Something smells good…
Something smells very good…
I inhale deeply, refusing to wake up too fast, luxuriating in the warmth of the sun on my face as it completes its journey through the bedroom window. Exhaling, I roll onto my side and snuggle deeper into my pillow.
I have no desire to get out of bed, but reality is waiting, hovering just beyond my cocoon of warmth, tempting me with the decedent smell of chocolate chip cookies.
Reluctantly, I pry my eyes open and glance at the clock: 9:30 a.m.
I haven't slept this late since… God, it's probably been since Josh and I got married. I refuse to count the weekend Josh and I spent in Maryland a couple of weeks ago, because we only ever slept a few hours at a time before one or the other of us would wake up and we'd work on stress relief.
The relative silence I'm enjoying is one of the major benefits of our little getaway. With Josh making a concerted effort to get home at a reasonable hour again, David's behavior has improved tenfold. He's sleeping through the night again and Elijah is flirting with doing so. In fact, we're going to have to look at fitting a second crib into the nursery soon.
Or we're going to have to move to a bigger place.
Pushing the thought of buying a house out of my head, I succumb to getting out of bed. We've got guests coming around noon and I promised Josh I would decorate for the party if he baked.
After a weekend of bickering, we finally compromised on a generic, non-theme party. No Wiggles, no Spongebob Squarepants, no stupid purple dinosaur, just bright colors and lots of balloons.
That I have to blow up.
Dressed in Josh's Tweety Bird boxers and a tank top, I meander into the kitchen.
Josh is standing at the counter, cracking eggs into his Kitchen Aid mega-mixer. David is crawling around at his feet, eating Cheerios out of a plastic container (and directly off the floor). Elijah isn't in the kitchen, but I spy the baby monitor perched amidst the baking clutter.
"You can't use just any flour. Oh no. Flour is the staple ingredient of almost all baked goods and if it's not the right kind, then the entire recipe is going to suffer," Josh pontificates as he dumps his top secret ingredients into the mixing bowl. "You could use that all-purpose stuff, but if you want people to really notice your baking, then you have to use soft flour. Now, there are different types of soft flour for different purposes. You've got your pastry flour and your cake flour. You'll notice I used the pastry flour to make the cookie dough, but for these cupcakes, I'm using cake flour."
David actually stops playing with the Cheerios and looks up at his daddy as if the crap Josh is spewing is the most important information in the world.
"Now, Mommy will tell you it doesn't matter what kind of flour you use, Bear, but trust me, Mommy doesn't know what she's talking about. See, your mother can't bake." Josh flashes me a smirk before flipping the switch on the mixer.
"That is true, Baby Bear," I bend down and pick David up, planting a kiss on his breakfast-smudged forehead. He had toast with jam. "But your mother was smart enough to marry your daddy, who can bake." I set him back on the floor and give Daddy a peck on the lips. "Elijah's asleep?"
"He's in the living room. I set up the baby gym for him."
"When did you feed him?" If there's one absolute truth with Boo-Boo, it is feed him before you attempt any sort of non-baby related activity, be it baking or sex, and speaking of sex can I mention just how hot my husband is when he bakes?
Josh dollops batter into the muffin pan. "About an hour ago. Remind me again of who all is coming?"
"Freddy, CJ, Sam and Maria, Toby, who said he might bring Andi and Charlie and Zoey," I tick off everyone who confirmed they were coming. "Plus the President said he and the First Lady might stop by with Leo."
"So you think the cupcakes might not be enough? I should make a cake, too?" I probably shouldn't worry so much about feeding everyone, as I should be concerned about where they're all going to sit. Our apartment isn't that big and we're going to have to start looking at houses before long.
Donna shakes her head. "Nah. I think between the cookies and the cupcakes and the ice cream, we'll be okay."
"I'm gonna put the birthday boy in the tub, then. Can you pull the cookies out and put the cupcakes in when the timer goes off? The cupcakes need to bake for 18 minutes." David was very enthusiastic about breakfast this morning. So much so that he's essentially coated in now-dried strawberry jam and bits of toast.
