Hello!
I know that it's been a super log time since I last updated this but I haven't had any time to write it. With exams and events at school, along with my focus being set on finishing Surf, Sun, Sand and starting my Christmas story, this one hasn't really been my main priority. I really hope that you understand and you're not too mad at me, I'm trying my best to juggle everything and make it work. Hopefully this chapter makes up for my absence! Warning: I do use like one swear word in this chapter but I was just trying to make it seem like a believable situation. I related this story as a T for a reason so I hope that you don't mind one or two bad words here and there, don't worry they're not going to be a frequent thing. :)
"Remind we again why we thought that taking care of five kids was a good idea," Brady said, wrestling little two year old Harry away from the front door that he had tried to run out of four times already.
"I just felt bad for Lela and the others, they all really needed a break. I mean, did you see Giggles?" Mack replied, bouncing the blonde surfer girl's two month old daughter on her knees to stop her from winging.
When Butchy and his wife had shown up at Lela's house (which is where Mack and Brady were staying for the night) to drop of their two kids, he literally had to hold Giggles' head up with his shoulder. She well and truly looked exhausted as she guiltily praised the two children away from her, but she still tried to muster a smile for the soon-to-be parents. Giggles might not be the constantly energetic, bubbly, fun-loving surfer girl they first met anymore, but that side of her wasn't completely gone, it was still there somewhere. The three hours of sleep that she was living on however seemed to be draining it out of her though.
"Plus we need this practice, our little girl is going to arrive in four to five months and God help me if we are not prepared for it," Mack continued, snapping a little bit at the end in frustration as Ella's winging had turned into full blown crying, which quickly progressed into screaming.
And this screaming is what caused Lela's almost four year old daughter to come stomping into the living room with her hands pressed over her ears and a firm frown etched onto her face. "That little person is too noisy," she complained, looking at her cousin in disapproval. "Make it stop," she ordered Brady, turning to look up at him so quickly that the plastic crown she had balanced on her head slipped off and clattered to the floor.
"I think that's what Mack's trying to do," Brady explained gently, setting Harry down on the floor and trying to steer him into the playroom, where Lela and Tanner's other daughter and Struts and Lugnut's little girl were both quietly sat babbling to themselves. If only the other three kids could be as easily amused.
"Why don't you take Harry and Amelia into the playroom while I settle Ella down," Mack suggested in between her shushes to the two month old in her arms.
"Ok, come on you two," Brady said, giving up on trying to make Harry walk into the room and just deciding to pick him up instead. So with Harry on one arm and Amelia clinging onto his leg, he hobbled his way into the room next door.
After twenty exhausting minutes of keeping the four kids in the playroom entertained, Brady went to go and check on Mack, who still hadn't managed to get Ella to quieten down.
"Why won't you stop crying?" Mack murmured, her brows furrowed as she gently rocked the baby girl in her arms.
"Do you want me to take over?" Brady asked wearily, stifling a yawn as he lumbered over to Mack.
"No, it's fine," she lied, moving Ella so that she was draped over her shoulder and she was able to wind her. But the change of position released a rather bizarre odour. Mack cautiously sniffed the air around the baby girl's backside before scrunching up her nose. "Looks like you need another diaper change," she concluded, getting up from the couch to kneel on the floor and break out the nappy bag and changing mat.
"Again?" Brady asked in disbelief, one of his eyebrows practically touching the ceiling as he stared at the wailing two month old. "How is it possible for something so small to make so much poop?"
"That's a very good question," Mack sighed, starting to unbutton Ella's onesie when another child's cries accompanied the infant's.
"I'll handle it," Brady huffed, dragging his feet as he plodded back into the playroom and comforted Sophia after she'd banged her head on the corner of the door.
It turns out that Brady's rescue act was a lot more interesting than he'd anticipated because he spent the next quarter of an hour playing 'doctors' with a very enthusiastic Amelia and the others who, despite Amelia's coaxing, weren't quite as excited about the game as she was.
Mack finally got Ella to doze off and wandered into the playroom to find Brady pretending to put a plaster on Lily's nose, which had the little girl in fits of laughter. Her giggles seemed to be infectious though because Mack found herself softly laughing at Brady's breathless chuckles that slipped out of his mouth upon hearing Lela and Tanner's daughter's laugh if her own.
Mack's laugh happened to catch Brady's attention though because it was merely seconds until his gaze rose to meet hers. "Hey, you managed to get Ella to sleep?"
"Yeah, it took some trying but she's finally down in her cot," Mack sighed, running a hand through her tangle of loose, chestnut brown curls.
"Care to join us?" Brady asked, referring to the group of babbling toddlers that were populating the room. "We're playing a very interesting game of doctors," he added sarcastically, hoping that this mere fact was enough to change her mind.
"I think I've had enough doctor's appointments lately," Mack replied. Although she did take a few steps further into the room.
"Oh come on, you can't possibly resist this," Brady teased as Lily tried to stand up, pulling herself up on Brady's hair, much to his irritation. "Then again, maybe you can."
"Excuse me," Amelia piped up, marching over to Mack and tugging on the hem of her t-shirt.
"Yes?" Mack said, acknowledging the girl's presence by bending down a bit to reach her level.
"You look ill, you're tummy's all swollen. I'm going to take care of you until you're better," Amelia informed, wrapping her admittedly much smaller hand as best as she could around Mack's before leading her over to a space on the carpet a few meters away from Brady. Little did she know that Mack's stomach was sticking out more than usual for a rather important reason, a reason that Mack was quite excited about. But then again, she is only three, she still can't wrap her head around that fact yet.
"She's very good as a doctor, I'd highly recommend her," Brady announced, playing along with Amelia's game, much to her joy and to Mack's amusement.
