AN: Sorry it took a while and I know that you might be used to a weekly chapter update, but I had a busy week. Anyway, here is the third chapter. Enjoy :)
It was a peaceful 82 degree sunny summer day in Hershey at the end of June for the Buckley siblings as a day like this made it the perfect day to go to the park that was only three blocks away from their house yet located on the exact street where Maddie's new friend, Heather Falchuck, lived. Yesterday, Maddie was begging her parents to take her and Evan to the park and have a family picnic together just like the ones they used to have when Daniel was still alive, but they couldn't go because they had to work and they didn't trust their children to be alone by themselves three blocks away.
In actuality, Maddie wanted to go to that particular park because it had a seesaw, which was her favorite piece of playground equipment. Back at the park they loved and visited back in Harrisburg, that seesaw was always the first thing she and Daniel played on whenever their parents would take them.
Thankfully, Heather's dad had the day off from work, so he invited Maddie and Evan over so they could play at the park with his children. In fact, Margaret and Phillip surprisingly said that it was okay with them given that they trusted Mr. Falchuck and were reassured that their children were going to be in the presence of another adult.
There hasn't been any incident of Maddie being left home alone in the middle of the night by surprise ever since that very night in January, but she was still mad at her parents for that. Grandma Mary and Grandpa George gave them a good talking to when Maddie cried about it to them. Now, Phillip and Margaret only left their children home alone during daylight or for short hours. However, when it came to Daniel, they still insisted on Maddie keeping it a secret from Evan and even her friends, classmates, and teachers. They were fearful of their daughter one day revealing the truth to Evan.
Because of Heather, Maddie was finally liking Hershey and her new school and was finally adapting to a new life (but she would never forget about Daniel and she hoped that her parents would one day change their minds and allow her to share about him with Evan). The two friends met on Maddie's first day at her new school and Heather was friends with that mean girl, Jessica. However, on the third week of school, Heather decided to make friends with Maddie, offering her to play basketball with her at recess, because she was tired of getting pushed around by Jessica the Jerk.
"I don't like Jessica anymore. She's mean," vented Heather. "She's too bossy and she always has to be the one to win the game. She's also such a tattletale."
Heather and Maddie were hoping to be in the same fourth grade class when school started in the fall, and they were hoping to be in Ms. Barrie's class because the class before them said that she was very nice and understanding. Heather also had a younger brother, Kyle, who was just a year older than Evan. Sometimes whenever Heather and Maddie came to each other's houses, Kyle and Evan would tag along and have playdates together.
Enjoying her time at the park with her friend, Maddie smiled as she helped a stumbling Evan (who had just learned to walk and had only been one for two weeks) up the stairs of the playground structure at the park. Over and over again, he wanted to go down the slide with her. Kyle, on the other hand, wanted to be pushed on the swings by Heather. So, they were playing separately right now.
Mr. Falchuck was sitting on the park bench, supervising the four children.
Every time Evan and Maddie got to the bottom of the slide together, Evan would get bubbly and jumpy and point to the slide, which was his way of saying, "Again! Again! Again!"
"Alright, let's go down the slide!" Maddie exclaimed with excitement as she settled Evan into her lap and held onto him. No matter how exhausting, tiring, and boring this was getting, if this made Evan happy, then she was happy to do it despite rather being on the seesaw right now.
"Down!" Evan repeated, saying one of the few words he knew.
Maddie then let physics take over as she let herself and her brother glide down the slide. "Whee!" She yelled with excitement while Evan giggled with enjoyment and satisfaction. "Yay! Woo-hoo!"
This time, by the time they got to the bottom of the slide and got up, Evan immediately walked away from it instead of begging to go down again.
"Are you done with the slide, Evan?" Maddie asked.
Without saying a word, he just continued to toddle and stumble (Maddie holding his hand) his way over to the merry-go-round, which was also where Kyle and Heather were heading.
"You want to go on the merry-go-round?" Maddie guessed.
Evan just continued to point to the merry-go-round, which definitely meant that he wanted to go on it...and Kyle looked like he really wanted to go on it as well because he was practically pulling and yanking Heather towards it like an uncooperative dog on a leash. He could be heard chanting, "Spin me, Heather! Spin me!"
"He got tired of the swings," she explained as she carefully lifted up her little brother onto the merry-go-round. "I guess he wants to be spun around on the merry-go-round."
"I think Evan wants to go on it, too," added Maddie, lifting up Evan and placing him on the plate. He clapped his hands happily once he got settled.