"Got you covered, oh mighty Iron Chef," Donna jokes.
While the tub in the boys' bathroom is filling with warm water and Mr. Bubbles, I add all of the bathing necessities: wash-mitt, plastic tugboat, rubber duck, sponges shaped like farm animals and the 64 ounce Big Gulp cup.
The easiest way to bathe David is to get in the tub with him, otherwise you'll just end up wet and frustrated.
Once there's about four inches of water drawn, I plop him in the middle of his flotilla of toys and climb in behind him, my legs helping to keep him upright. The kid loves the water. He'd sit in the tub until he shrivels up like a prune if we let him.
"Wa! Da! Wa!" he squeals, slapping at the water with his duck while I unscrew the cap on the Baby Magic.
Donna found these great wash-mitts things at the drug store; you just load 'em up with baby wash and voila – clean baby.
Nothing with David and me is ever that simple, though.
We do have a system of our own we've worked out and it goes like this: David gets to play while I wash myself, and trust me, if anyone at the White House ever finds out I'm scrubbing down with Winnie the Pooh wash-mitts and Baby Magic liquid bath soap, I'll never live it down. Once I'm clean, it's David's turn. Then I rinse us both off with the big cup and bath time is over.
The entire process typically takes almost an hour, meaning it's only bath time with Daddy on the weekends. Donna's process, while much faster, is a lot less fun.
But I've got a reputation to cement as the cool parent. A reputation that's the reason David is currently crawling around the apartment naked, dripping wet and giggling like a maniac.
"JOSHUA!" Donna bellows in a voice eerily similar to the one I use at work when I'm pissed off at our assistants.
"He escaped!" I'm hot on David's trail, equally naked and wet.
There's a lot more giggling when I manage to scoop him up and toss him over my shoulder.
"Aaahhh!" he shrieks happily, oblivious to the look of annoyance on his mother's face.
"Come on, Bear. Let's get you dried off and dressed. Then we can decorate cupcakes."
I can't help laughing and shaking my head once Josh hauls David down the hallway to the nursery. True to his word, Josh reappears shortly with our son, now dried and dressed. He plops David in the middle of the floor and asks where the cupcakes are.
"They're on the cooling racks," I tell him. "I'm going to get Boo-Boo and myself ready."
The apartment is decorated and there's nothing on the floor that David can choke on, so I grab Elijah and take my turn. After feeding Elijah, I strap him in the musical swing in the corner of our bedroom and jump into the shower.
By the time I've got both of us ready, it's nearly noon and someone is knocking at the door.
Josh managed to clear the living room of the more space-consuming baby paraphernalia, but it's still going to be a tight squeeze if everyone shows up. During our long weekend in Maryland, we did discuss the impending need to move, but I'm not sure how serious Josh was about it since we were joking about our almost otherworldly fertility at the time. Maybe I can pin him down on it after the party or tomorrow once I've buttered him up with Father's Day stuff.
"Hey, Freddy!" Josh greets my brother and ushers him into the living room.
Freddy thrusts a haphazardly wrapped gift at Josh once the door is closed. We haven't seen much of Fred since he started Georgetown last fall; he's been busy immersing himself in the college life. He did surface briefly before Elijah was born to ask Josh's help in getting an internship at the State Department this summer.
"Hi, Fred," I smile at him.
"How's the internship?" Josh asks, waves Fred to the couch.
"Great. It's really great. I'm learning a lot." Fred's poker face is about as bad as Josh's, but Josh doesn't see him; he's distracted by David pulling himself up on the coffee table, and Freddy quickly changes the subject. "Is he walking yet?"
There's another knock at the door and I leave Josh to reply to Fred's question.
"Where's the birthday boy?" CJ looks a bit disappointed that I answered the door with Elijah in my arms.
