Author's Note: So terribly sorry for the long wait. I'm going to try to update more frequently from now on, promise!

Chapter 36: Wonder

April 30th, 2015

A few weeks had passed since Ellie's first birthday party, which meant that we were back to our normal routine as a family. Emily would work all day Mondays and Fridays, I would work all day Tuesdays and Thursdays. On Wednesdays Ellie and Owen would come into work with all of us, which usually meant that we would get less work done.

Today was a Thursday, which meant that it was my day to go to work and Emily's day to stay at home with Ellie. Today Effy was in the office with me and we were working on our next article together. We'd spent the whole morning revising the article, and the whole afternoon rewriting it.

Despite it being a few weeks since Emily and I had our conversation about adding to our family, we had made no plans yet regarding sperm donor clinics or anything. We were in no rush. Things hadn't settled down enough with the company yet since we still had quite a few interested investors that we were trying to choose between. Right now just wasn't the time to plan to add to our family. We were going to do it, that was for certain, but just not right this moment.

Effy had confided in me a few days ago that she and Katie had decided to wait about a year before they tried for another baby. One thing I knew was that I didn't want to wait that long.

"Okay, that's it," Effy said as she began to shut down her computer and gather her things. "It is 4:30 and I am done for the day. This article cannot be refined any more than what we've already done. I am exhausted and I just want to go home and relax. You coming, Naoms?"

I nodded and began to gather my own things. We locked up the studio and began our rather short walk home.

I'd noticed Effy had been rather edgy all day long and had been dying to ask her about it, but each time I tried she quickly shut me down. So I decided to ambush her now on our walk home.

"Effy, what's wrong?" I asked. Effy looked at me quizzically as we kept walking. "You've been acting weird all day long."

"It's just stuff between Katie and I," Effy replied as she fiddled with the strap on her handbag.

"Well what's wrong with you and Katie? You seem fine to me."

"We don't really talk much or spend a lot of time together anymore," Effy said as she looked up at the freshly blossoming trees. "Owen takes up a lot of our time. And when Owen isn't around, we're worrying about work or bills or something."

"Maybe you two just need a vacation alone, you know, rekindle the fire. Once everything with the magazine settles down you can take time off and Emily and I will look after Owen if you like," I replied. Effy looked down and fiddled with her hands. She murmured her agreement. "Things will be fine, Eff."

Effy smiled at me. But it wasn't a true smile.

"Of course they will be," She replied. She grabbed her house keys from her pocket and started to walk towards her house. "Thanks, Naoms. See you."

When I got home, I found the house empty, but a delicious smell filled the entire house. I walked into the kitchen to find freshly baked cookies cooling and a casserole in the oven. I loved it when Emily was home. She would always cook and clean and do the laundry and be such a mum. When I stayed at home, I felt like it was a miracle if I managed to cook dinner. I wasn't as good at being a stay at home mum like Emily was.

I went upstairs and changed into my at-home clothes, consisting of an old comfy sweater and yoga pants. I tied my hair up in a messy bun, getting every last bit of my brown locks out of my face. I went back downstairs to check on the casserole, and as I was walking down the stairs, Emily, Libby, and Ellie walked in the door. Ellie was carrying something in her arms.

"Hello!" I said as I hurried to get downstairs and scoop up my little baby girl and smother her in kisses. But before I could grab Ellie, Emily stopped me.

"Wait, wait! Ellie wants to show you what she found on our walk," Emily said as she put her hand in the middle of my stomach and stopped me from bending over to pick Ellie up. I pouted and Emily grabbed at my sweater and pulled me towards her, kissing me roughly. "Also, I missed you today. A lot."

"Mmm, does that mean I'm getting laid tonight?" I said with a smile before I kissed Emily again. Ellie pulled at my sweatpants, calling for my attention.

"Mumum, yook! Mumum, yook!" Ellie called. I reluctantly pulled away from Emily to devote my attention to our daughter.

