Hello! Happy 50th chapter! This will be probably the last time I talk about numbers, because I don't want to bore you all, but I just thought it was funny. I was looking at the graph of February readers... and on February 20th, my numbers tanked. Usually it looks like a wave, sometime higher, sometimes lower depending on when I posted... but this? It was pretty hilarious. Also in my many years of fic writing, I have never seen it sharply drop like that before. I place the blame on one episode. It flatlined for three days after the DB shenanigans before it started to come back up. It was like everyone was in shock and needed some time to recover. I'm glad you're back. ITY visitors are back to normal. Oh, and I still can't believe how short American Mat Leave is! And in case anyone is wondering... I have not heard from the RCMP. Here we go...
Blair tried, she really did try to listen to Serena about her issues with Dan, and she was only taking a longer than usual time to blink when...
"BLAIR!"
Blair head fell out of the hand it had been resting on and she nearly face planted into her salad.
"What?" She asked as she straightened and tried to appear normal. She'd barely slept last night and had thought about canceling lunch with her best friend, but only didn't because she felt like if she didn't get away from her tiny, little commandant she'd trade her for a iPod and a coupon for a free burger at TGIFridays.
Serena raised a brow. "What was the last thing I said?"
"Humphrey thinks the G-Spot is a myth." Blair quipped.
Serena's face fell. "That wasn't what I said... but it's sadly true." Serena heaved a sigh and set her own problems aside for a moment. "Okay, B, spill."
Blair paused for a moment as she tried to come up with how to turn the phrase. "My daughter is a monster."
Serena laughed.
"Shut up." Blair bit out. Her best friend froze.
"I'm sorry." Blair moaned before she sat up straighter and snapped harder. "No, no I'm not. You have one of those magical babies that you put in a crib, she shuts her eyes, and goes to sleep for ten hours. I have a monster."
"Well... they say the apple doesn't fall far..."
Blair's eyes narrowed. "True. Which means... Chloe's going to turn into a moping want-to-be writer with bad hair and misplaced moral superiority complex."
Serena's face fell. "I don't want to play this game anymore..."
"I thought so." Blair eyed her a moment before moving on. "Lenore... never sleeps more than 45minutes at a time if we try to put her down alone in her own room. Admittedly it may be our own faults given that for the first month she was home... we all slept in her room-"
"You think?"
"Anyways... She won't sleep alone. The only good news is that she seems to make it at least a few hours at a time if one of us is there, so that leaves the other three to actually get a little thing called sleep themselves. The bad news is that last night was not my turn for sleep, which is coupled with the fact that I married the stubbornest man on the planet!"
"You don't say?"
"He insists that we still share a bed because he can't sleep without me near. Blah, blah, blah. Whatever. All it means is that every other night we're both in her room. We're both getting woken up by her screams. And we're both not sleeping... or doing anything else there... because, even we have limits apparently."
"Why don't you guys get a night nurse?"
"Thank you, first time mom, why didn't we think of that on our third child?" Blair voice was like acid, but it just rolled of Serena's back, so Blair continued. "We tried that. They keep quitting. None of them have lasted more than two nights."
"Maybe she'll mellow with age?"
"I'm going to die... but at least then I'll get some rest."
Chuck sat at his desk in his office, and looked through some papers, but he would barely get past a whole sentence before Lenore demanded his attention once again. She sat, plunked on his desk by her mother who had dropped her off when yet another nanny had quit and Blair had a spa appointment.
As she sat, her legs in front of her, and her back straight, Lenore grabbed everything in her reach and shoved it into her mouth. Chuck snatched pen after slobber covered pen from her lips, until he rifled through the diaper bag, found her pacifier and popped it into her mouth. He smirked at the surprise that rounded her eyes.
Sucking away for several moments, Chuck decided to take the opportunity to make a call to one of the regional heads of Bass Industries in the UK. It seemed as if she had been waiting till the call had gone through, because the second Chuck got a "Hello" from London, Lenore's face began to twitch, her lips parting on a breath and shooting the soosie out of her mouth so it dropped wetly onto a multi-million dollar contract set near her on the desk. Chuck quickly tried to shove it back in, but Lenore was having none of it. As Chuck half listened to the man on the other end of the line, her face scrunched up and she started making fussy sounds. Chuck switches the call to speaker and lifted a now screaming Lenore to his shoulder, starting to jostle her and pat her back. She's having none of it, straightening like a plank, lurching backwards and nearly out of his arms. Chuck swears loudly as he pulls her closer, holding her secure as he searches for a bottle with his free hand.