CJ has become a lot more interested in the boys since our youngest was born. In fact, all of our friends have gotten a lot more into our family since they witnessed Elijah's birth. Granted, they aren't standing in line to babysit, but CJ, Sam and Toby are no longer treating our family like pariahs the way they were around Halloween.
Toby's interest I understand. Andrea Wyatt is due with twins at the end of July and he's still actively pursuing reconciliation with her. Josh and I are as close to a normal family as Toby's ever been around, so he's been taking classes at the Lyman School of Marriage and Family.
CJ and Sam, though? I'm not sure I get their change in attitude.
"With Daddy. Where else?" I laugh.
Before I can close the door behind CJ, Sam and Maria materialize. They've been together just over six months now, but Maria's still bitter about the way she was treated during the State of the Union reception. She'll tolerate CJ because CJ wasn't there and Toby because he's Sam's boss, but the only people she's been willing to socialize with have been Josh and me – if you're willing to define socialize as: Josh and I had them over for dinner a couple of times before Boo-Boo was born.
Sam heads immediately for the couch where Josh and Freddy are still talking and David is now trying to scale his father's legs. He's going to be walking before we know it.
"I'll hold him if you want," Maria offers, gesturing to Elijah.
"Oh, thank you," I sigh, handing him over. Josh folded up the bouncy seat and crammed it in a closet to make extra room, so there's no place to set Elijah down without fear of him getting trampled.
"He looks a lot like Josh." This is the first time she's seen the baby, who, like his older brother, bears a strong resemblance to his father.
"Don't tell Josh that. His ego is big enough," I confide in my young acquaintance with a laugh.
The next knock on the door is Toby, sans Andi. He barely acknowledges Maria or me or anyone else as he beelines it for Josh.
I can't overhear what Toby says to him, even across our small living room, but Josh immediately gets up, gives David to Freddy and leads Toby into the nursery.
"She said no." Toby says with no preamble.
"She who said no to what?" I ask for clarification.
"Andi. Andi said no." Toby starts pacing. "I took Andi to see the house and she said no."
"No to the house?" I'm surprised by that. The house is fantastic: three stories, six bedrooms, right across the street from Lincoln Park. It's even got a little garden and a garage and Toby got it for a hell of a steal.
"No to marrying me again!" Toby almost screeches.
"Toby," I look at him with as much seriousness as I can muster. "Andi's turned down your marriage proposal every day for the past eight months."
"Yes, well, she said no to the house, too," Toby spits out. My friend looks devastated. "She said she already bought a house and I should stop trying so hard, because she was never going to marry me again."
"Ouch." She didn't even let him down easy.
"Yeah."
We stare at each other awkwardly for a couple of minutes before Toby speaks again. "You don't want to buy a monstrosity of a house, do you?"
I open my mouth to flat out say hell no before common sense kicks in. Donna actually brought up moving while we were in Maryland and she has a point. There's no way we can live in this apartment forever. It's almost too small already and David isn't even walking yet.
"Actually, I might…"
"You're serious?" Toby stops short and spins around to gape at me.
I nod. "You tell me how I'm going to fit another crib in this room and then tell me I'm not serious. Let me talk it over with Donna. I'll let you know in a day or two. Come on, it's my son's first birthday. Let's eat cupcakes and ice cream and open presents."
While Josh and Toby are sequestered in the boys' room, Charlie and Zoey arrive, filling the living room to capacity. If the President and First Lady show up, someone's going to have to go home.
"We've got the loot. Can we send them all home now?" Josh whispers, reappearing at my elbow.
"You're going to have to feed them cupcakes first. What's up with Toby?"
"I'll explain later," he promises. "I'm going to get the cupcakes and ice cream ready."
Josh heads to the kitchen only to be replaced at my side by Fred.
"Can I talk to you for a minute?" my little brother asks.
"Sure. What's wrong?"
"Not here," Fred casts his eyes around the apartment before grabbing me by the elbow. "In there."
David's sitting on the floor playing with Sam's shoelaces and Maria still has Elijah. Okay, it's safe to duck out of the room for a minute.