"What is it, sweetpea?" I asked. Ellie smiled and proudly showed me what she'd been carrying.

"Ki-ka, mumum!" Ellie replied as she gently held a sleeping kitten in her tiny arms.

"Oh my god," I cooed as I stroked at the kitten and gave Emily a shocked look. Emily shrugged her shoulders at me.

"Ellie wants to keep her. We found her in a bush all by herself. I looked for the mother, but couldn't find her, and I couldn't find any other kittens either," Emily said. The kitten was purring softly in Ellie's arms. She was a brown tabby and ever so tiny.

"She looks so small!" I replied. Ellie stroked the kitten softly and looked up at me with hopeful eyes. "I think we're just going to have to keep her."

Emily smiled and kissed me on the cheek.

"See, Ellie, I told you mummy would want to keep the kitty cat," Emily said as she helped Ellie take off her running shoes and jacket. Ellie handed me the kitten to take care of while she took off her jacket.

"Let's set up a nice little bed for the kitty cat, okay, Ellie?" I said. Ellie nodded. Emily went off into the kitchen to take care of dinner, and Ellie and I took the kitten into the living room. We created a small space in the corner and put down a nice cozy blanket for the kitten to sleep in. Libby was paying absolutely no attention to us whatsoever and was currently in the kitchen with Emily. I only knew this because every few minutes, I would hear Emily complain about how Libby was getting in the way.

"Ki-ka syeepy, mumum," Ellie said. I nodded.

"Yes, we better let her sleep," I said. "Come on, let's get washed up for dinner."

I took Ellie into the kitchen and washed her hands at the sink while Emily set the table. I dried Ellie's hands and put her in her high chair while Emily made sure to cut Ellie's food into tiny pieces.

"Did you check the kitten to make sure it doesn't have fleas?" Emily asked as she cut up Ellie's food. I went to grab mine and Emily's plates from the counter and brought them over to the table.

"Yeah, I checked. She's fine," I replied. I sat down and started to eat right away. Eventually, Libby came to sit down on my feet and Emily finally finished cutting up Ellie's food. Ellie was a really good eater. We never had to feed her ourselves and she was always ready and willing to eat.

"I bought some blueberries today at the grocery store, I thought we could have them for dessert," Emily said. Ellie looked pleased when she heard the words 'blueberries' and 'dessert'.

"Sounds great, Em," I replied, trying to subtly gesture for Emily to look at Ellie, who was still looking quite excited about dessert. Emily looked over and smiled.

"How was work?"

"Not too bad, Effy and I managed to finish the article up. But Effy was saying that she and Katie haven't really been spending too much time together lately, so I offered for us to take care of Owen if they want to go on a vacation once things at the magazine die down a bit."

Emily nodded. "Yeah, Katie said something along those lines too. Well, Katie said they haven't had sex in months and that things between them have been really distant."

"That's horrible. What did you say?"

"I told her to buy a vibrator and to spice things up."

I shrugged while Ellie yawned. We frequently had conversations like this around Ellie, and figured it can't be doing too much harm since she barely pays any attention to us anyways.

"Someone looks tired!" Emily said while I started to clean up the dishes.

"Byoobewy," Ellie replied. Emile laughed and went into the fridge to grab the blueberries, which she then washed and put into a small bowl for Ellie.

Ellie was very content while we cleaned the kitchen, mostly because she had her blueberries. But after all the blueberries were gone, Ellie turned into one cranky baby.

I finished up loading the dishwasher while Emily tried to keep Ellie focused until I could take her for her bath. It was easier to get Ellie to fall asleep if she had a bath before bedtime, and since Emily had spent all day looking after the baby, I figured I should take over for tonight.

"Okay, come on, Ellie, bath time," I said as I walked over to Ellie and took her out of her high chair.

"Naoms, what should I feed the kitten?" Emily asked.

"I have absolutely no idea. Google it?" I replied. Emily nodded.

