April 3rd 2022
Chapter 93
Our Growth Into One
One year ago… One year ago, at this very moment, they were getting ready to leave the house. One year ago, at this very moment, with a belly near to bursting, Maya had looked on to her sleeping daughter, wondering what the day would bring her and what it might take from her. Even now, those feelings didn't feel any less valid, though they knew of course that everything had gone off very well in the end, that they'd come out on the other side with three small but thriving baby girls. One year ago…
Neither Maya nor Lucas could say which of them woke up first that morning. They usually sort of knew when the other was awake next to them, but this time they were both just so caught up in their own heads, in memories of that day, and thoughts of the now whole year that had happened between then and now… It wasn't until they both happened to sort of turn their heads at the same time, and noticed that the other's eyes were open, that they stopped and smiled at one another. They could see they were both thinking about the same thing, and they acknowledged it by drawing nearer to one another. Maya wrapped her arms around Lucas, and he wrapped his arms around her.
"You know, there was a time when we weren't parents?" she mumbled, and he chuckled at the sort of quiet fascination in her tone.
"That's what I heard," he responded, and she made a noise of disbelief. Impossible. He just kissed the top of her head. They had evolved, like caterpillars becoming butterflies. There was no going back. "Sounds like the morning show is starting," he pointed out after a minute, and Maya smiled. She'd heard it, too, coming from the baby monitor.
They called it the morning show because, in their heads, that was what they had equated it to. Just about every morning now, they would come to find the triplets sat up in their respective cribs, facing in whatever direction would allow them to see their sisters, and they'd be babbling at one another. There wasn't much in the way of understandable words, but you wouldn't know it by the way they were going on, holding their exchange. And it just reminded their mother and father of some morning show, with a panel sitting around a table, discussing the latest news.
That was exactly what they found as they went across the hall into the nursery. Did Kacey, Remy, or Lucy know that it was their birthday today, that they were a year old? Probably not. It was just any other morning, with their sisters, exchanging whatever was on their minds. Maybe they had been dreaming, maybe they were sharing their dreams… They would like to think that was so. Either way, the chatter turned into happy squeals and a chorus of 'Dada!' and 'Mama!' They could all say it now, and they did, like they had finally grasped that if they said the words their parents would acknowledge them and do something for them, and that was both fascinating and helpful. Lucy had been first with the 'Mama' just as she'd been with 'Dada,' shortly after the return from their trip, much to Maya's delight. As for the twins, like the vast majority of their milestones, they'd latched on to those first words on the same days. In their case, they had said Mama first, then Dada two days later.
And the growth just kept on happening. Kacey and Remy would just stand up on their feet a lot of the time now. They were getting the hang of walking with some support, though it was still a work in progress. On their own, they would try and move forward, and they might manage a step or two before dropping down. They would not let this deter them in any way, simply carrying along with a practiced crawl, maybe pulling themselves back up along the way. They'd gotten to the point of doing so by holding on to one another, which never ceased to amuse their parents, especially when they tried and did so for their triplet. By now, Lucy may not have been crawling outright, but she found other ways to get herself from point A to point B. Her favored way involved dragging herself around, scooting along… She was still struggling with the pulling herself up part, though when she had her sisters there to help her, she'd jump at the chance. They'd all end up there, the three of them, in a bit of a baby group hug, and there'd be nothing sweeter.
"We did promise we'd wait until she was here before we took them down," Maya remembered, looking to Lucas as she pointed off to down the hall, in the general direction of their older daughter's green room. Lucas held up a hand, as though to say, 'we did promise that, yes, I'll go get her.'
He soon returned, with a Marianne who looked as though she'd been wiling away the minutes, unsure if she should head out of her room or wait until she heard something to tell her that someone was awake, and she could go. Now, she could have been disappointed that she'd missed her cue, but what was there to be disappointed about when she was finally there, with her parents, and with her little sisters, who were turning one year old today?
The girls were finally lifted from their cribs and set on the floor, where Marianne easily volunteered to stay and play with them while they waited for the others to get up so they could start on breakfast. They did not lack for sweet or cute things that had to do with their daughters, like the morning show or the baby group hugs. Another one was just to watch the way the triplets interacted with Marianne, and she with them. By now, they would see Lucy, Kacey, and Remy when they heard her coming, watch as they'd almost scramble to get up on their feet and let out a squeal when she'd finally appear. As for Marianne, who was always so eager to go and find them and talk to them, it would amuse her parents to no end to see the way she'd respond to their babbling, like there was no one in the world who could understand what they were going on about better than her. She couldn't wait until they could walk, and run, and play with her, until they could talk some more or understand what she was telling them even better than they presently did.
