Friday 13th November 2015, 7am
Finally at 10 weeks old, Daniel had fallen into a sleep routine that he was actually happy to stick to. He was definitely an early riser rather than a night owl so he was up at 5am every morning so Tom could spend some time with him before he went to work. Then he would have a morning nap from 10am-11:30am, then an afternoon nap at 2pm-4pm. And then he would go to bed at 8pm, wake at midnight for a feed, and then sleep until 5am where the cycle began all over again. It had been Tom's turn to take Daniel in the shower with him and he had just stepped out to find Sam pulling her dressing gown on.
"Morning." He smiled.
"You want me to dress him?" Sam asked as she smiled at her son who was getting bigger by the day and he was wrapped in a hooded towel against his father's torso whilst he stood with a towel around his waist.
"Yeah sure, thanks." Sam took Daniel off of Tom and then laid him down on the changing table.
"You're getting heavy aren't you?"
"Try telling me that after you've held him for fifteen minutes in the shower." Tom retorted as he begins getting ready for work. "Well today's that day that Shadow looses one of her little boys." Tom stated. "You're not gonna cry are you?"
"No, why would I? We're still gonna see him all the time because we can meet Fletch and the kids down in the park with him. Especially when Daniel gets old enough to walk about and play in the play area." Sam stated as she laid a clean nappy underneath her son. "Ooh, you've got a little bit of nappy rash haven't you?" Sam said concernedly as she lifted her baby's legs slightly to inspect the reddened skin.
"He had a wet and dirty nappy a couple of minutes before I took him into the shower so you're probably safe to leave him out of a nappy for a while to air his skin out a bit." Tom suggested. "Just keep a towel underneath him in case something does happen."
"He loves being free." Sam smirked. "It's just whenever you take his nappy off, he tends to suddenly start weeing."
"Kind of like you then." Tom remarked.
"What?" Sam asked confusedly.
"Your incontinence pads. You always seem to leak whenever you forget to put one on." Tom stated bluntly as both of them always joked about Sam's weak pelvic floor muscles but Tom knew where the line was and he'd never tell anyone about it - it was only between those two.
"Hey, I haven't leaked for at least 7 minutes." Sam argued playfully.
"Well you wouldn't have those problems if you did your-"
"If you say pelvic floor muscle exercises, I will hit you where the sun don't shine." Sam threatened. "Besides, you never know when I do leak anyway." Sam argued.
"Yeah? You think I don't notice when you bend down to pick something up and then when you quickly go off, shut the bedroom door behind you and come out a couple of minutes later in a different pair of trousers?" Tom joked.
"Bless you." Sam said after her naked son sneezed.
"Well at least we know that he can sneeze without leaking." Tom quipped.
"Not funny!" Sam protested as she threw a pillow at Tom who just laughed in response. "Tom look! Come here!" Sam ordered as she looked down at the changing table.
"How stupid do you think I am?"
"In being serious, look he's smiling. It's his first proper smile." Sam announced and Tom climbed across the bed in his boxers and shirt to stand next to his wife and see Daniel giving them a gummy smile after he had heard both of their parents laughing.
"Good boy Daniel, you're laughing about mummy's wee wee problem just like daddy does." Tom praised and Sam glared at him as she folded her arms across her chest.
"Oi, and he keeps on playing with his genitals just like his dad." Sam retorted as she pulled the infant's hand away.
"Theres nothing wrong with scratching your balls." Tom joked. "Right, I'd better get ready or I'm gonna be late." Tom stated.
Tom had just left for work and so Sam decided to do one of Daniel's favourite activites: feeling different materials and seeing what noises they made. Sam sat cross legged on the rug in the living room with Daniel in a blue onesie sitting in her lap, leaning against her abdomen as Sam got materials one by one. He couldn't hold his own head up yet so sam had his back and head against her stomach to keep them upright and supported. First she she grabbed a square of foil from the pile, which she let Daniel feel in his fingers before she crinkled the aluminium and let him feel the ball that it had created. Sam was careful before she knew he was prone to putting things in his mouth, but she let him turn the object in his tiny fingers for a minute before he was clearly bored of it and dropped it.
