Chapter 3: Room Swap
Disclaimer: I never have and never will own Twilight.
Since Edward did not have to go to work on Saturday we decided to move the children out of the nursery and into the two separate rooms.
We hoped that it wouldn't take too long since all we had to do was move furniture, but we didn't know for sure. Anything could happen in our house, there were just too many distractions.
I hated days when Edward was forced to do some sort of project at home, and I think the children agreed with me.
I nodded his helping hands after a long week of taking care of the children by myself and I know the kids wanted to spend time with their daddy.
I did my best to keep them occupied and away from Edward during these days so he could get his work done faster.
I woke up earlier than usual and decided to make breakfast. Depending on my mood I would occasionally make something more extravagant then cereal or toast.
I decided to make eggs today. It didn't take too much work, but with the way my children ate I had to make a lot.
I also decided to make bacon as well. I had bought some earlier in the week, but never got around to using it. I figured now would be the perfect time.
"It smells good in here." I heard Edward say.
I felt his arms snake around my waist and his lips on the top of my head.
"Why are you so early? Kenzie and Tristan aren't even up yet."
"I don't know. I just woke up and figured to start the day early. I guess I'm hoping that if I start the day off on the right foot the rest will go as smoothly." I explained.
"It won't be that bad."
"Oh yeah just wrangling kids and making sure they don't sneak upstairs. Piece of cake." I said sarcastically.
Edward was about to say something when we heard the pattering of bare feet on the wood floor.
"Daddy!" Kenzie shouted and ran towards Edward.
She tripped in the process, but luckily Edward was there to catch her before she hit the floor.
So far she, Dylan, and Sammy had inherited my coordination, or lack thereof. For the most part they tried to ignore it; I just hoped that it didn't get worse than it already was.
I leaned against the counter and smiled as I watched Edward swing Kenzie high in the air before bringing her into his arms.
"Morning baby," he said kissing the top of her head.
"Morning daddy." She giggled.
Edward brought her over to me and Kenzie leaned forward in his arms to give me a kiss on the cheek.
"Morning mommy." She wrapped her arms around my neck and I took her from Edward.
"Where are your brothers and sister?" I asked.
"They still asleep, But Tristy is coming. I raced him and beated him." Kenzie said proudly.
Sure enough Tristan came into the kitchen with a pout on his face.
"What's a matter buddy?" Edward asked picking him up.
"Kenzie beated me." he explained placing his head on Edward's shoulder.
"Didn't you beat her all the other times you've raced?" Edward asked.
Tristan nodded his head yes.
"Isn't it only fair that she was to win a race?"
Tristan shrugged his shoulders.
"Mommy and I think it is. Now why don't you two go play while we finish breakfast."
Edward and I placed them on the ground and off they went forgetting all about the tiff.
Competition in our house was high. Edward and I tried not to promote it, but it was hard since they were all the same age and wanted the same things.
I got back to work on making breakfast with Edward helping me. Things went a lot faster when he was around helping.
Ava and Sammy eventually toddled downstairs and headed off to go play with Kenzie and Tristan.
"Why don't you round up the kids while I make the plates." I suggested.
Edward nodded his head and left the kitchen. Soon after the other children were awake and walked in.
"Go to your chairs and I'll help you in." I told them as I made sure everything on the stove was turned off.
I helped all the kids into the chairs and gave them each their cups which I had Edward fill before he left. With them occupied, I started to serve the food onto the plates.
Edward came back into the kitchen with Millie and Dylan in his arms. I guess he didn't feel like fighting them this morning, not that I could blame him.
Once he placed them in their chairs and gave them their cups he started to hand out forks to them. We were working on getting them to use utensils instead of their hands, but it was easier said than done.
Together we handed out the plates before finally sitting down to enjoy a real family breakfast, a rare treat in our house.
"Who remembers why today is special?" I asked.
It was silent until Sammy answered, "We no longer in nursery."
"Good job Sam." Edward praised.
We got a shy smile out of him before he went back to eating.
"We get to sleep in our own rooms?" Dylan asked.
"Not quit, but you don't sleep with the girls anymore." I explained.
I wasn't sure if they really got the idea even though they all nodded their heads, but they still seemed excited.