"Is everything alright, Mr. Bass?"
"Fine..." Chuck bit out as he located the bottle in the warmer, pulled it out and leaned back in his chair. He shifted Lenore into the cradle of his arm, popped off the cap and offered her the nipple with the hope that her latching on would bring peace. She turned her head away. He cursed again.
"Sir, I could call you back..."
"No." Chuck said distractedly as he and his daughter engaged in a left and right head tossing bottle evasion match that Lenore was most definitely winning. Giving up he set the bottle aside and tried to settle her against his shoulder again, but flinched as her screams his a piercing note directly into his ear. He tried to ask the other man a question but then one of Lenore's small hands found a lock of his hair and yanked. His daughter apparently had super strength because he was sure she'd pulled it out by the root. He moved his head away from her grasp and turned her so she faced away from him as he tried to see where her pacifier was, but in the mean time he offered her the tip of his finger that had worked in the past. Her two perfect little teeth shut sharply into his finger. Chuck screamed and jerked his hand away.
"I'll have to call you back!" He snarled and cut the line as the other man murmured a "that's what I said..."
It was as if all she had wanted was her father's undivided attention, because when the call ended so did her screams. Chuck held her with both hands under her arms and placed her bottom on his desk with her legs dangling between them. Father and daughter looked at each other for long moments, her hiccuping now and then. Harry had always taken more after Blair, and Bart had always leaned more Chuck... except for the parts that Chuck kept insisting to Blair were uniquely Bart, at which point Blair would point out all the things Chuck did that were fastidious or just down right weird in his own right. Whatever. The boys were their boys, a little bit of good and bad from both of their parents. And this daughter? Chuck was beginning to suspect she had taken more than her fair share from her parent's commanding sides.
At seven months old she still had nary a hair on her head, but he never noticed. At this moment he was looking into his own eyes, amber eyes that were set in the shape of her mother's. He sighed and used his thumbs to softly sweep the tears from her round cheeks.
"What's say we call it a day... and tell Mommy to meet us in the park?" That seemed to earn him a smile that could win her anything... until he tried to fasten her into the stroller, and then she was screaming bloody murder again.
A month later an eight month old Lenore sits at her high chair as the family breakfasts together. Blair is reading the paper and Chuck is trying to coax their daughter into eating her rice cereal and banana puree. Her lips stay locked. Harry sits at the table, describing in detail exactly how his 16th birthday was better than anyone else's. Chuck and Blair's eyes meet briefly and they share a smile. It had been a show stopper. The Bass private jet had flown 20 of Harry's closest friends to no less than six top secret destinations around the globe, and at each one there had been a party better than the last or some adventure Harry had never taken. Blair had only blocked Harry's plan of talking the pilot into letting him have a run at the controls, but even that hadn't dampened the week long extravaganza. Chuck had sent checks to many hotels, bars and an animal sanctuary, to cover the cost of all the damages.
Lenore opened her mouth as if ready to take a bite, which made her father smile proudly that his efforts were paying off... only to have her lips slam shut the moment the spoon approached them. Chuck would swear she was snickering at him and he tossed the spoon down on the tray. "Fine. Starve."
With a roll of her eyes Blair set the paper aside and picked up the spoon, filled it and held it aloft near her daughter's mouth. "Open." She said firmly to Lenore. Bow lips instantly parted for the mush and every spoonful after that.
All and all it was a normal morning. Queue Bart.
The eleven year old cleared his throat, garnering his family's attention. Four sets of eyes locked on him and it was as if they all held their breath in anticipation.
"I've decided to stop cutting my hair." He declared almost royally.
"Oh, for God sakes!" Blair breathed in exasperation.
Chuck hid his smirk.
Harry leaned back, threw one arm over the back of his chair and did nothing to hide his own mirth. "This is going to be good..."
