"Ice fishing in January. We're so jealous," Randy remarked as he sat at the counter and ate some cereal with orange juice.

"Dad, did you hear what the weatherman said? It'll be seven below outside," Brad looked up at me.

"Thank you, Mr. Thermometer," I snapped and put away napkins. "It's not gonna be that bad. Marv's shanty is custom. He's got a heater, insulation, bunks and all the works," I put them away.

"You know, I should make room for all the fish Dad's gonna catch," Randy took out a thing of ice. "That should do it."

"I'd rather be stuck ice fishing and be here in the house with women and these." I held up a musical. "Gigi. Funny Girl. The King and I."

"Dad, what's the King and I?"

"It's some film about Elvis," I answered.

Jill answered the door. "Al! Hi! Ilene, what are you doing here so early?"

She was showing a bit and she looked a bit tired. Last night, she had been up with constipation and heartburn. The doctor said not to worry about it since it was what most women experienced during pregnancy. She'd experienced it with the boys so neither she nor I were worried.

"I wanted to drop Al off so I could see him until the last possible second," Ilene smiled.

"That's so sweet, you want some coffee?" Jill poured coffee for Ilene and some milk for herself.

"Nice hat. Did you drive or fly over?" I shook his hand.

"Is there anything I can bring to our girls-only party?" Ilene asked as Jill rubbed her stomach.

Jill shook her head. "You want some cream?"

She nodded and Al put his arm around Ilene. "I know it's just one day, but I hope you won't forget the Al man."

"I'll be thinking of you the whole time."

"I hope you won't forget the Tim man," I hugged her.

"I'll keep the oilcan ready," She hugged me and put my hand on her belly.

"Bye, Hannah," I kissed her belly. "Daddy'll be home real soon. Guys, group hug."

"Oh, man," Randy groaned.

"Dad, we're too old for this," Brad groaned.

"Too old for a group hug? Back to individual ones then."

The boys hugged me and Jill smiled as I hugged my boys close to me. Once Hannah was born, my family would be complete. I'd have my wife who meant the world to me along with my three boys and my little girl. I couldn't wait to give her piggy back rides and for her to ask me to have tea parties with her.

…

Al and I walked in, my face freezing cold and I was ready to get ice-fishing out of the way. It was better than being stuck inside the house with women waxing and watching musicals, especially Jill who's hormones were all over the place right now.

The place was small for a shanty. It didn't look like anything I'd consider a vacation. There was a bed, some shelves and a hole to fish. That was basically it in the shanty.

"This place looks great!" Al smiled.

"This is what Marv considers a vacation? Remind me not to use his travel agent."

"I think this is paradise on ice!"

"Why don't you unpack and I'll putter around the living room."

"Come on, Tim! Give it a chance! Before you know it, you'll be loving the experience!"

"You're right, Al. I'll take out my hot rod magazines, my radio and my personal TV."

"You brought a TV?"

"You bet. Maybe we could watch Gilligan's Island and see how seven people feel about being stranded in the middle of nowhere. I brought you something too."

"What is it?"

"Binford's new toiletries on the go. Hand cleanser."

"Smells like sawdust. I like it! I don't know about you, but I'm ready to fish," Al took off the panel to reveal a frozen over hole. "Looks like we're frozen over."

"I'll come back next summer," I teased.

"Come on, Tim. Why don't you chisel a hole and I'll bait the hooks? I got a chisel right here for you."

"Small hole, huh?"

"Yeah that oughta do us."

I started chipping at the hole and accidentally dropped the chisel in the water. Before I could fish it out, it started sinking to the bottom. Now, it was too deep to reach so I looked at Al with a grimace. I hoped he wasn't too attached to it or it'd make the wound even worse. It was an honest mistake and something that totally was an accident.

"Were you real attached to that chisel?"

"Tim, that chisel's been in my family for generations! That was handed down to me by my grandfather, Hal Borland."

"It's not like it was new."