Once we finished breakfast I cleaned up the dishes while Edward cleaned up the children.
After that Edward and I got to work on dressing them. I went up stairs to the nursery to pick out their outfits and to look at the room one last time.
Next time I entered all that would be left was the changing tables. I didn't want to dwell on that for too long though so I quickly picked out clothes and headed back downstairs.
Edward had already undressed all of them and they were running around the living room with just their night time diapers on.
I handed Edward three random hangers and we got to work.
"Say by to daddy kids." I said once they were all dressed.
"Where you going?" Millie asked I could see the tears starting to form.
"I have to go move your beds into your new rooms remember?" Edward asked trying to sooth her
He stood up to leave, but Millie latched onto his leg.
"I'm just going to be upstairs." Edward comforted her with a little chuckle.
"Don't go." Millie mumbled into his leg.
"He has to go sweetie or else you have to sleep with the boys forever and you don't want that." I said coming down to her level.
With Edward's help I pried her off of his leg and into my arms. She continued to scream and squirm as Edward went upstairs.
"Want to go outside guys?"I suggested hoping that they wouldn't start to cry as well.
I continued to keep Millie in my arms so that she wouldn't run away to go see Edward.
After I made sure that the door was closed and they were all outside I put her down. Of course she went straight to the door and tried to get back in the house.
Though it hurt me to see her like that, I knew the only way to make her stop was to ignore her.
I went over to the bin of outside toys and opened it up allowing them to pick out whatever they wanted to play with.
I sat down in one of the chairs and watched the five other children play while keeping an eye on Millie who was still crying though now it was more noise than tears.
"What's wrong?" I heard Ava ask.
"I want daddy." Millie sniffled.
"Do you want to play me with and Kenzie?"
"Okay."
I smiled as Ava took her sister's hand and lead her over to the grass to play. Another crises solved by big sister.
But peace didn't last long. I caught Tristan hitting Dylan. I quickly walked over there to figure out what was going on.
"Tristan what have I said about hitting?" I asked sternly.
"Dylan has the toy I want." Tristan cried.
"Did he have it first?" I asked only to get silence. "Give the toy back to your brother and say you're sorry."
"Sorry." He mumbled and gave his brother a hug.
I went back over to the chair and sat down waiting for the next crisis to arise. It didn't take long before I caught Tristan hitting Sammy.
"What did I say about hitting?" I said sternly to him again.
He looked down at his feet and didn't say anything.
"It's time out for you."
"No!" He shouted and stomped all the way to the designated time out spot.
Another idea I had stolen from Jon and Kate was the corners. All six of them knew where the spots were in the house and went when we told them to, unwillingly of course. Time out was a common occurrence in the house, for some more than others.
I sat back down in the chair and watched the other five play but keeping an eye on Tristan.
Once he had calmed down I called him over.
"You know that hitting is wrong right" I asked.
Tristan nodded his head yes.
"You're not going to do it again right?"
Again he nodded "I sorry mommy." He mumbled looking at me.
"It's okay. Now go apologize to Sammy then you can play."
I watched as he ran off to find his brother and gave him a running hug causing them both to fall to the ground laughing.
The rest of the morning was pretty quiet. There were a bunch of fights, but I let them run their course and didn't step in unless I felt it was necessary. I figured it was better and easier to not fight the inevitable. Yet another thing I learned from Jon and Kate.
Before I knew it I had to start making lunch. This was going to be one the hardest parts of the day. I couldn't keep an eye on the children anymore which meant they could run upstairs to see Edward at any time.
I deiced to make sandwiches since that didn't require cooking and I could check on the kids.
I lead them all inside and made sure they were entertained before I walked into the kitchen.
I started to pull out the ingredients and quickly got to work. I wanted to finish making lunch before one of them had a chance to escape upstairs.
I cut up all the sandwiches into four quarters and put pieces of fruit on the plates.
I headed back out into the playroom to go tell the kids it was lunch and to see if they had listened to me when I had told them not to bother daddy.
But it seemed that Edward hadn't heard my talk with them since he was sitting on the floor playing with Ava and Millie.
"I knew it was lunch so I figure to stop while I was ahead and play with the kids." Edward explained.
"Well lunch is ready now. So why don't you help me herd them into the kitchen so we can fed them." I said.
