Chapter 14: Fighting Sleep
Noire paced back and forth throughout the baby room. Her daughter was in her arms, crying up a storm that would not relent.
Neptune laid exhausted on her rocking chair as earlier, she had tried and failed to calm down her daughter. She tiredly looked at her wife's exhausted face. "What do you think she's all fussy about?"
Noire continued to rock her daughter in place but to no positive results. "I wish I knew. She's not hungry or full in her diaper at all."
Euri continued to cry like crazy and her face had turned like a little tomato because of it. The parents would not doubt that her cries could be heard from street level outside.
"Now those are some pretty big lungs for a little one, right?" Neptune forced herself out of the seat and slapped her face to keep herself awake.
"Sweetie just go to bed before you pass out. I'll handle her since you got that meeting for the new game idea tomorrow."
Neptune thought about her wife's offer and shook her head. "Nope, not happening. This is more important than some game that could be good or meh. My daughter needs me and what kind of mother would I be if… if… yawn…" She tried to suppress her incoming yawn with her hand, but it didn't help at all. Her eyes betrayed her as with each passing blink, her eyelids would stay close just a little longer.
This earned her a giggle from her black-haired wife, who for a second, could almost drown out her daughter's cries. "You would still be a good mother. Now go trip on a bed and don't get up," said Noire.
"Pfft, I aim for great mother, man!" She pumped her fist into the air and gave herself a quick pinch of her cheek.
Noire placed her daughter on the crib and rested her back on a beanbag chair that laid in her daughter's room. She yawned strongly as her eyes started to grow heavy too. "She's fighting her sleep, that's for sure," she said with a glance to her pink-haired daughter that wore white and pink pajamas.
Her daughter's cries had a droopy base to it that lacked strong energy but were still consistent and loud. Her red eyes also had an unfocused haziness to them with the smallest bags under her eyes. The last thing to notice was her body movement, which showed her shifting her whole body left to right in a self-soothing motion.
"Yeah, but why? Girl, it's one in the morning, what are you hoping to do at this time? There are no cartoons on, and no one's playing any games," said Neptune from behind the crib bars.
Euri stopped her pendulum-like swings to acknowledge her mama with pouts and waves her arms in protest.
They both sighed and lowered their heads in defeat. "What can we do? She's so stubborn about this but there's no reason."
Neptune placed a hand on her chin and soon got an idea from what her wife said. "That's it, Nowa!" Neptune picked up her daughter and exited the room.
Noire reluctantly forced herself out of the beanbag chair and raced to catch her wife.
Neptune had reached the living room and placed her daughter on the couch. All of a sudden, Euri had stopped crying out of nowhere.
Noire reached the living room and stood stunned to the silence in the air. "How did you get her to stop crying?"
Neptune held out a hand to silence her wife. "Trust me, Nowa. I think I figured out our little girl's brain pattern." She stood over her daughter with crossed arms. "So… what now, little missy? You're here in the living room where all the big girls hang around. You're free to do whatever you want, but don't look at me to entertain you, that's for sure," sternly spoke the CPU mother.
Noire held back her thoughts that her wife might be acting too rough on her daughter as she believed that there was a method at play here to her wife's harshness.
Euri's cries appeared to return in small increased dosages as if she were putting pressure on her mommy to fold and pay attention to her again.
Neptune wavered briefly yet held her ground firmly. "Nope, you're a big girl, so find your own amusement, Eu." She then plopped down on the second couch and turned her back away from her daughter.
Euri stood silent and mouth slightly open, unable to process this turn of events. She looked at her papa that caused Noire to feel like a deer caught in headlights.
"Noire, don't pay her any mind. Trust me on this," whispered Neptune from her turned away body.
There was no victory for whatever action she chose to make. In the end, she decided that hairsplitting second to turn her head away and pretend like she was looking over some discarded envelopes that were on the coffee table.
The living room grew silent with the shuffling of envelopes, and Neptune's fake snores.
Euri had a mixture of faces that went from confusion, crankiness, and then to a surprising yawn. She moved around on the couch in an attempt for stimulation but could find nothing to keep her engaged. She gave one last glance at both her parents then threw her head against the nearest pillow. For the longest, she stared at the empty darkness of the room with disappointed eyes until those very eyes grew heavy.
The CPU parents finally glanced at their daughter to find out that she had succumbed to sleep on her own terms.
"Wow, Neptune… I feel terrible for ignoring her. How did you figure out the way to get her to sleep?"
"Well my dear, just like you said, 'she's stubborn about this but for no reason,' hehe. She was clearly fighting her sleep because she wanted to stay up with us. Once we gave her what she wanted and let her see that there was no 'party' being orchestrated in secret, she got bored and decided to sleep on her own terms. I expect nothing less from our little stubborn angel. Such a tsun moment in the making when she decided in her mind that 'well, I guess I'll go to sleep, but it's not like anyone made me go to sleep- it's just too boring.'"
Neptune's colorful commentary on her daughter's thought process raised a nerve in Noire's forehead. "She's not a tsun. That's just how babies act. Sigh, does this make us bad parents for ignoring our daughter?" Softly spoke Noire with a hand on her chest.
"Hmm… I don't like it, but it was effective in getting her to fall asleep. There are times that we need to put our pudding down."
Noire reached down for her daughter that had started to suck on her thumb. "I'm going to have to make it up to her tomorrow morning with some hot pancakes and syrup." Noire hugged her tightly as close as she could, making sure to not disturb her sleep.
"Oh my, I can't wait," said a cheeky Neptune.
"Hmph, who said anything about making pancakes for you?" Said Noire bitterly.
"Oh, I see. Paint me as the bad guy because of my clever idea- she went to sleep in the end," stated Neptune.
"Maybe… but I refuse to encourage neglectful tactics further."
"Okay, darling, we'll find a better way for sure," said Neptune. She brushed the soft pink bangs away from Euri's forehead and gave her a big kiss.
Hey, everyone. It's been a while since I made a new chapter. The reason for that is that I wanted to shift my time to my other story that I'm working on. There have also been other story ideas that I've been putting time on that I won't mention until I have a good draft.
This means, that going forward, I'm going to restructure the rest of this story, but I'm still trying to figure things out. I want the story to pick up, and there won't be another chapter besides the other one I uploaded with this one until the end of the month. Because of that, I want to introduce longer chapters that have a bit more meaning to the story to make up for the slower updates. While I love making the small one-shot styled chapters, I find myself struggling with ideas to come up with and think its time to get the story moving with the plot. The plot being Euri getting older. If you have ideas for a wholesome or funny chapter do tell, and I can probably make it work but for now, I want to get things moving.
This might be a spoiler depending on the person since it relates to Euri's age progression, so if you don't want to know that, then don't look beyond this point. That said, Thank you all for the patience and support!
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Her progression will be: Year and a half old, to three years old, to eight years old, and finally twelve years old. There's more to this with another milestone age but for now, this is her progression. I want to share this with you all to help you gauge how far this story has until it's done.