Maya and Lucas had barely made it down the stairs, still very much in their 'one year' headspace, when they heard Marianne calling out to them. Some part of them quickly got to thinking that, if the others in the house weren't awake yet, they would be awake now. More than anything, their 'run' reflexes were activated, sending them hiking back up to the nursery in haste, so much so that they didn't catch what else Marianne was shouting, that it was excitement and not alarm, until they made it to the top of the stairs and saw her standing halfway in and out of the doorway, with a big smile and excited hands in the air.
"Mommy! Daddy! She's doing it! She's doing it!" Marianne told them. They stopped, looked at each other as they caught their breaths, then turned to her again.
"Who's doing what, pumpkin?" Lucas breathed. Marianne looked back into the room and frowned.
"Well, she's not doing it anymore, but she did, for real this time," she promised with a good nod.
"Who did?" Maya gently coaxed.
"Lucy, she was crawling," Marianne pointed back into the nursery. Before they could move to join her and see what was going on with their own eyes, there was the sound of several feet on the steps. Coming down from above they brought the barely awake trio of Ella, Eliza, and Emma, who'd nearly collided into one another emerging out of their rooms at the sound of Marianne's shouts. Ella and Tori had spent the night ahead of the triplets' birthday in the guest room.
"What's going on?" Eliza asked with a yawn.
Marianne waved for all of them to come and see while she went back into the room and got down on her knees. It was as good of a signal as any for the birthday girls to advance toward her in like fashion as she asked them to come to her. Whether they were aware or bothered in any way by the 'demonstration' set up, it didn't matter. Their big sister had called, and they immediately responded, first Remy and then Kacey getting on to their hands and knees, just like Marianne, and advancing with a giddy haste toward her. Even as they were starting toward her this time, Lucy followed suit, opting not for a scoot but precisely what her sisters were doing. To look at her, it was as though she was thinking 'oh, that's what you want me to do, sure, I can do that, see?' The prize at the end of this involved good cheers and birthday wishes from parents and sisters and aunts, and the little blondes looked up at them with big, toothy smiles.
It was decided right then and there that they would go to Ma Maggie's for breakfast instead of making it here. They'd been debating between the two options, eventually leaving it sort of open ended, with the option of changing their minds on the morning itself. So, while Eliza and Emma went upstairs to get ready, and Ella went to get herself and Tori ready, Maya and Lucas started seeing to the little girls. Marianne wanted to help and get to dress one of them. She had by now shown herself more than worthy of being entrusted with the task, though she was told to go ahead and get herself dressed first. She was gone in a flash, leaving her parents to finally be alone with their birthday girls for a time.
They just never stopped being one of the most individually spectacular things for Maya and Lucas to see. One might think that they'd get over the whole 'wow, triplets' thing after all this time, and to some levels, they had, of course, but then when it came down to it, how could they ever not be a little awestruck at their girls sometimes. There would be those times where this happened primarily with a sense of 'wow, that is just so many clothes, so many diapers…' Everything in triplicate – identical or not – or even double, triple triplicate… because how could they not feel a little overwhelmed at the numbers?
More than anything though, they would hit that feeling of awe because they weren't just an idea anymore, not just a word, an image and a sound on a screen, a kick in their mother's belly, or tiny, fragile looking little humans. They were growing, and growing, becoming not only into their own people but a unit, as triplets. And if that wasn't enough, they were day by day finding their way into something more than dependents, into being an active part of the family. The last year felt so loaded with memories, with development, bringing Kacey Angela, Remy Susannah, and Lucy Elizabeth Friar from there to here… A year from now, they would have become even more, and it was a thrill to get to be a part of that journey with them.
"Hey, don't look at me like that, your big sister is coming, she'll take care of you," Maya chuckled, seeing the look on Kacey's face as she stood there, waiting, while she saw to Remy and Lucas to Lucy.
"Mama?" Kacey asked.
"Annie," Maya pointed and smiled. Kacey looked over.
"Annie," she repeated, getting both her parents looking at her now with that jolt of a smile that came with a new thing.
"Yeah, that's your big sister, cub," Lucas told her. "You just go ahead and tell her that when she gets here. You're going to make her day."
TO BE CONTINUED
See you tomorrow! - mooners