…

"The reception's terrible in here," I adjusted the TV antennas.

"Come on, Tim. We're here to fish."

"Don't tell me. Tell the fish. We've been here four hours without a single bite."

"There's a lot more to fishing than catching fish. It's about being in the wilderness, getting away from our women and our job, spending time together."

"Al, we spend all the day together."

"Come on, let's talk."

"You wanna talk? I'll turn the sound down."

"You're not gonna turn it off?"

"No, I can watch this and listen to you. I do it with Jill all the time."

"There's an awful lot going on in my life right now."

I turned toward him. "What?"

"Let's just fish."

I handed my fishing hook to Al and got something out to make the hole bigger. I took off the panels of the floor and revealed more frozen area. I hit my crowbar on the ice, trying to crack it so that we would get more fish to come out of the hole. I wanted to get more fish and go home.

As I did, I felt the ice crack beneath my feet and I fell right into the hole. The water was of course freezing cold so that wasn't good on my body. I shivered and reached for the floor to push myself up. I heard Al panicking above and looked up towards him to assure him that I was alive.

….

I shivered with the jacket on and Al wrung out my clothes. "I can't believe you came up here without a change of clothes."

"I didn't intend on falling through the ice, Al," I told him.

"Everybody knows that you need to prepare for every possible contingency. With you, every contingency is possible."

"Well, this contingency is your fault," I was feeling warmer under the blanket.

"You're just lucky I brought an extra set of clothes."

"Yeah, real lucky."

I had a flannel shirt on with jeans. The jeans were four times too big for me (not even a belt could fix it probably) and I looked like a guy who lived in the woods. I looked like that creepy guy everyone told their kids to avoid, going in the woods. It could've been worse though. I could've had to be naked or stay in my wet clothes. I could change at home and things would be well.

"Just give me the keys to the car and I'll get the car warmed up."

"Gladly."

….

Jill's POV

I sat on the couch with Marie and Ilene, having stuff to get the facial hair off my upper lip off. Before doing this, I had consulted the doctor and he said it was safe to do during pregnancy. Since it was, I had decided to go ahead and do it. Plus, it was fun to do stuff with just Ilene and Marie.

Hannah was making it a little hard to breathe, but it wasn't anything major. The doctor said it was a normal symptom but that I should relax more. It didn't bother me since I knew it wasn't intentional. My baby was just growing and my body was adjusting to having a growing baby.

"How long we gotta keep this stuff on?" Marie asked.

I felt the baby kick my stomach and I watched the musical. "Just another minute."

I got up and headed to the boys' bathroom since it was the closest bathroom and sat down on the toilet. Along with breathlessness, I had to go to the bathroom about every twenty minutes. Hannah was basically "hugging" my bladder, but it meant my body was functioning properly.

I sat back down again. "That was such a good movie! I'm rewinding."

"I love Gigi," Ilene smiled.

Hannah was kicking her approval and it made me laugh that Hannah was trying to voice her own opinion. Would it be that someday she'd like the movie to? We could watch it together as mother and daughter!

"Why can't life be like that? You live in France, you drink wine and you sing!"

"My life is a lot like that," I laughed. "Except I live in Detroit, I drink milk and water right now and my husband grunts."

Hannah stopped kicking temporarily so I knew she had settled herself back down to sleep again.

"How is the baby?" Marie smiled.

"She's good. Making me out of breath and have to pee, but good."

"What do you want to watch next? Ooh, I brought Long and Hot Summer with Paul Newman," Marie took it out.

"I love Paul Newman!"

"Me too! Doesn't Paul Newman remind you of Al?"

I turned towards her and gave her a weird look. How was Paul anything like Al? From what I saw, they were nothing alike. Still, I knew she and Al were still in that phase where they still were over the moon excited. Tim and I were over the moon, but marriage is different than boyfriend/girlfriend.

"Ilene, I'm glad to hear that romance isn't dead. I remember when my husband was romantic. He used to bring me home a heart-shaped hamburger patty."

