Tony's POV
On a blessedly quiet and peaceful Saturday morning in late November, I awoke early from habit, mentally cursing my internal clock. Oh yeah, on any weekday Ziva practically has to drag me out of bed, but give me one day off… Now that I was wide awake, I decided to give up on trying to go back to sleep and instead began to carefully extract myself from Ziva's sleeping embrace, trying to keep from waking her up. Kate had developed a bad case of colic, and had run Ziva ragged for the last four days. I had done my best to help Ziva out, but more often than not, I would wake up in the middle of the night to find Ziva walking around on the balcony landing, bouncing our fussing, eight-month-old daughter, refusing to let me take over. "One of us should get some rest" she would say, before pointing me back to our bedroom.
Fortunately, Kate's colic seemed to have finally passed, and I decided that at the very least I could let Ziva sleep in for the day. Even while she was sleeping, I could see that she was exhausted: she didn't even shift when I finally pulled myself free of her arms, nor did her breathing change in the slightest, and looking down at Ziva's sleeping body, I frowned at the dark circles under her eyes; still, I could help but to admire her gorgeous form. My sleeping goddess I thought, as I bent down to gently kiss her on the cheek and pull the covers over her, before leaving the room to check on the triplets.
When I entered the nursery, Engel, who was lying next to Kate's crib, lifted his black-and-tan head and thumped his tail twice, but made no move to get up. "Hey Eng" I whispered, kneeling down to scratch him behind his ears. This caused our big, tough German Shepherd to roll over on his back, tongue out and tail wagging even faster. "You big lug" I growled. "How's our Kate-girl doing?" Engel flipped back over on his stomach as I stood up to check on our oldest daughter. To my immense relief she was fast asleep, showing no signs of the earlier colic she had suffered from. I ran my fingers through her peach-fuzz hair, and was turning around to check on Isaiah when a small voice piped up behind me.
"Wassapibbleptthhzzz!" Tali, whose head was turned in my direction, was wide awake, and I knew it wouldn't be long before she would start to babble and shriek and wake her siblings up. I quickly walked over to her crib and scooped her up.
"Hey there Tali-girl, do you want to help Daddy make some breakfast for Mommy?" Tali chortled and, after flailing around for a bit, she grabbed my ear and pulled it. "I'll take that as a yes" I said with a chuckle. I made sure that Isaiah and Kate were both asleep before grabbing a baby monitor and heading downstairs, closely followed by a clearly hungry Engel.
After I had fed Tali and Engel, I set up one of our portable playpen in the breakfast room and placed her, along with a few of her toys inside of it. I kept an eye on her as I got out pancake mix, blueberries and milk. Within minutes, the kitchen was filled with the delicious smell of blueberry pancakes, a favorite treat for Ziva and I. After I had finished with the last of the pancakes, I picked up Tali, grabbed two bottles of milk that I had warmed up and went upstairs to check on Kate and Isaiah. I was just in time; both were waking up and starting to fuss.
I set down the bottles, put Tali back in her crib, and, after some careful maneuvering, fed both Isaiah and Kate. Once they had finished and had been burped, Isaiah, along with Tali was wide awake and ready for more fun. Kate, on the other hand, was still exhausted from her bout of colic, and quickly drifted back off to sleep. After covering my daughter with her blanket, I picked Tali and Isaiah up and whispered "Let's go wake up Momma!" With Engel following us, I brought the siblings to the master bedroom.
Ziva was still fast asleep, but I noticed that her breathing was starting to speed up as well as growing shallower, and I knew that it wouldn't be long until she would wake up. I carefully set Tali and Isaiah on the bed next to my sleeping wife. Isaiah decided that he was more interested in the bed sheets and began to pull on them. Tali, however, was well aware of Ziva's nearby presence, even though she couldn't see her, and wasted no time in crawling over to Ziva and smacking her mother on the nose. Ziva's chocolate-colored eyes flew open as her body tensed, but when she saw who was on the bed, she smiled at her children.