"What's up?" I ask, closing the door to the master bedroom.
"I was wondering… I know Josh went to a lot of trouble to help me get my internship, but…" Fred frowns and pauses before continuing. "I thought it would be more than it is. All I'm doing is getting coffee and making copies. Every other intern is sitting in on meetings and is assigned to a foreign service officer. How pissed do you think Josh would be if I quit?"
"Are you being assertive with your coordinator about what you want to do?" One of the things I had to do when I was Josh's assistant was coordinate his interns. The ones who got to do things other than make copies were the pushy ones.
Freddy's expression reminds me of Josh when he's frustrated by Congress. "Yes! Everyday he tells me I can't do anything because I don't have a security clearance."
"He's telling you that you don't have a security clearance?" I'm dumbfounded because the FBI interviewed both Josh and me about Freddy as part of his interview process back in May. Mike Casper used it as an excuse to come over one night and see the boys.
"I told him I filled out the paperwork and filed it early, but he's saying the FBI hasn't brought it over yet."
This ought to be easy enough to get to the bottom of. I'll just call Mike on Monday morning and see what the deal is.
"Give it another week, Freddy. I'll make a couple of phone calls and get to the bottom of it," I reassure him. "Now, let's go eat cupcakes and sing Happy Birthday."
Charlie and Toby are helping me hand out plates when Donna and Fred emerge from our bedroom. I'm trying to keep this party moving before one of the boys suffers a meltdown; something that can happen in an instant.
Especially since David hasn't had a nap yet today.
Everyone gathers around the sofa and CJ takes the camera from Donna. Once I'm settled with David on my knee, Donna starts the singing of Happy Birthday.
None of our friends can carry a note except CJ, and she's so busy laughing and taking pictures she's not even trying to sing.
Donna lights the single candle on top of David's cupcake and holds it up so he can blow it out.
Or breathe on it until he exhausts all of the oxygen around the flame.
Once the candle's pulled out, Donna puts the cupcake in David's hands and he shoves the whole thing into his mouth, coating his face with chocolate frosting. CJ dutifully documents the mess so we can show the grandparents what they missed.
I'm unsurprised when he starts fussing when I try to wipe the frosting off his hands.
"Let's get down to the real business! Sam? Can you move the coffee table?" We'll be lucky to make it through the gift-opening without a temper tantrum.
Once Sam's done turning the coffee table into additional seating, I settle David and myself on the floor.
"This one's from Uncle Toby!" Donna announces, setting the gift bag in front of us.
Our friends' gift-giving skills have improved since Christmas. Almost everyone got him clothes or educational-type toys. For instance Sam and Marie got him this really neat Little Touch LeapPad with a puzzle and the President and First Lady got him a book club subscription, which they sent along with Zoey. All in all, they did very well.
Things get dicey when we run out of presents to distract David with and his crankiness takes center stage. It's a problem easily solved by Donna pointing out it is two hours past naptime and our guests take the hint. Before an actual tantrum could be launched, the apartment is cleared out and Donna and I are each getting a child ready for his respective nap.
"I know you're not really asleep."
Josh is stretched out on the sofa with his eyes shut. I had to feed Elijah before I put him down, so it took me a little longer than it did for him to get David to fall asleep.
"And just how do you know that?" He reaches up and grasps my chin gently, drawing my face toward him until he can kiss me.
"The kissing's a dead giveaway," I drawl when our lips finally part.
"Come here," Josh growl, grabbing me and pulling me down on top of him. Sex seems like a much better idea than talking about buying a house right now. Seeing as we haven't had sex in a week.
"You really want to do this on the couch?"
"Well, if you'd rather do it on the floor…" Josh slides us off the sofa onto the hardwood of the living room. The inelegant pile we land in sends me into spate of giggles, which he stifles by pulling my shirt up and licking my breasts.
"Joshua…" I moan. His touch feels so good after a long week of nothing but work and kids.
"Donnatella…" Josh breathes against the skin of my ribs.