All eight of us walked into the kitchen and Edward and I placed each child into their chair and handed them their plate and cup. We also got to sit down and enjoy another family meal together.
Like this morning I cleaned up the dishes while Edward cleaned the kids.
We ushered the kids to the basement where we had set up blankets for them to take a nap on. We knew that the rooms wouldn't be ready before nap, so we decided to let them sleep downstairs. They settled in quickly excited to be napping in a new location.
"Do you need any help?" I asked Edward when we were back on the main floor.
"No, I think I'm good. I finished moving the girls' beds and their wardrobe. I just need to move the boys' furniture and we are done for the day." Edward explained. "Why don't you go take a nap in our room and I'll wake you up when the kids are up."
"Are you sure?" I asked not wanting to distract him from working.
"I'm positive, now go." He playfully hit my butt and sent me on my way to our bedroom.
On the way there I caught site of the nursery. It looked so empty with only three cribs in there and I felt tears start to form in my eyes.
"I thought I told you to…" I heard Edward start to say.
His arms wrapped around me and pulled me into a hug.
"They are growing up so fast." I cried into his chest.
"I know." He sighed kissing the top of my head.
We stood there for a few minutes in the doorway of the nursery. It was so hard to believe that my babies weren't babies anymore.
"Why don't you go enjoy that nap I suggested?" Edward reminded me.
He led me into our bedroom and lied me down on the bed. I gave him a kiss on the lips before curling around his pillow and falling asleep.
It took me a few minutes to register where I was when I felt someone shaking me.
"Did you sleep well?" Edward asked.
I nodded my head yes and sat up to stretch out my back. It was amazing what a nap did for me. I felt so much more energetic and ready to wrangle some children.
"All six kids are up and playing in the playroom. I'm gonna go finish moving furniture." Edward said and gave me a kiss on the forehead before leaving me alone.
I headed downstairs and into the playroom.
"Hi mommy." Dylan said smiling.
"Hey guys." I smiled back and sat down on the couch.
The rest of the afternoon was spent in the playroom. The kids kept themselves entertained with their inside toys. Though I did get many questions about where daddy was and when he was going to come and play with them.
"Daddy!" Millie shouted and ran in the direction of where Edward was.
"You finished?" I asked as he picked up Millie.
"Yup, everything is all set up in the new rooms." He smiled.
"Perfect timing, I'm going to go start dinner." I smiled and headed out to the kitchen.
I decided to make pasta tonight and got to work on boiling water and chopping up vegetables.
It didn't take me too long to make dinner and I called Edward to bring the kids in and get them into their chairs. We passed out the plates together and had our third family meal of the day.
We allowed the children to play a little longer since it wasn't a bath night once we finished dinner.
"Who's ready to see their new rooms?" I asked.
All of them raised their hands and started jumping up and down exited.
Edward and I lead them upstairs to their new rooms. We decided to make Ava's room the girls' room and Sammy's the boys' room. We figured they would be able to handle sharing their rooms the best and would be an easier for adjustment for them when we moved them into single rooms.
They all seemed to enjoy the extra space to run around and the general concept of sleeping somewhere else.
Edward went into the boys' room to get them ready while I did the girls. I tucked all the girls' into their beds and gave each one a goodnight kiss.
When Edward came in I went over to the boys' room to repeat them same process of saying goodnight.
"It wasn't too bad today was it?" Edward asked when we were back in our room.
"No it wasn't." I sighed and sat down on our bed.
For all that could have gone wrong today, it really was an amazing that nothing too bad happened. It was just an average day at the Cullen house.
A/N: End of chapter 3. I need to thank my amazing beta, luv2beloved, for doing a great job of reading over this chapter for me.
Sorry for the delay with this chapter. A lot of stuff came up and then I accidentally sent chapter 4 to my beta so I had to re-send it out. But its finally out. I am also going to change the update date for this story to Thursday. I think it will work a lot better for my beta and I to update it then instead of Tuesdays.
Also don't forget to vote in the poll for the children's POVs. At the moment there are a bunch that are tied so please go vote for whose POV you want to read.
Please review. I love to hear from you guys and what you think of the story. Plus we got to try and make it to 300 this time. I know you guys can do it!
Next Chapter: Bella's Birthday