I carried Ellie upstairs and we went straight into the bathroom. Ellie started taking her socks off while I filled the tub and added some soap to make bubbles. I finished getting her undressed, since she still wasn't able to do that by herself, and helped her get into the tub. Ellie was obsessed with baths and bubbles and all the toys she would play with in the bath. She wasn't messy though, she hardly ever splashed enough to make a huge mess in the bathroom. Mostly, she would sit and mumble to herself and play with her toys and complain when I would shampoo her hair.

After about fifteen minutes, bath time was officially over. I grabbed Ellie's towel and pulled her out of the tub, wrapping her up in the towel like tight like a caterpillar. Ellie giggled while I carried her to her room and dried her off all at the same time. I helped her put her body lotion on and put her in her pajamas.

"Okay, time for night nights. Gonna go say night night to mama and Libby?" I asked. Ellie nodded and walked towards the stairs.

"And ki-ka," She replied. She sat down on her butt and went down the stairs that way, just like I taught her. I followed her downstairs and watched as she kissed Emily, Libby, and the new kitten goodnight.

I carried her back upstairs and tucked her into her crib. I played her favourite lullaby music and handed her her favourite stuffed animals.

"Goodnight, Ellie. Mummy loves you."

"Yuv you, mumum.," Ellie replied as she snuggled into her crib.

I made sure to turn on her nightlight before I turned the lights off in her room. I never closed her bedroom door though, Ellie liked to hear us moving around at night.

I went downstairs and snuggled up to Emily on the couch. Em was stroking Libby with one hand and was petting the kitten who was laying on her lap.

"Did you figure out what to feed the kitten?" I asked.

"Goat's milk apparently. I'll go out and buy some tomorrow. But we won't need it for long, because the kitten's already about 4 or 5 weeks old I think...or so Google tells me. But we definitely have to take her to the vet tomorrow," Emily responded as the kitten tried to catch Emily's finger with her paws.

"Mmm, sounds good," I said as I stretched out slightly on the couch. I went to grab the remote control, but Emily shot me a look. "What?"

"I thought we could just have a quiet night, maybe chat a little..." Emily trailed off as she continued to play with the kitten.

"Is there something on your mind, Em?"

Emily nodded, but remained quiet for a few more moments.

"I've just been thinking a lot about having another baby. I'm already so exhausted by Ellie, sometimes I wonder if we can even manage more than one baby."

I nodded, but definitely didn't feel the same way as Emily. Of course, the thought had crossed my mind, but I knew that we could cope with more than one baby. Especially with investors willing to come into the magazine, we should be able to have more time on our hands to spend with our families, and besides, we were our own bosses and could easily work out a schedule that would genuinely work for us.

"I'm a little freaked out by the idea too, but I know that any struggles we face, we can face together. It would definitely be worth the extra effort, don't you think?" I replied. Emily bit her lip and nodded.

"I really do want another baby, Naoms, I've not changed my mind. I was just stressed today," Emily replied. I nodded and kissed her on the cheek.

"I know, things haven't been easy lately at work and with Ellie getting bigger and getting into more and more things. I guess if Effy and Katie take that vacation and we end up taking care of Owen, we can see for sure if we could handle two babies," I replied. Emily nodded and smiled. "Do you think Katie and Eff with be okay?"

Emily shrugged.

"I hope they will be. I'm sure they can pull through as long as they work their asses off to get back to where they were before they had Owen," Emily said.

"Mmm. We should go on a vacation ourselves. Maybe back to Paris, we can bring Ellie with us."

I nodded and rested my head against the back of the couch. Exhaustion was starting to really hit me, and without the distraction of TV I felt more exhausted than I had in days.

"Em?"

"Yeah?"

"Can we go to bed now?"

"It's 9 o'clock."

"I know."

Emily laughed, but got up and even helped me off the couch.

"Old fart," she teased as we walked upstairs together.

"Yeah yeah, you love me," I replied.

"Yeah, I do."

Author's Note: Thanks for reading! Please leave a review if you like.