Getting eighteen kids onto the bus on time five days a week was no small task, as the Beardsley-Norths had found out soon after Frank and Helen had married. Still, in some ways, the habits that had been established in their separate homes were carried over into their collective one. Christina and Kelly had always fixed breakfast for the Beardsley's, and they both still assisted Helen in the kitchen during school mornings. They had even roped Phoebe and Joni helping as well. William had always done fifteen pushups before he left his bedroom in the morning, and no matter how much Dylan rolled his eyes over it, that hadn't changed. The artist had even done some of his own on a couple of occasions.
Those were a couple of the habits that while maybe they hadn't technically stayed the same, they had shifted a little. Helen's favorite "shifted habit" of each school morning, though, was the one that she knew took place every morning in Phoebe and Christina's bedroom.
Just like they had every morning when they was just the North household, after Bina and Marisa had finished getting dressed in the tiny room that only the two six year olds shared they tumbled down the stairs searching for their oldest sister so that she could fix their hair. Used to, Phoebe had done it right there in the kitchen while they ate, but that was no longer doable since they always tried to have a sit-down breakfast nowadays. Said sit-down breakfast had also cut into the amount of time that the kids actually had to get ready for school, so – she would find out later that it was due to these two aforementioned factors – Helen had started to realize that she was losing her two oldest kitchen assistants once Bina and Marisa would come down the stairs.
Once, she had purposely paid attention to when Phoebe and Christina had left and – a couple of minutes later, when she could get away for long enough without burning the bacon – went upstairs to find out what was going on. Finally, she had tracked the four girls into Phoebe and Christina's bedroom, where – angling herself so that her daughter's couldn't see her – she had found Phoebe and Bina sitting cross-legged on the redhead's bed and Christina and Marisa doing likewise on Christina's bed. The four girls had been chattering away to one another, getting in some good sisterly bonding time while the older two braided the hair of the younger two. Over the next week, Helen had checked every school day, realizing that the girls had somehow adapted this North family habit without her noticing it.
She had smiled softly upon seeing the scene, realizing that it was just one more – and one extremely cute – way that her children and step-children were blending into the one unusually big, happy family that she and Frank had originally envisioned upon their marriage.
This is the last chapter of this story! Thanks for reading!:)