Several weeks later.
"She's gonna do it." Harry said as he sat on the carpet with his legs stretched out in front of him.
Bart sat a couple of feet away from Harry, keeping himself within arms reach of a ten month old Lenore who had pulled herself up to stand by the couch, her small hands resting on the cushion. Her eyes were wide and it was like you could see her want to step away from the couch, see her want to move to the coffee table. However she'd been wearing that look for the last week whenever she pulled herself up on something, but as yet she'd yet to take a step.
Bart met Harry's eyes and shook his head.
"Fine. Put your money where your mouth is, so to speak..."
Bart raise a brow.
"If I can get her to take a step... you have to spend a half hour on Skype with Violet and at the end of the half hour you have to say, 'It's been lovely speaking with you', like you mean it."
Bart lip curled in disgust for a moment before raising his brows.
"What do you get?" Harry paused and the sighed. "I'll take you to that Ice Hotel in Quebec."
They shook on it then and there.
Harry popped up on his knees and knelt on the other side of the coffee table. He gave a suspicious looking Lenore a giant smile. "Lenore..." He took out his iPhone and held it out to her. Her eyes lit up. Lenore loved nothing more than a cell phone, actually she loved nothing more than shoving one into her mouth, but regardless a cell was the flame to her moth. Bart scowled. Harry smiled.
"Come on, Lenore..." He encouraged, shaking the phone a little.
With wide eyes Lenore carefully turned to face the right direction, reached her hands out, leaned forward and promptly fell over. Right into the coffee table.
Both boys shot to their feet. The room was deadly quiet. Lenore was on her hands and knees, and finally lifted her head. She took a great breath and started to scream. It was than that the cut in her lip, that she'd gotten from bumping into the table, really opened up and blood began to pour down her face.
Neither boy had any idea how much a lip could bleed.
Bart stumbled away to throw up in a potted plant. The colour had washed from Harry's face, but he scooped Lenore up, pulling the tie from his neck, and pressed it to her mouth as he hurried to the kitchen. Not knowing exactly what he was doing, he somehow managed to stop the blood, ice her lip, and sooth not only his rightfully angry little sister but also his still heaving and distraught little brother.
A half hour later they were back in almost the same spots they'd been before the wager. Except for the fact that Lenore's lower lip was swollen three times it's normal size.
"Maybe they won't notice?" Harry mused. Bart nodded, liking that idea.
The pitch in which their mother yelled their names when she saw her youngest's face told them otherwise.
A few weeks later.
Things were getting intense for the Bass men. It had become clear that Lenore would start talking soon given that her babbling was becoming more formed. Each Bass male actively tried to ensure that their name was the first real word that would come from Lenore Bass' lips.
Harry had started to only refer to himself in the third person when around her. Bart contracted Sarah McLachlan to sing his name into a lullaby that he played in her nursery every night he crashed in it. Chuck paid everyone on the staff to hold up his picture, while he was at work, point to it and say "Dada".
It was all moot. One morning as Blair woke up in the Queen in the nursery, and she was greeted by Lenore standing up in her crib. Pulling herself up from under her husband's waking arm, she looked over and smiled at her wide awake baby. Her daughter's eyes lit up seeing her mother's no longer sleeping face, and Lenore held out her hands and half bellowed her first word.
"Mama!"
TahDAH! Okay, so a super fluffy chapter, but I've got some drama planned for the next chapter or so. I was just watching some show and they were talking about a family vacation that would make memories that no one would ever forget. I've been thinking about that a lot lately... and it's not the big planned moments that really matter to me. All my favourite memories are small ones... Like taking my best friend's daughter to the park in the middle of winter and it just being the three of us on the snowy freezing playground. It's sitting on the couch and doing nothing but doing it together. It's the way my mom can double over laughing when I've done something that I think is perfectly normal, but that she clearly thinks is hilarious. Synchronized Swinging Ballet will catch on and my best friend and I will be there when it does. Also, so when I write a chapter that seems just fluffy... I kind of find that to be the meat of the family. It's the daily stuff that you love and that you miss. And on that rather maudlin note I'll ask if I've mentioned that I'm probably moving back to Toronto?
