CHRISTMAS PROMISES
"Mummy, Daddy. Come on, get up."
Two small forms jumped onto the bed where their parents were trying to sleep and started pulling the covers off. "Wake up, wake up." They chanted excitedly.
Their father groaned, opened one eye and looked at the clock. He groaned again and tried to pull the covers back over his head so he could go back to sleep. It didn't work though; as soon as he pulled the blankets up they were pulled back down again.
In the end he gave up and turned over to find his wife laying there laughing at the antics of their five year old twins and encouraging them in their efforts to wake him up.
"Do you have to encourage them?" he asked irritably.
"Absolutely." She laughed.
"Daddy's awake, Mummy. Can we get up now?" Matthew asked.
She had to smile; he looked so much like his father. When he looked at her out of those big soulful eyes she couldn't deny him anything.
"You're already up." She said, laughing.
"No we're not," Bethany answered. "We're in bed with you and Daddy." She was so serious, so beyond her years in many ways.
"That's true," their father said. "The question is, why are you in bed with us at four o'clock in the morning?"
"It's Christmas!" they yelled at the same time.
"I know it is, but it's also much too early to be waking up the whole house so you can go downstairs and open presents."
"We didn't wake up the whole house. We were very quiet getting up. Weren't we?" Matthew kept nudging his sister until she nodded her head in agreement.
"Well, that was very thoughtful of you not to wake up your uncle and aunts, but it's still too early to get up." He said firmly. "Now, I want you to go back to your rooms for t least three hours and let your poor mother and I get some much needed sleep." He noticed the pleading look on his daughters face. "Don't try that look on me, young lady. It's exactly the same one your mother gives me when she's trying to get her own way and it doesn't work for her either."
The children sighed and slid off the bed. As they left the room, they could be heard having a whispered argument about who's fault it was that they were being sent back to bed.
Their parents watched them go and cuddled up together to go back to sleep.
"Syd?" Nigel asked. "Explain to me again why you felt it necessary to have twins."
"Hey!" she said indignantly. "Don't blame me. You're the one who waited until I was five months pregnant before deciding to tell me that there have been three set of twins in your family."
"That's not my fault. I'd only just found out. Besides, at least they're not both like you. I think I'd be having a constant heart attack with three of you in the house. It's bad enough as it is with you and Matthew."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Syd, don't get mad. You know I love you and Matthew, I just wish sometimes that life could be a little less hectic, that's all."
Sydney was calming down a bit. "Oh," she said. "So, are you saying that if we had another child, you would want it to be more like you and Bethany?"
"Not necessarily. I'd just want him to be himself. And if that means me having to rescue him from the next-door neighbour's tree every other day or if he drags you into the local bookshop every time you walk past, I don't care. As long as he's happy. Just do me one favour?"
"What?"
"If you get pregnant again, tell me so I can get a full cardiac check-up." He was laughing as she attacked him with a pillow, which turned into a huge pillow fight, hick turned into something else entirely.
"Nigel," Syd whispered, as they were just drifting off to sleep again.
"Hmm?"
"Better make that appointment for a full check-up," she said with a smile.
The last thing she saw before she fell asleep was the astonished, yet delighted, look on Nigel's face.