"Okay, girls. Be careful with them," called out Mr. Falchuck with a warning, fearful of how Phillip and Margaret would react if Evan got badly hurt. From what he observed, they were pretty protective of Evan and would practically helicopter over him whenever he fell down. "Don't spin them around too fast and make sure they're holding onto the handrails and sitting down the whole time."
"Okay, Dad. We will," Heather promised, excited as she got ready with Maddie to spin their brothers around, placing their hands on the handles and looking at each other with determination.
"Alright, Maddie, are you ready?" Heather beamed, giddily smiling at her friend and their little brothers.
"Ready!" Maddie declared, making a funny face at Evan, to which he roughly giggled in return. "Alright guys, sit down and hold on tight!"
The girls slowly pushed the merry-go-rounds to their lefts, allowing the assistance of the centripetal and centrifugal forces to join in the twirly fun. The toddlers laughed, cheered, and screamed with joy as they were spun around in a circle, holding on tight and watching the playground equipment, trees, houses, and older sisters zoom by fast in a whim.
Eventually at one point, little Evan decided to get up, stand up, and let go of the rails...to which that led to him flying off the fun piece of playground equipment flat onto his body.
Evan loudly cried as he lay on his belly.
Maddie and Heather immediately stopped rotating the merry-go-round and then rushed over to Evan (Kyle was just sitting there watching).
"Are you okay, Evan?" Maddie asked, picking him up and cradling him as he sobbed. Maddie checked all over him from head to toe for boo-boos, and the only thing she could find was a minor scrape on his arm.
Mr. Falchuck came rushing over in a hurry, looking completely petrified. "Is he okay? What happened?"
"We weren't spinning too hard!" Heather defended, rubbing Evan's back. "He just stood up and let go!"
Mr. Falchuck looked at and examined Evan himself and saw that the little boy was unharmed. "Evan, you're okay," he soothed as he ruffled his hair. "This is why I asked you need to hold onto the rails, so you don't fall off." He knew that trying to reason and rationalize with a baby wasn't good enough, so instead he told the girls that maybe Evan was too much of a daredevil for things like the merry-go-round and seesaw right now. He suggested that they let Kyle and Evan only play on the swings and slides for now.
Evan immediately felt better and then just played with Maddie, Kyle, and Heather on the swings and slides for the rest of the time at the park until he and Kyle got tired around 1:00 pm, which signaled that it was afternoon nap time for the little tikes.
Once Mr. Falchuck brought his children plus the Buckley kids back into his home, he put the boys down for their nap. Kyle was put in his toddler crib with Spiderman bedding while Evan was borrowing Kyle's old travel crib to sleep in.
While the toddlers were asleep, Maddie and Heather hung out in the basement and played Hungry Hungry Hippos and also Sonic the Hedgehog. Mr. Falchuck was sitting at the dining room table eating a turkey sandwich while reading the newspaper so he could have some time to himself.
When the boys woke up from their nap, they ate a delicious snack of carrots, peanut butter sandwiches, and apple juice. After they got hyped up and energized by their snack, they decided to play with blocks and legos with their older sisters.
While Maddie and Heather usually would have been annoyed and irritated by their brothers coming in to mess with their stuff or destroy the block towers they were building, this was an exception because their brothers were the ones who wanted to play with the blocks and then knock them down...which gave Maddie an idea when she saw a gorilla costume and a dinosaur costume in Kyle's closet.
"I think we should build a city and then dress them up in those dinosaur and gorilla costumes," she suggested. "We can pretend that they're King Kong and Godzilla."
"Oh, my gosh! That sounds fun!" Heather agreed, getting up to retrieve the costumes from Kyle's closet.
In order for them to put the city together with the legos, the blocks, the people figurines, toy cars, and stuffed animals, they had Mr. Falchuck keep an eye on the toddlers and play with them so they wouldn't destroy the city before it was even built.
After 20 minutes, all the toys were set up for destruction and then Heather and Maddie called out to Mr. Falchuck that they were ready. He then brought in the boys in the costumes; Kyle in the dinosaur costume and Evan in the gorilla costume.
As soon as Evan and Kyle saw the toy city, they immediately started destroying it while Maddie and Heather giggled and awed abd Mr. Falchuck pulled out the video camera and started recording, finding the sight of the toddlers destroying the block and lego-modeled city and pretending to eat the toy people and the toy vehicles adorable.
AN: I hope you all enjoyed this chapter, please review :)