"Cheesy enough?" I ask her, Ava starting to quiet down again in my arms.
"Uh huh," She tells me with a smile. I've been trying to spend as much time with Lucy as possible. I feel bad that suddenly she has to split her time with these two babies, she's been used to having us all to herself for as long as we've had her. But she really loves her brother and sister and hasn't talked to either of us about her having any problems, but I still feel bad about it and there's been a little bit of a rise with the attitude.
Jay keeps telling me that I shouldn't feel bad about it, but I miss my baby. She's my first child and she'll always be my baby. And of course she's still here, I probably spend more time with her now, just because school is out, but I still feel more distant from her.
We couldn't really pull it together for her sixth birthday. The babies were only two weeks old and we couldn't plan a party, it just wasn't happening. We did have a family dinner with Natalie, Will, Owen, and Hank and we made her favorite foods and she told us that she loved it and I know that she had fun, but I still feel a little bad about it.
But, days like this where I can do something with her, even something small like taking her to the park are the times where I don't feel so awful about it.
She finishes up quickly as I down a cup of coffee and eat a thing of raspberry yogurt, I'll just throw a granola bar or an apple or something in the diaper bag. I wash the pan later while the babies are napping, for now I just want to spend some time with Luce.
"Alright baby girl you ready to get dressed?"
"Yep," She tells me as she slides off the stool, placing her plate in the sink.
"Hey," I stop her, placing a hand on her shoulder, "you're my girl, you know that right?"
"Yeah,"
"And you're always going to be my baby, no matter how big you get," I tell her as I pull her into my side. "And I love you,"
"I love you too Mama," She tells me, "But can we please go get ready now? I want to go to the park!"
"Of course, I'm going to let Perce back in and then I'll come upstairs," I say with a bit of a chuckle. There's my girl. "Go on,"I let the dog back in and start the routine I've gotten far too familiar with. I've done this more than a few times now, running one of the twins upstairs, sticking them in a bouncer and then dashing back downstairs to grab the other baby.
It's summer now and the sun is beating down on us relentlessly, so we have to dress to match. The twins are asleep (for now) in their bouncers and Lucy's brushing her teeth as I pick out something for her to wear and throw my hair into a top knot. We're going easy today, so I grab a her favorite pair of jean shorts and this yellow flowery tank top thing that she's been really into lately. Luckily, I got in a shower last night so I don't have to worry about that.
"Lucy you done?" I call towards her bathroom.
"Yeah," She says back to me as I hear her spit into the sink.
"Alright c'mon back," She scurries back into the room and starts stripping her pajamas off. "Baby can you watch your brother and sister for a minute? Mama's gotta get ready,"
"I can do it, I'm a big girl," She tells me.
"I'll come back if they start crying," I offer.
"Mama I can do it!" She assures me.
"Alright, alright," I say throwing my hands up in defense. I make my way quickly to my bedroom, trying to do this as fast as possible but listening carefully for any of the kids.
I strip of my pajamas, tossing them into a hamper, a constant reminder of the never ending pile of laundry that I need to get done. I pull on a pair of jean shorts, thankfully my legs are shaved and a striped black and white tank top. I slap on some concealer to hide the oh so dark circles under my eyes and coat my eyelashes in a thin coat of mascara. That'll have to do for now. I grab a pair of flats, my days of sandals long over after I ran over my toes with the double stroller a few too many times. Satisfied with myself, I make a quick pit stop in Ava and Liam's nursery to grab clothes for them, they're still in their pajamas after all.
I pull a floral onesie thing for Ava, that for some reason the store called a body suit. I don't really get it, to me it just looks like a onesie with tank tops sleeves and ruffles, but whatever. Oh and one of those headbands with the giant bows that look so ridiculous and serve absolutely no purpose, but so look damn cute. And besides, maybe I'll get a cute picture of the kids to send to Jay.
I grab a yellow onesie and a pair of denim overalls for Liam. It was a hand-me-down from Owen and he looks absolutely adorable in it. I run back to Lucy's room and she helps me change their clothes before I do a quick diaper change on both of them. I run Liam down first, putting him securely into his carseat and leaving Lucy to watch him before repeating the process with Ava. They're both awake right now, but they're happy, which is a very good thing.
I leave both of them sitting in the hallway, Lucy playing peek a boo with them, the babies cooing back at her as she giggles while I pack the diaper bag and put Percy in his crate until we get back. One of the biggest adjustments, besides the sleep thing of course, is having to bring so much stuff with us to literally anywhere. When it was just the three of us, I could grab my phone, wallet, and keys, maybe throwing a couple of things in my purse and just run out the door with her. Now it requires a hell of a lot more. Bottles and diapers and wipes and pacifiers and receiving blankets and the list just goes on and on and on. But I've gotten used to it.
I shove a pair of red Converse over Lucy's little feet before grabbing the twins stroller from the trunk of the car and fastening both their car seats next to each other on the frame. That's one of the things I love the most about their stroller, both of them are right in front of me and I can reach both of them at all times. That was important to me when we were picking one and as it turns out, there are few models like that.
"Can we walk to the park?" Lucy asks.
"You want to?" I ask, my words met with a simple nod. It's a little under a mile to get there and even though it doesn't seem like too far, but she's six and she'll little for her age so even walking that far seems like a long time to her. But we've done it before with her and she doesn't seem to mind it. Plus it's a nice day, not as blistering as it has been, so why not.
"Yeah, it'll fun,"
"Yes!" She squeals as she jumps up a little bit.
"Where is all this energy coming from?" I joke with her as I slide my trusty sunglasses over my eyes. I really tried to cover up the dark circles, but as most new moms know, it didn't really work too well.
"Ooh can I wear mine?" She asks, ignoring my question, but asking for her sunglasses. Jay got her a pair that looks a lot like his and she wants to wear them everywhere, telling me that she's just like Daddy.
"Yeah, I think they're in the drawer in the table by your bed, go grab 'em," She doesn't even say anything to me before running up the staircase at double time. Oh how I wish for her energy.
I take a minute to snap a picture of the babies and shoot it over to Jay. As busy as I am with the three of them, I can't help but wondering what they're doing over at the 21st. I miss the action of the job. But for now, a morning trip to the park is about as much action as I can take.
"Babe let's go," I call up to her as I pocket my cell phone.
"I can't find them!" She yells back down to me.
"Uh check the bookshelf!" I respond. "You got them?" I yell again after a brief moment of silence.
"I got 'em!" She confirms.
"C'mon down, we got to go to the park right,"
"Coming!" She yells back at me, hollow footsteps on the wood stairs following her words. "Let's go!" She exclaims, sunglasses now firmly sitting on her face. I can already tell that those are going to get tangled in her long red hair, but I'll let her have her moment for now.
"Sounds good," I say as I push the double stroller through the front door, barely clearing the doorway. It's a warm day, but there's a slight breeze blowing. Not enough to give you goosebumps or make your hair go wild, but just enough to combat the heat. It's nice.
"Alright, let's go to the park," I say with a grin as she skips ahead of me.
I did it. We got out the door. Now we just have to get through the rest of the day. Oh God help me.
Alright so there's the first one-shot! Just a quick reminder that these will be non continuous and if you guys have any suggestions, please let me know! Let me know if you guys liked this and if you want me to continue them!
Please Review!
Much love,
Addie