30-year-old Jesse St. James and his 2-year-old daughter, Olive, were on their way back from having lunch with Jesse's sister Annie for her birthday. Jesse's wife, Rachel was babysitting Maya, the 3-year-old baby she'd had via surrogacy and egg donation for her friends Kurt and Blaine.
Originally, Rachel had hoped Olive would be home while Maya was over, as she, Jesse, Kurt, and Blaine were trying to find opportunities for Olive and Maya to spend time together, in the hopes that the girls would finally get along. However, upon hearing that her half-sister would be coming over, Olive had thrown a fit and Jesse insisted he take Olive to lunch so Rachel could have some peaceful one-on-one time with Maya.
"Aunt Annie liked your card," Jesse told Olive. He was letting her walk by herself which might have been a mistake because she was taking forever.
"I maked it all by myself!" Olive said proudly.
"You sure did, honey," Jesse laughed. Rachel had written "Happy Birthday, Aunt Annie!" And Olive had added the stickers and crayon drawings. But it was cute how proud she was of her contribution.
"Look! It's a kitty!" Olive pointed to a dog off in the distance.
"That's a puppy," Jesse chuckled again. His parents, who had been pretty absent grandparents, did occasionally send gifts once in a blue moon for Olive, and maybe it was time to put those animal flash cards to good use.
"I like kitties," Olive said.
"I know," Jesse replied. Olive had a stuffed kitty named Kitty and another stuffed kitty named Mrs. Kitty. Rachel and Jesse had tried suggesting original names - Rachel had cracked up when Jesse suggested "Meowlissa," but Olive had taken offense, and picked up Kitty, Mrs. Kitty, and headed over to another part of the room and wouldn't talk to her father until he apologized to Kitty and Mrs. Kitty and told them they had nice names.
"Do you like kitties, Daddy?" Olive asked.
Truthfully, Jesse wasn't much of an animal person but he just smiled and said, "yes, I do."
"Good!" Olive said. Then, she noticed a puddle and her eyes lit up.
Before Jesse could stop her, Olive ran over to the puddle and jumped in it.
"Hey, Oli, step out of the puddle please - you aren't wearing your rain boots," Jesse said.
Olive frowned. "That's not fair!"
Jesse sighed. "Neither was the price of those shoes your mother felt a toddler needed for some reason."
The pair walked for a while longer and Olive started lollygagging again.
"Olive, hurry up, please!" Jesse said impatiently.
Olive froze.
"Well, Jesse, I'm moving as fast as I can!" Olive said.
Jesse stopped.
"What did you just call me?" He asked. He wasn't angry, he was definitely amused, but also caught off-guard for sure.
"Jesse," Olive replied.
"You call me Daddy," Jesse said.
"People call you Jesse," Olive pointed out. Literally everybody else got to call him that - why couldn't she?
"But you're my daughter - you get to call me Daddy!" Jesse said. Secretly, he was rather entertained, and knew this was a normal part of toddler development, and she had actually been directly quoting Rachel from the other day when the family had been on their way to see friends. Rachel had been taking forever to do her makeup in the bathroom and Jesse had impatiently knocked on the door and told her they needed to leave.
"Well, Jesse, I'm moving as fast as I can!" Rachel had replied tensely. Olive even had her mother's tone of voice down pat. Maybe this meant she would be an actor like her parents?
All that being said, hearing his sweet, innocent, little girl call him by his first name had him feeling…some kind of way.
"Okay," Olive sighed.
"Want me to carry you?" Jesse offered.
Olive smiled and held her arms up.
Jesse and Olive arrived home and were about to enter through the garage door when Rachel opened it and gasped in surprise. Blaine and Kurt had picked up Maya fifteen minutes earlier, and Rachel, not anticipating her husband and daughter home quite yet, had planned on going for a walk.
"Oh! You surprised me!" Rachel exclaimed. "I wasn't expecting you home so soon!"
Before Jesse could say anything, Olive piped up.
"Sorry about that, Rachel."