"You know, there's a rug just over there."
Josh reaches over and drags the rug close enough so that when I roll us over, his back is on it.
"Feisty today, aren't we?" he smirks up at me.
"You're wearing entirely too many clothes," I observe, stealing one of Josh's favorite clichés.
"I can fix that." While he squirms his way out of his shirt, shorts and boxers, I shed my own shorts and underwear.
"This rug was a good idea," Josh says, licking and kissing his way around my stretch marks. Somehow, in the undressing, I ended up on the bottom again.
We got the rug from Josh's mother for Chanukah back in December and I doubt this was what she intended we use it for.
Our post-coital make-out session is much less frenzied then the sex it follows. There's kissing and cuddling and more kissing and touching that lasts until the baby monitor goes off.
Donna goes to get David while I look in on Elijah.
"Hey there, little man." I pick up my grandfather's namesake. He's not really awake and cuddles up against my bare chest, whimpering and sucking on his fingers.
"What would you think of your very own room?" I ask, rocking him back and forth. "Your Uncle Toby is looking to unload a really cool place. You could share with Bear for a while, if you want to. I mean, being all alone at night can be a pretty scary thing, even when you're a grown-up."
Boo-Boo just yawns and snuggles closer to me, melting my heart in a way that never gets old or feels girly.
"I love you, Elijah," I whisper, pressing my lips to the top of his head and then laying him back down in the bassinet.
Returning to the living room, I find David standing at the corner of the sofa, holding on to it with one hand and reaching the other toward me.
"Da! Ba! Ba! Da!"
"Hey!" I scoop David up and blow a raspberry on his cheek. "How was your nap?"
He regales me with the details in monosyllabic nonsense and wiggles until I set him down in the middle of the room and return to the sofa. Donna joins me as soon as she surrounds David with his favorite toys.
"What did Fred want to talk to you about?" I ask Donna once she's settled against my chest. It's going to be a lazy Saturday afternoon in the Lyman home; at the most we might go for a walk once Elijah wakes up.
"He hates his internship," she replies.
"Nothing new there," I say with a chuckle. I consider it my mission to drive my interns away from politics. Most of them are way too smart for their own good and why teach your best secrets to kids who are only going to wind up using what you teach them against you?
"His supervisor is telling him the FBI hasn't finished his background check yet."
"You want me to call Mike?" I yawn.
"Nah, I'll call him on Monday. No need to bring out the big gun so soon." Donna emphasizes the 'big gun' part by grinding herself against poor Spongebob.
"Be nice," I murmur, kissing her shoulder. "He's tired."
And so the rest of our Saturday goes: the four of us just being a family.
Sunday dawns hot, humid and rainy. None of which deters Josh from going out for his morning run. While he's out exercising, I get the boys up and survey the contents of the fridge. Today is Father's Day and I'm going to make breakfast, give Josh the tie I got him and then pour over the real estate section.
"I'm home!" Josh calls. Like the slamming door wasn't enough of an announcement.
I lean my head around the corner to look into the living room and he's drenched to the core.
"You're soaked!"
"I am, in fact, soaked," Josh agrees, squishing into the kitchen. At least he left his shoes by the door.
"Go drip in the bathroom," I order, laughing at his infectious grin – his face is lit up like a little boy who spent the morning playing in the mud in his church clothes. "Your son is going to crawl through that crap."
"What did he do?"
"Hmm?" I follow Josh into the bathroom, collecting the pieces of wet clothing he's shedding along the way.
"What did David do? You called him my son and you only do that when he's slobbered all over your good shoes or whatever."
"It's Father's Day, Josh. He gets to be your son all day today. Even when he's good," I concede, kissing a drop of water off his nose.
"It is Father's Day, isn't it? Did you get me a tie?" His level of excitement at the thought of getting a tie for Father's Day is disturbing.
"Do you want a tie?"