"Yes, yes I am," Amelia murmured to herself as she rummaged around in her toy box for things to use as medical utensils.
Mack tried to stifle a laugh but didn't carry it out too successfully and ended up spluttering out some kind of snort at the little girl's behaviour. Children don't care what other people think. They say and do anything. And just watching them muddle through their day to day life was enough to keep Mack and Brady entertained for hours. Which was a good thing really considering that that was what their lives would be filled with in no time at all.
Another hour of bandages, fake injections, doses of medicine being handed out and a final analysis from Doctor Amelia herself, it was time for Mack and Brady (now back to full health thanks to their visit to the 'hospical' as Harry called it) had to face the tiresome task of putting the four children to bed.
Since the kids were all staying at Lela and Tanner's house while their parents were on a much needed night out, they just had to go to sleep on the sofa-bed in the playroom. So Mack and Brady wrestled all of them into their pyjamas, some being more cooperative than others. And then Brady took Amelia and Harry upstairs to brush their teeth, while Mack got the other two girls (who didn't really have enough teeth to brush yet) settled at one side of the sofa bed; a task which had seemed rather simple until Harry and Amelia came bounding back into the room and disturbed the little ones again. To calm them down the best solution seemed to be a bedtime story, much to the children's excitement. The first story was read by Mack, but the children were still bouncing off the walls by the time that Mack had announced 'The End'. So Brady took a turn to read a different story, and although the kids had calmed down a bit, they were still wide awake.
Four bedtime stories later, Mack and Brady were struggling to stay awake themselves, so it was a relief to look across and see four small sets of eyes closed. They shared a triumphant, heavily relieved smile and eased themselves off the creaky, fold-up sofa/bed, praying that the noise wouldn't wake the children again. When they were in the clear, they gently shut the door, leaving a tiny gap so that they would hear if any of them woke up but closed it enough to ensure that they wouldn't disturb them by talking.
The couple slid into chairs at the kitchen table and put their heads in their hands.
"I never thought they'd fall asleep," Mack mumbled, rubbing her eyes in exhaustion.
"I know, I still don't know how we managed it," Brady agreed, a hint at a chuckle breaking through his undeniable weariness.
"Holy crap," Mack breathed, crossing her arms over the table and letting her forehead fall forwards onto them.
"What now?"
"We're going to have our own one in a few months," Mack continued, her voice just ending over a whisper as she lifted her head.
"Our own what?" Brady asked, still too tired to fully understand what his wife was talking about.
"Our own kid," she finished, biting down on her lip so hard that the skin started to splinter.
"Yeah," was all that Brady could find to say. His mouth was pressed behind his hand, which were both balled up into little fists that were reaching towards the ceiling.
"I've had nineteen weeks to come to terms with that and it still doesn't feel real," Mack confessed, staring straight ahead but not focusing on a thing.
"I know, and in another nineteen we might have a little girl to take care of," Brady said, internally smiling, even if his lips were too stubborn to show it.
"That's if she comes early," Mack said, before breaking out of her zoned out, sleep deprived haze to direct her speech to her stomach. "Please don't come early, we're not ready for you yet."
"She's an independent woman, Mack. She can make her own decisions," Brady teased, poking fun at Mack's heavy belief in female empowerment.
"You don't have to tell me twice, this little girl is going to grow up with the mentality that she can achieve anything that she wants to, I'm going to make sure of it," Mack announced, making a promise to herself to carry out everything that she had just said, even if it had skilled out of her mouth when she was so exhausted that she could barley keep her head up.
"I don't doubt that for a second," Brady chuckled sleepily, leaning across to peck his wife on the cheek.
Mack's eyes slid shut as her head rested on the palm of her hand, a small smile curling at her lips as she drifted off to sleep, too tired to bother to move. Barely a minute later, Brady joined her.
But no sooner had they fallen asleep, an ear-splitting cry ripped through the house.
Mack was jolted awake so quickly that her head slipped off her hand and she ended up smacking it on the kitchen table in front of her. The noise created from Mack hitting her head woke Brady up too, who let out a groan upon being roused.
"We just got her to settle down," Brady moaned, rubbing his eyes and pushing himself out of the kitchen chair as he began to lumber over to Ella's travel crib in the living room.
"I'll get her," Mack sighed, standing up to tend to the two month old.
"No, it's fine," Brady replied, cautiously picking up the screaming baby from the crib. "You go and check on the others and make sure they haven't woken up too."
"Ok," Mack yawned, shuffling into the playroom to settle down Sophia, who was the only one that had started to stir from the crying.
Once she heard the four children's soft, steady snores though, she relaxed again and collapsed into the squashy, leather arm chair in the corner. This whole 'parenting practice' thing had been both a success and a failure. But at least now she knew what things that she could cope with and what things that she and Brady would be phoning her in-laws about every five minutes. Surely they would adjust to life as a parent when their little girl actually arrived though, right? They totally had this covered...not.
I hope that you enjoyed it! I know that it involved the Wet Side Story characters' children (which I know aren't too popular) but I really wanted to do a chapter about Mack and Brady babysitting and I didn't want to bring in any other kids with different names to confuse things even more. I hope that you don't mind too much!
Also, I think that now it's sort of getting to halfway in the pregnancy, names need to be being considered. I'll be bringing up a few ideas over the next few chapters so if you could leave any suggestions then that would be much appreciated!
I'll try to get the next chapter done as quickly as possible but I can't promise anything because it's getting close to Christmas now and I'm really busy! Plus, like I said before, this story isn't really my main priority, which is why it's kind of been pushed back a pit. I'll still try my best to get it done though, I promise!
Anyway, thank you so much for reading, don't forget to review!
-cherrygorilla