"Tim's at his most romantic during the all-day sales at Sears. All I have to do is hold up a negligee and a tool catalog. Right now, he's been pretty romantic. He's been waiting on me hand and foot."

"I can't imagine Al ever losing his flair for romance," Ilene smiled.

"That's because he's still serenading you with violins at dinner. In six months, the only serenading you'll hear is his burping on the way to the bathroom," Marie wiped off the stuff.

"Yeah, and once inside, there's a serenading you really don't wanna hear."

I wiped off the stuff and ate a banana. The baby just loved fruit and the doctor told me to please keep on eating it as Hannah wanted. It and vegetables were good for my health right now.

…..

Ilene, Marie and I sat at the kitchen table with stuff to wax our unnecessary body hair. Again, I asked the doctor and he said it was safe to do, but not to excessively do it, like I expected. So, I sat and had some wax with a piece of paper used for waxing hair on my legs.

Girls' night was fun since it was just us. The boys were upstairs and Tim and Al were out fishing. It was a girls' only party and as soon as Hannah was old enough for that, we'd include her too. I couldn't wait for those kinds of days with my daughter.

"I thought you said waxing your legs didn't hurt that much," Ilene grunted as she tore off the paper.

"It gets easier every time you do it," I yanked off the paper too.

None of this seemed to bother Hannah to my relief.

"So, you're on a desert island and you can be with one man for the rest of your life. Who do you pick?"

"Al," Ilene said dreamily.

"You can't pick someone you know, this is a fantasy," I laughed.

Hannah kicked to let me know that she was awake and I yanked off another piece of facial hair from my leg.

"Come on Ilene, live a little."

"There is this guy I've always had a thing for. Pierre Fouchard."

"That sounds hot is he a French actor?"

"No, the father of modern dentistry."

"That would've been my second guess."

…...

I sat on my bed, looking at Brad ready to plan our surprise for Hannah. Aside from the surprises that we had planned with Dad, Brad and I wanted to start our own. What we wanted to do? We didn't know yet. It still kept us busy and kept us from going downstairs and hearing Mom wax herself.

"I was thinking, we should do a banner for her. And we should give her our old stuffed animals," Brad looked at me. "As well as get her some new ones."

I nodded. "We should also try to draw her pictures for her bedroom to hang up."

"That's perfect!"

"We can start it while Mom and Dad are at the pregnancy appointment tomorrow with Mark."

Brad nodded. "Yup. This baby's gonna be spoiled. Ooh, we can put the bedding on the crib and put the clothes in the dresser for Mom!"

(A/N: Tim and the boys built the dresser a couple days before this and painted it).

I nodded and we ran into the baby's room. The murals were still there and present, with room for us to hang up pictures. We ran over to the crib and I saw that Dad had already put in the mattress. Now, all we needed to do was put on the bedding and the mobile for it.

"Here, Dad left instructions. He said to first put on a rubber sheet. Here! He put labels on them for us," Brad told.

I found the one labeled: rubber sheet. I took off the label and we laid down the sheet, it was white with butterflies on it.

"Next, we put on the sheets."

He didn't label that since he knew we knew what that was. Brad put down the bottom one and I put on the one after it.

"Next, we tie the bumper down," Brad read.

I found it and tied one side while Brad tied the other.

Dad and Mom were planning to use the dresser as a changing table too and they'd use the closet for when baby was older.

"Dad has what Mom wants in each drawer. Let's put in onesies first," I told.

Brad put the bows and socks in one drawer while I put diapers in another. We put onesies in the drawer below the bows and the one pieces below the diapers. After we had everything stored away, we smiled.

"Stuffed animals now?" I asked.

Brad nodded and we each only had one animal left. I had a stuffed dog from when I was six and Brad had a stuffed tiger from when he was seven. We put them on the windowsill and put the mobile on the crib.

Dad smiled at us as he walked in. "It looks great guys!"