A/N: UPDATED UPDATED UPDATED (does happy dance). This chapter focuses on Vanessa and Jimmy (which I know people were waiting for), and their relationship with their son, who is now six months old, and starting on solids (who'll see why that's important later).

Don't own them, never will, original characters are mine, blah blah yada

Reviews always welcome

Chapter 36

Just as quickly as they had arrived, Jack and Michael went back to Boston. Jimmy and Vanessa were up to their elbows in baby paraphernalia, and Herb devoted every chance he got to doting on his grandson.

There was a point where Vanessa and Jimmy had gone to the university arena to see what Herb was doing with the teams now. Now six months old, David was starting to sit up and smile. Vanessa had been talking with Jimmy as she burped her son.

"Hey there handsome boy, it's Grandpa Herb!" she heard over her shoulder.

Suddenly David started bouncing in her arms.

Jimmy smiled. "Hey Herb, how're you doing?"

"Ah, these kids have got me skatin' in circles." He took David from Vanessa and balancing the baby on his hip.

"Kinda like what we did to you, huh?" Jimmy laughed.

Herb nodded. "It's good to see you," Herb turned to the glass separating them from the ice. "What's that out there, David?"

The baby reached forward and hit his tiny hand on the glass.

"Good boy…" Herb kissed his grandson's cheek and handed the boy back to Vanessa. He loved David, but right now he had to get back out on to the ice, his players were waiting for him. "Hey Jimmy, do you mind lacing up? I need you for a drill."

Jimmy eyed Herb suspiciously. "Okay…" he went through the arena doors and appeared on the ice a few minutes later.

"Who's that out there, David?" Vanessa cooed in her six month old son's ear.

David bounced in her arms.

"Is that Daddy?"

David reached forward and hit the glass again.

"Should we go in and see what Daddy's doing?"

She saw her baby boy bouncing and nodding.

"Okay, we'll go…" Vanessa and David went through the doors and stood behind the glass, watching and listening.

"Alright, listen up!" Herb shouted. "Blue line back, red line back, far blue line back, far red line back, and you have 45 seconds to do it." The blank expressions on his players' faces gave him a clue. "And Jim here is gonna give us a demonstration…"

Herb blew the whistle and Jimmy skated up and down the ice. God damn those stupid Herbies drills! The two of them had done those incessantly while preparing for the Olympics, and how here he was doing it again.

"Alright, thanks," Herb waved him off. Jimmy again eyed him suspiciously and climbed over the boards and took his skates off.

"I swear, Herb's just…" he exhaled sharply, looking for the right word. "Odd."

"I figured…" Vanessa waited until Jimmy had gotten his skates put away and stood up. "Come on, we should get home, David's hungry."

Jimmy smiled. He couldn't believe the enormous change he'd seen in his wife. Just a few months before she'd been so upset about never being able to bring their baby, and now that David was theirs she had changed from upset woman to loving mom.

Going out to their car, Vanessa strapped David into his car seat and got into the passenger seat. Jimmy got into the driver's seat and dove home.

It was a very noisy ride. David started babbling, and soon the babbling turned to screaming.

"Either he needs a diaper change or he's really hungry!" Jimmy managed to shout over the noise. They pulled into the driveway and Vanessa immediately got David into the house.

About half an hour later, David was now sound asleep in his crib, Vanessa was refilling bottles, and Jimmy was looking over bills.

"Look at this, honey…" he said to Vanessa as she walked through the kitchen, putting another bottle of formula into the fridge.

She stopped and looked over his shoulder. "What?"

"In the last month we've spent over $250 in diapers and formula!"

Vanessa giggled and kissed him on the cheek. "No one said raising a baby was going to be cheap."

"And I wasn't expecting it to be, but doesn't that seem a little high?"

"Well, let's look at this logically…" Vanessa pulled up a chair and sat beside her husband. Finding a calculator and a few pieces of paper, she began adding numbers together. "David goes through at least seven diapers a day, and there's seven days in a week, so that's 49 diapers right there…" she continued punching numbers into the calculator, "and at 50 cents a piece, that's $24.50 a week, multiply that by 52 weeks in a year, it's about $1 274 a year, divide that by 12 months, that's roughly $106.16 a month for diapers."

"Okay… makes sense…" Jimmy watched her fingers fly across the calculator. "So what about the formula?"

"Let's see…" she cleared the calculator and started it again. "Our boy goes through about two 64 oz containers of pabulum a month, at $10.70 each, that's $21.40 a month for formula, add that with the $106.16 for the diapers, and we get $127.56, that combined with babysitting when we're both at work, and we get..." she punched the numbers into the calculator. "About $250."

Jimmy's head was spinning. Two hundred and fifty dollars to keep his son in diapers and formula! Good Lord! But he couldn't begrudge the little guy anything, he was just a baby, and if it took two hundred and fifty dollars a month to keep David clean and comfortable, then that's what it took.

"At least he's not demanding to be fed from a gold bottle!"

"I started him on mashed bananas and oatmeal about a week ago, so his formula consumption is dropping off a bit, which is good…"

"What does he think?" Jimmy asked, taking the calculator from Vanessa and clearing up their bookkeeping. "Of mashed bananas and oatmeal, I mean."

"Considering I ended up with a face full of partially chewed banana and oatmeal as soon as I spoon fed it to him, I think he took it pretty well."

Jimmy couldn't stop himself from laughing.

"He takes after you, you know," Vanessa hit her husband in the arm.

"He does not!" Jimmy tried to contain himself, and was failing miserably.

"Says you, Mr. I'm- Not- A- Stew- Kinda- Guy- I'll- Make- Myself- A- PB&J- instead- thanks," she was starting to giggle too. "But oh, will my revenge be sweet…"

Jimmy raised his eyebrows.

"I fed him just before he went to sleep…" Suddenly David awoke and started crying. "And I think he needs a diaper change."

She smirked as Jimmy got up, rolled his eyes and started off toward their son's bedroom.

Trust Vanessa to make every day memorable.