"How about this one? You hate this don't you. Don't worry, mummy hates the feel cotton wool as well." Sam said softly as she let her son have one touch of it before he pulled his hand away and clenched his fists. Sam then moved on to a small square of soft silk. "Wow, you must like this one. You haven't thrown it away after a minute." Sam said encouragingly as Daniel was content with running the material through his fingers for quite a while before he dropped that one too. Sam continued playing with her son but she couldn't help but stop glancing at the male puppy that Fletch and his children were coming to take away that night. At 10 weeks old, the puppies were the size of a small Jack Russell and they were getting bigger and more active every day. Despite Sam trying not to get too attached to the puppy that she knew she would be losing, she couldn't help but feel a little sad for Shadow who would be losing one of her pups.
4pm
Sam was sitting on the sofa with Daniel who had just woken from his afternoon nap as he suckled her breast for milk when the doorbell rang. Sam frowned because Fletch was not meant to be coming until 6pm and Tom was not yet home from work to help Sam deal with the puppies because she knew how rambunctious they could be. Slowly, Sam ensured that the muslin cloth that she used for leaks was covering the majority of her breast that Daniel wasn't already covering before she got up and looked out of the small peephole in the door to see Fletch standing with his four kids. Mikey, Evie, Ella and their youngest at almost two years old, Noah. Sam rolled her eyes because she didn't have Tom's help to deal with Daniel, Shadow - who was still less than two years old and was quite hyperactive - the four puppies, and now Fletch and his four children, all of whom were under the age of 12.
Sam opened the door after putting on a smile to greet the family.
"Sorry we're early, Nat's out with her friends and they were driving me mad at home, so I was hoping we could come over a little bit earlier." Fletch explained and all of the kids looked so excited that there was no way that Sam could turn them down.
"Yeah no, that's fine. They're all through there." Sam stated as she nodded to the doorway with the baby that that was open and the three oldest kids quickly went through to the living room though Noah wasn't very stable at walking yet so Fletch picked him up.
"Sorry, I didn't know you'd be feeding." Fletch apologised again as he closed the front door behind him.
"No it's fine, he'll only be another couple of minutes anyway." Sam shrugged. "Um, can you just watch your kids with the puppies while I go and sort Daniel out please?" Sam requested. "But tell them to be careful, Shadow can be very protective when she wants to be." Sam warned.
"Yeah sure take all the time you need." Fletch nodded to Sam went through to her bedroom.
Five minutes later, Sam came in with her top buttoned up and she laid Daniel down on his back on his jungle themed play gym in the corner of the living room so that she could keep an eye on him. Thankfully, the three eldest children were all sitting around the whelping box and gently stroking the puppies and Shadow whilst Fletch was sat cross legged with Noah in his lap, facing the box too.
"Right, have you come up with a name for him then?" Sam asked.
"He's called Max." Mikey announced.
"Right. Well if I put Max over here, you can say hello to him without his mother fussing over him." Sam said as she lifted the black and white border collie puppy up and put him in the middle of the carpet. Of course the kids jumped up and then surrounded the pup who was perfectly happy with them making a fuss of him. "Right, Fletch do you want to come here for a minute." Sam asked as she sat on the sofa so Fletch told Evie to keep an eye on Noah whilst he sat next to Sam on the sofa. "These are all of his documents about his birth, his vaccinations and everything else. Now, Max can't go to a park yet because he had his final vaccination yesterday, and you need to wait 2 weeks until you can take him out of your house but as long as you haven't had an unvaccinated dog in your garden for a year you can let him out there." Sam explained as she handed him a folder. "Then, there's his basic supplies. He's got his collar on, but there's a lead in there, his food and water bowl, a brush, a new toy, tennis ball, dog shampoo and his first months worth of food in there as well as the instructions for his feeding amounts."
"You sound like a proper breeder." Fletch smiled as he gratefully accepted the bag of items too. "Sam, thank you so much for this. The kids are so excited and there's no way we would've been able to afford a dog of this standard anytime soon."
