Hey, guys! I hope you've all had a good weekend! I wanted to congratulate all who made it to round two in the TFFA's!

Many thanks to Kyla713 for looking this over. Any mistakes are mine. I may have tinkered just a tiny bit before posting.

I hope you enjoy!

~.~

Chapter 10-

It was a rare morning when we got a to sleep in on a weekend, and I planned to take full advantage of it. The house was quiet, probably too quiet, but the pull of my wife lying next to me, all nice and warm, was way too strong.

I turned over, ran my hands across her waist and pulled her to me, kissing her neck just below her ear softly.

Bella sighed into me as she wiggled her butt. I pinched it softly, which caused the sweetest giggle to escape her.

"Good morning," I whispered and began kissing down her neck to her shoulders, pulling the strap of her tank top down.

"Mm, morning," she voiced softly before turning around to face me and kiss me on the lips.

I knew it was only a matter of time before our munchkins made their presence known, so I had to work fast, yet efficient.

Pulling her tank top off, I kissed her lips once more, before moving down, across her breast and to her stomach. I nibbled teasingly the closer I got to her pajama bottoms.

"Dad!" I heard Toby yell and I groaned. My head hit Bella's hip bone softly as I muttered, "You've gotta be kidding me."

The softest of giggles made me look up at my wife. She had the most radiant smile on her face as she looked down at me. "You didn't work fast enough, mister."

I glared.

"Dad!" Our doorknob now jingled as Toby got to our room. "You need to wake up."

I kissed my wife's stomach and handed her tank top before getting up and out of bed. I opened the door to our room and peaked out at my son. "You do know the sun isn't even up yet."

"I know, but I felt like this was super, super important," Toby replied, grinning.

"Well, I am up now. I don't suppose you have the coffee ready?" I asked, smirking.

My son looked at me and tilted his head. "I'm six. I can't make coffee."

"Well, we need to fix that if you're waking me up before the sun," I told him before stepping out and closing the door softly. "Now what is so important."

"Dad..." Toby stood in front of me, hands on his hips. "You are gonna be waiting a long while for me to ever make coffee, I'm still shorter than the cabinet."

Laughing, I ruffled his hair. "You may have a point there, but I had to try. Now again, what is so important."

"Uhhhh, now don't get mad." Toby grabbed my hand and began leading me down the hall. His comment made me nervous. It was every parent's worst four words a kid can ever utter, because it's almost a certainty that the kid has done something that will make a parent mad. Well, in most cases, anyway.

He led me to the front room, where I found Rose lying next to Buster, who looked incredibly guilty—if a dog could look guilty, that was.

"Why are you two up, and why does Buster look like I am about to take away his favorite treats?"

Toby shifted from side to side, his eyes going back and forth between his dog and sister. "Well, the answer to that would be...errrm, well... uhh, you are gonna wanna take away his fave treats, and Rose's fave doll, and change my bedtime."

It is way too early to be dealing with a crisis.

"Rose woke me up, so she's been up longer than me. And when she took me to her room..." Toby sighed. "I'm just gonna cut to the chase, Dad. Buster ate one of Rose's aids."

I was speechless. It was rare when my kids rendered me speechless, but really, what could be said in that situation, besides a whole lot of curse words?

"Are you sure? Absolutely sure?"

Does insurance cover hearing aid damage due to dog eating it? There goes three grand...

"I'm pretty sure. And I found the other one in the closet again," he replied, handing me the other aid.

"Keep Rose company, and don't let that dog move an inch," I told him before walking back to our room.

"So, what did our kids do?" Bella sleepily asked.

"Our kids and the dog. Can you hand me the phone? I need to call the emergency vet."

Her eyes went wide before she handed me the phone. I called and relayed the info to the receptionist, who then got me on with the on-call vet. I kept looking at my wife, who sat there, shaking her head.

"She's me times two!" Bella said, getting out of bed and stomping out of the room.

I hurried and got dressed, preparing to take Buster to the vet.

Just before I went to put Buster on his lead to get him out to the car, I was met with a laughing Bella. She held out her hand, and in it, held a very slobber covered hearing aid.

"He threw it up," Bella told me, "Look on the bright side, he saved us a huge vet bill after all."

"Maybe, but I think he just added some gray hairs and deducted five years from my life due to that," I grumpily said, tugging at my hair.

I then called the vet, told them it was a false alarm, and then made coffee. Coffee was going to be needed to make it through the rest of this day.

To weigh out the stress of the morning, we then told the kids we'd take them to the trampoline play place, but not before laying out a few new rules about the hearing aids. We let them know that wasn't such a great thing to have happen, and that it couldn't do so again. So, from now on, whenever it was bed time, we were taking her aids and placing them on top of the fridge. We used to keep them on top of one of the cupboards where we kept our car keys so we wouldn't forget them.

We had just two more days before Rose's big surgery for her Cochlear implants, so I hoped letting them play a few hours at the Trampoline play area would tucker them out and hopefully destress us all before then. I knew we definitely needed it after the morning we had.

The kids had a blast jumping from play area to play area, and trampoline after trampoline. Bella sat it out, and I was most definitely feeling my age. I was hurting in places I didn't know I could hurt, but I couldn't complain. My kids laughed and shrieked with happiness, and when it came time to leave, there were happy but tuckered out.

That night, before bed, I gave Buster all the loves and a few rounds of throwing the tennis ball in the back yard. Just before I locked up for the night, I thanked him for not swallowing my daughter's hearing aid. I signed it, of course, since he couldn't hear, but I doubt he understood me,

I locked up, and then laughed to myself at how crazy the day had been thanks to a dog swallowing a hearing aid. Right when I walked into our room, I chuckled once more. I jokingly wondered what would've happened if the hearing aid battery had died and the beeping came from Buster's stomach. I imagined that would've made for a very interesting case for the vet.

"Stop laughing and make up for us being interrupted this morning," Bella said, patting the bed and smiling.

Well, who was I to deny my wife?

~.~

Thank you for reading! I look forward to your thoughts. Hoping Ffn finally has sorted out all of the problems it has been having.