"Of course I want a tie! Ties are what all the cool dads get for Father's Day. Moms get those kitschy gifts, you know – like the plaster handprints and macaroni necklaces and that kind of stuff. Dads get ties or maybe cologne, but whichever it is, you get him the other for his birthday. And you got me cologne for my birthday."
Josh-logic.
"What?" Josh looks up from turning on the water. "Did you or did you not get your dad ties or cologne for Father's Day and your mother something hand-made in elementary school for Mother's Day?"
Oh God, he's right.
"Just shower. I'm cooking breakfast."
Josh smirks at me and then pulls the curtain closed. "You aren't making latkes are you?"
"Nope. I thought I'd try regular pancakes this time."
Regular pancakes turn out to be easier to cook than Elisa's secret latke recipe. Maple syrup, however, is significantly stickier than apple sauce and David is wearing a significant portion of what Josh tried to feed him. I document the mess using the digital camera my parents got us for Christmas. I'll email the pictures to all the grandparents tomorrow and keep copies for blackmail purposes when David's of dating age.
Once breakfast is cleaned up, I join my men in the living room. Josh is sitting on the floor playing with David while Elijah stares at them from his bouncy seat.
"Josh?" I call for his attention over David's giggling. They're building an architectural marvel out of the wooden alphabet blocks my sister sent for David's birthday.
Well, Josh is stacking blocks and every so often David knocks them over.
"Where's my tie?" He doesn't even look up and I pout at him until he does so and then reward him with the meticulously wrapped box.
It's not just any tie. It's a brown, tossed parquet, stain-resistant, silk tie from Brooks Brothers, to go with that khaki suit he wears on Thursdays that I'd like to burn.
"Cool!" Josh pulls the tie from the tissue-paper lined box. "This will go great with my tan suit! Thank you!"
All three of us get kisses in one of those moments that make me marvel at the devoted husband and father Josh has become over the past couple of years.
"What do you want to do today?" Donna asks, settling on floor with her back to the sofa and preparing to read the paper.
"I thought we could go look at a couple of open houses." I kind of want this to be a surprise, mostly because I love how she reacts when I get it right. While I was out one my run, I stopped down at the coffee shop and made some phone calls.
Donna looks startled at first, but quickly nods her head. "It's almost eleven, if we're going to go we should get ready. You get the boys ready and I'll get dressed."
It takes us almost an hour to get ready and out the door.
"I'll drive," I say, handing Donna the real estate section from the Post once David and Elijah are buckled into their car seats. "You see if there's anything in there you want to take a closer look at."
We're at the Capitol before Donna looks up from the paper. "There are a couple of row houses in Foggy Bottom that seem reasonable… Josh? Where are we going?"
"You remember the day that Boo-Boo was born?"
"Like I'm going to forget giving birth in front of half the staff?" Donna retorts.
"Before that, when I took David to Communications, Toby cornered me. Andi's dream house was about to go on the market and he wanted to make an offer. You know, get her the house as a testament to his love for her or whatever," I tell her.
"So you agreed to loan him the money."
"I did. And yesterday, he took her over there to give it to her and she turned him down."
"She turned down a house?" Donna sounds as shocked as I did.
"And his marriage proposal," I add.
"That's what he was talking to you about yesterday?"
"Yeah and then he kind of jokingly asked if I wanted to buy it and we had talked about how we were going to need to move soon, so I set this up."
By the time I finish my explanation, we're pulling into the driveway and parking behind Toby's battered old Dodge Dart.
"It's… Oh my God, Josh! It's… beautiful," Donna gasps, getting her first good look at the three-story brick home.
I'm stunned. This is the most gorgeous house I've ever seen.
I love the brick and the hunter green trim is a perfect accent. It's on a small lot surrounded by large trees and beautifully landscaped bushes.
"There's only a one-car garage, but it's better than we've got now," Josh says as he gets Elijah out of his car seat and I retrieve David.
Toby is waiting for us at the front door. "Please tell me you don't want me to play real estate agent."
"I think we can look ourselves. Did you bring the paperwork?" asks Josh.