"Good morning you two- three." Ziva corrected herself when Engel stuck his nose in her back. Ziva picked up Tali and laid the little girl on her chest, letting Tali listen to her heartbeat. Ziva's warm eyes rested on mine, and my heart melted at the tenderness radiating from them.
"Good morning Ahava" she murmured as I picked Isaiah up and sat down next to her. I leaned over and kissed Ziva on the brow, and then ran my hand through her curls.
"Good morning Love. I have a special surprise breakfast for you today. I figured you could use it after everything that has happened with Kate." At the mention of Kate's name, Ziva's eyes immediately flicked towards the nursery.
"She's just fine Zi," I said, answering her unasked question. "She just ate and then fell asleep. I'm sure she's just as worn out as you are." Ziva nodded, stroking Tali's cheek, causing the little girl to wiggle. Chuckling softly, Ziva clutched Tali to her chest and rolled out of bed. I reached over, extracting the sheets from Isaiah's mouth and followed my wife down the stairs.
After we had placed the two siblings in the portable playpen, I pulled out the blueberry pancakes, grinning when Ziva's eyes lit up with joy. Within minutes we had sat down at the breakfast table to eat, but we had only taken a few bites of our breakfast when Isaiah's sharp shriek pierced the room. Ziva and I looked over just in time to see Tali smack her younger brother and yank a toy out of his hands. Isaiah shrieked even louder, but before he could retaliate, Ziva and I went over to the playpen to separate the two.
"Tali," Ziva sighed as she picked her up. Tali turned her sightless eyes to her mother, her tiny face giving her mother an innocent "what?" look. "You need to play nice with your brother." Meanwhile I scooped up Isaiah and rocked him back and forth to calm him down and then placed him in a separate corner of the playpen and gave him another toy to play with. Ziva and I were just settling down when another cry- Kate's cry- erupted from the baby monitor. Not again I thought, believing that her colic had returned. I motioned for Ziva to stay in her seat and headed back up the stairs to find out what was going on with our daughter.
As soon as I reached the top step, Engel, who had chosen to stay with Kate, nearly collided with me, making a half-whine, half-bark noise: She's making noise, make her stop! I sighed and reassured the decidedly unhelpful Shepherd that I was indeed going to take care of the noise, and entered the nursery, trying not to trip over the anxious ball of fur at my feet. As I came up to Kate's crib, I expected to find the little girl squirming in pain. However, much to my surprise, as soon as she had seen me, Kate stopped her crying and crawled over to the crib's railing and lift up her arms, begging to be picked up.
"You little faker!" I yelped. "You just wanted to join in the fun!" Kate chortled at my indignant tone as I picked her up, and then tried to smack my noise. "Be nice to your Daddy, Kate" I admonished as we left the nursery and went down the stairs to join the rest of the family while Engel ran after us.
As soon as we came into the breakfast room, Ziva looked up, concern written all over her face. However, once Kate started to happily babble, my wife's lovely face relaxed visibly. I swung Kate up into the air and then into the playpen, causing her to shriek with delight, and then turned back to Ziva.
"She was just faking it so someone would come up and get her" I said, rolling my eyes. Ziva chuckled and grasped my hand, leading me back to the breakfast table, where we finally managed to finish our meal in relative peace.
Once everything had been cleaned up, Ziva and I took the triplets out of their playpen and onto a blanket to give them more room to play. Ziva then sat down on the couch and I moved in behind her and began to massage her lower back. Ziva let out a contented noise: half-sigh and half-moan, and leaned into my hands. Her soft jasmine-and-flowers scent drifted over me, and I let out a soft sigh of my own, wrapping my arms around my beautiful wife and pulled her close, running my hands through her dark curls. As I looked out at my three lovely children, I couldn't help but to feel a wonderful rush of contentment.
Saturdays were good days.