"This is the Stuff"
A/N: Sorry that the first chapter/prologue was so short. I felt the need to get ya'll up to speed on what was going on with everyone. But please read and review...As I get closer to finals the less time I have to write…sooo if you want to review it might help me make time :).
Beep. Beep. Beep. Derek Shepherd threw his hand up to hit the alarm. Rolling over to wake up his wife, he was stopped by the beautiful April sunrise he saw out the window of their house, the house they had built together shortly after Kennedy was born. The four bedroom, five bath monster of a house had grown to be the perfect home for the Shepherd brood. Reaching toward his wife, he shook her. "Meredith, honey, its morning wake up. Gotta get the kids going. Don't want them to be late for school." He knew how much his wife hated getting up early. She definitely was not a morning person.
"Okay, okay. I'm up. Happy?" Meredith rolled over and kissed her husband passionately. The fire had never left their marriage of now nine years. Meredith got out of the bed, put on her robe, and went to work on prying her thirteen-year-old stepdaughter, Kinsley, out of bed. She was not a morning person either. Usually by the time she got to Kennedy and Kollin's rooms they were already bouncing off the walls. She always wondered where her biological children got their energy from, when her stepdaughter was exactly like her, which she found scary.
Meredith padded down the hall towards Kinsley room. She knocked and then opened the door, walking to Kinsley's bed. "Kinsley, honey. It's time to get up," Meredith tapped her stepdaughter on the back. Kinsley rose up her red head in her bed and looked at her stepmother in disbelief.
"Really? It can't be morning already can it?" Kinsley groaned through her braced teeth as she rolled out of her bed. Mission accomplished, Meredith thought as she left the room. She could already hear Kennedy rummaging through her closet. I have chatty children. Meredith thought back to the time she was talking to Cristina about it and then after Cristina snapped on her, she fell and was impaled with an icicle. Meredith believed in her children picking their own clothes out for school. Meredith stuck her head in Kennedy's room to check on her progress.
"How's it going, honey?" Kennedy was holding two different shirts unsure of which one matched the shorts she was going to wear to school that day.
"Mommy, which shirt goes better? The red one or the green one?" Meredith looked at the shorts Kennedy picked out, which were purple. Trying her best not to sound like she wanted to laugh, Meredith walked over to where her eight-year-old daughter was worrying with what shirt to wear.
"Let's look in your closet for a different color, like pink or white. Those colors go better with purple than green or red." Meredith looked through Kennedy's closet and found a pink t-shirt and a white one. Her daughter, she realized, was definitely her blonde headed child. She had blonde moments just like her mommy did growing up. "Here, which one would you like to wear today?"
"The pink one." Kennedy grabbed for the shirt happily. "Thank you, mommy." Meredith left her happy daughter to go help her five-year-old son get dressed. He was still having trouble with putting things on correctly, like shoes on the right feet and shirt on right and not backwards.
Meredith walked across the hall to Kollin's room. Sticking her head in, she saw her little boy, her baby, playing with his racecars in the floor. "Good morning, sweetheart."
Kollin looked up and beamed at his mom. "Good morning, mommy. Do I have to go to school today? I want to stay home and play cars with you and daddy."
Meredith smiled down at her son, who was a mini version of his daddy, which broke her heart every time he got into trouble. She had trouble disciplining him because she imagined him as Derek. "No, sweetheart, you have to go to school. Mommy and daddy have to go to work so I can buy you more cars."
"Okay…" Kollin said as he cleaned up his cars that were spread throughout the floor as Meredith headed to his closet. She picked him out some denim shorts and a blue t-shirt.
"Come on, sweetheart. Let's get you dressed. Let's see if we can beat Kinsley downstairs today." Kollin lived for beating his oldest sister at getting ready for school. It was pretty easy to do considering she was insistent on wearing makeup since she turned thirteen. Her argument was that every teenager wears makeup.
After getting Kollin dressed, Meredith headed downstairs, to find her husband and Kennedy making breakfast for everyone. Kollin bounded down the stairs. "Mommy! I beat Kinsley again!"
"Good job." Meredith walked over to the stairs and screamed up to her stepdaughter, "Kinsley, hurry up. You're going to be late!"
"I'm coming!" Kinsley yelled back before bounding down the stairs.
Meredith got Kollin and Kennedy settled at the table just when Kinsley came running into the kitchen full speed ahead. "Whoa, slow down there." Derek dodged his daughter and set the food on the table.
Breakfast was a flurry of activity. Meredith got the kids to their backpacks and headed out the door to the car. "I'll be back in a few." She ran out the door after the kids.
Derek looked around the kitchen. It was a total wreck. "Lovely. Thanks for leaving the mess for me," he said to no one in particular. Then he thought of a song that Meredith was always singing. This is the stuff that drives me crazy. This is the stuff that's getting to me lately. In the middle of my little mess, I forget how big I'm blessed. That is exactly how he felt about his family.
A/N: So what do you think? The kid's personalities will come out more as the story goes on. The song lyrics at the end are from "This is the Stuff" by Francesca Battistelli, whom I love and admire. Next chapter we will be heading to Seattle Grace- Mercy West Hospital. That should be interesting. Please R/R.