With a nod, Toby opens the front door and ushers us into the entrance hall.
"Oh my God," I breathe. It's almost too much. It's something you'd see on one of those weekend home shows on TV, a showcase not meant to be subjected to a growing family with small children.
"There are four fireplaces," Toby clears his throat. For someone who didn't want to do the real estate thing, he's hovering pretty close.
The first fireplace is in the family room. Since the rest of the downstairs is occupied by a cavernous dining room and a huge kitchen with a breakfast nook, I presume the other three are upstairs.
"What do you think of the tin ceilings?" Josh points upwards.
"I think I'm overwhelmed."
We wander through the first floor, marveling at the view from the breakfast nook's bay window and the hardwood floors and the crown molding and antique light fixtures.
"The second floor is the master suite and two other bedrooms," Toby volunteers when we've wandered through every room on the main floor.
The master suite, which is the size of our apartment's living room, contains the second fireplace. The master bath has a claw-footed tub, a separate shower, a pedestal sink and is connected to the bedroom by a walk-through closet and a dressing area with a lighted vanity.
The two other bedrooms are smaller, but still bigger than what we have now.
"We could make one a nursery and the boys could share a bedroom until they're older," Josh suggests as we climb the stairs to the third floor.
Three bedrooms, slightly smaller than those on the second floor, take up two-thirds of the uppermost floor. The other third is what could be called a home office, but is in actuality a library. The walls are lined with built-in oak shelves and there's even a rolling ladder.
"Oh my God." I can't count how many times I've uttered that since we started our tour.
Josh is just standing in the middle of the room staring at the walls and turning in circles. He's as awed as I am. Even the boys are overwhelmed; neither of them has fussed since we got here.
Toby clears his throat. "There's a full, finished basement, too."
This place is far more impressive in person than it was in the photos Toby showed me after he bought it. I'm surprised neither Donna nor I has dropped a kid yet out of shock.
The basement is fully finished into three separate rooms: one that looks it like might have been used as a den or play area, a laundry area and the final room looks like it was a home gym.
In the backyard, there's a small patio overlooking the garden and a small pond. The rain has stopped, so we're standing on the deck while Toby waits in the house.
"Well, what do you think?" I ask Donna.
"It's…" she shakes her head. "I can't believe Andi turned it down."
"That wasn't quite what I meant."
"Can we afford it?" she asks.
Donna has never asked for too many details about my trust funds. She knows they exist and she knows roughly how much money is in them, but, outside of ensuring I set up college funds for the boys when they were born and that we have a nest egg for retirement, she's never indicated an interest in the specifics.
"Our accountant thinks if we put another $200,000 down, then we can make the mortgage payments on our salaries."
"What about the farm?"
"The land rental income covers most of the farm mortgage and what it doesn't is paid for by one of the funds," I give her the information she's asking for.
"I just… it's an awful lot of house. What do we need with six bedrooms and four fireplaces?" As impressed as she is, she's getting cold feet.
"We could get one of those fake bearskin rugs to put in front of the fireplace in our bedroom and you know… make enough babies to populate six bedrooms," I suggest, waggling my eyebrows.
"We are pretty fertile, aren't we?" Donna giggles.
"And we can always turn the basement into a couple more bedrooms if it comes to that." I probably shouldn't be joking about that; with our track record, it'll happen. Hell, with our track record, Donna's probably already pregnant.
"Are you sure you're okay with this, Josh? I mean we only talked about this once and we were both joking around…"
"We both know that apartment is too small. How are we going to get a second crib into the nursery? It just happened to dawn on us at the same time Toby needed to unload this place. What could be more perfect?"
Donna doesn't say anything at first. She moves David to her other hip and tucks a stray hair behind her ear and looks around the small backyard.
"We can look at other places if you want to…" I offer. I don't want to push her into this place if she doesn't want it.
"We're going to have to buy more baby gates and the pond is going to have to go," she finally says, her face lighting up with that special smile I get when I've gotten it right without any prompting.