"Well I'm just glad she's going to a good home." Sam replied as she looked at the kids playing with the newest member of their family. "Oh, speaking of money I've paid for his first year of insurance too." Sam stated. "And once that runs out, unless he has any health problems, which I doubt he will, you needn't bother continuing with the pet insurance because we haven't got any for Shadow and even when she was pregnant, we just had to pay for the one X-ray to see how many puppies she was having."
"You shouldn't have."
"Well, I did." Sam smirked. "And as for neutering. It's really up to you. I mean, we didn't get Shadow done because we thought of the health benefits and we certainly won't be letting her get pregnant again anytime soon. And we're not gonna get Zoe, Alex or Panda neutered either."
"I still can't get over the fact that you named one of your dogs after your boss." Fletch laughed.
"What? Zoe is stubborn because she never let's go of the chew toy and she's bossy because she thinks she's in charge of the others. And so is our boss." Sam protested playfully.
"Sam, your baby is getting upset." Evie stated and Sam had been too busy talking with Fletch to notice that Daniel had rolled over onto his tummy which he was quite good at, but he wasn't yet strong enough to roll back over.
"Thanks Evie." Sam smiled do as she got up, picked Daniel up and then sat him on her lap as she got back on the sofa again.
"So, how is my little godchild then?" Fletch asked as he tickled the infant with reddened cheeks under the chin to cheer him up.
"Honestly? He is one of the best things that's ever happened to me, aside from Tom of course." Sam admitted before she pecked her son on the forehead. He had recently had his first hair cut so his golden brown hair curly was just an inch long. "I can't believe that before I got married, I'd always had my heart set that I wasn't going to have kids because I didn't think I'd enjoy being a mum. But now I can't imagine life without him." Sam smiled as she put her hands around his belly.
"Who are you? And what have you done with Sam Kent?" Fletch joked. "Tom really loves you. Y'know that?"
"Well I should hope so considering we're married." Sam retorted.
"Yeah but what I mean is that there's marriage, and there's true love. All Tom talks about at work is you and Daniel, and how proud he is of you and how much he enjoyed the fact that you let him deliver his own son in his own home." Fletch explained.
"Really?"
"Really." Fletch nodded and Sam smiled to herself. "Right, do you want me to send the kids out to the car so that you can say goodbye to Max then?"
"I don't need to say goodbye to Max." Sam protested. "What is it with you lot? Tom said this morning that he thought I was gonna cry when you took Max."
"Well I know how much Shadow means to you, I just presumed that you'd love him just as much."
"Yeah but I've know since they were born that we'd be losing Max so I didn't let myself get too attached and it worked, I'm fine."
Sam and Tom were sitting next to each other on the sofa watching the evening news after having dinner, whilst Sam's fingers kept on running over something in her pocket of her hoodie. It had gone past 8pm so Daniel was fast asleep in his bedside sleeper and was going to be asleep until midnight when he would wake up for a feed.
"Tom... I want to thank you for being so patient with me. Because I know we haven't actually had sex since before he was born."
"Hey, it's alright. Your body has been through a lot, and I can understand why intercourse isn't one of your top priorities at the moment." Tom said reassuringly. "I don't mind waiting until you're happy to do something like that."
"No, you don't understand. What I'm trying to say is... I'm ready." Sam stated. "I am ready, Tom."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. But don't get me wrong, I want you to be gentle, really gentle at first because I don't know if it's gonna hurt or not." Sam admitted timidly
"Of course, I understand. Just say stop whenever you want and we can stop. No questions asked."
"And I don't want it to be in the bedroom with Daniel there."
"Well where do you want to do it then?" Tom asked confusedly.
"Well we're here now." Sam stated as she put one hand on the sofa. "And I've got this." She added as she took the square foil packet out of her pocket that she had been running through her fingers ever since they had put Daniel to bed that night, she just didn't know how to bring it up.
"Well then..." Tom smirked as he laid back on the gap on the three seater sofa behind him. "Come on, get on top. Then you can control what happens." Tom said kindly as he pulled her on top of his torso and they began kissing passionately so that they would take it nice and slow, as they made love for the first time in ten weeks.
Coming up: Daniel has an eventful first Christmas which results in Tom having a bloody nose.
Thanks for reading, please review :)
