Lilian Turns One
"Look who it is!" Emily cooed to her daughter, pointing to where Alex and Ethan waited by the gate. Lilian – who was already squirming her arms – began struggling in earnest. "I know, it's your favourite person in the world..." Emily said on a sigh.
Knowing that Lilian was either going to get her way or fall to the ground trying, Emily gave in and set the child on her feet so she could toddle over to Alex. (She was still new to walking, so Emily made sure to stay close by, in case she fell.)
Before Lilian could reach Alex, though, Ethan came running up, arms outstretched, excited to give her a big hug...a hug that ended up being more of an enthusiastic bodyslam, really. Both toddlers went crashing to the ground, two wails ringing out as they hit the pavement.
"Oh, Ethan," Alex sighed, righting her son and dusting him off, "I told you that you need to be careful with Lilian, she's still a baby."
As his crying died down (his tears more from shock than anything else), Lilian's only ramped up as Emily tried to soothe her. It wasn't until she relented and passed the girl to Alex that Lilian calmed down.
"I swear, she likes you more than me!" Emily said, shaking her head and rolling her eyes. "Not that I can blame her," she added under her breath, small smirk playing about her lips.
Alex, of course, missed nothing, though she didn't comment on the remark. What she did say was, "Happy Birthday, Little Mouse!" She kissed Lilian's cheek and tickled her tummy until she laughed.
"She's been asking about you all day," Emily said. 'Alex' had been the girl's second word. It had taken Emily a few days to figure out what 'Ask!' meant, though she supposed it shouldn't have been a surprise when Alex was the second biggest presence in her life. "I don't think she even cares about the zoo; we could be looking at cows in a field, as long as it's with you."
"I think Ethan feels the same way about Lilian," Alex said, nodding to the way the boy was looking up at Lilian, starry-eyed.
Over the past few months, they'd taken to having weekly coffee dates – partly so they had a reason to get out of the house, but mostly for the company. Being a single mother got lonely afterall... (Emily sometimes wondered what it said about her that her only friend was at least ten years her senior...but she preferred not to pull at those threads.)
Ethan's adoration for Lilian, though, was quickly overpowered by his adoration of elephants, as one could be heard trumpeting in the distance. "Mama!" he said urgently, "Enta!"
"Lets go see the elephants," she agreed. "Right, Lilian? Elephants?"
She didn't quite understand, but nodded happily anyway.
Lilian was asleep in her stroller and Ethan was quickly flagging, nodding off against Alex's chest. Which was fine because it allowed the adults to converse without little ears overhearing.
"Congratulations, by the way," Alex said with a soft smile, "You've survived your first year as a mother."
Emily gave a snort of amusement. "I'm not sure 'survived' is the correct word...but she's alive, so that's a good sign, I think."
Alex couldn't help but laugh at her glib phrasing. "Well, I just so happen to have something else you might want to celebrate," she said with a tantalizing smile.
Emily raised a brow in question, exceedingly curious.
"The official announcement hasn't been posted yet...but I can tell you unofficially that you've been accepted into my linguistics program," she announced.
Her mouth hung open briefly. "Really!?"
Alex nodded. "And don't think the decision had anything to do with our friendship," she added. "Your application was more than sufficient to earn your spot in the program."
"Wow..." Emily said on an exhale. "Wow, I can't believe it – I thought for sure my grades..." She trailed off, shaking her head.
"A question..." Alex interrupted her incredulity. At her expectant expression, she continued, "Have you thought about what you're going to do with Lilian? I'm worried the program's longer hours might not work with the campus daycare..."
She blinked dumbly a few times. "Oh..." A beat. "I hadn't really considered that..." Her previously joyous expression began to fall.
Alex rushed to supply a solution then, "Because...and I'm just making a suggestion, but maybe you could move in with me."
"What?"
Seeming to realize how that had sounded, she explained, "It's just... I have a nanny for Ethan and it wouldn't be an imposition to add Lilian into the mix. And if you're already living in the same house as us, it will save you a lot of time and stress."
"That's..." Emily stammered, "That's incredibly generous of you..."
"I know how hard it is to be a single mother," she said quietly. "And how lonely." She offered a soft smile. "Ethan adores you and Lilian and having him grow up with someone close to his age will really help his social skills and brain development."
With a little laugh, Emily teased, "So, I'm doing you a favour?"
Alex joined in the laughter. "Let's call it mutually beneficial."
"You really don't have to do this," she insisted.
"I want to," Alex maintained.
Lilian began stirring then, opening her eyes to stare blearily at Emily. "What do you think, Lil? Should we live with Ethan and Alex?" Emily asked her.
"Ask?" the child echoed. Emily nodded. "Ask!"
Alex laughed. "I think that's a ringing endorsement."
Ethan Turns Three
"...happy birthday to you!" Alex and Emily chorused.
"BIRDAY!" Lilian hollered in Emily's ear.
Alex set the plate of cake in front of her son. "Blow out the candle, Tigger," she encouraged.
Meanwhile, Emily attempted to wrestle Lilian into remaining in her seat so she wouldn't make a grab for the lit candle.
Ethan blew out the candles...with a gratuitous helping of spittle...then made a grab for the cake. Luckily, Alex's reflexes were sharper and she managed to grab his hand before it met icing. "Tigger," she scolded gently, "The cake is for everyone – you have to share."
He pouted. "Don't wanna!" he griped.
Alex just sighed. He'd been going through a bit of a defiant phase lately, involving a lot of whining and shouted 'No!'s... "Ethan, that's not polite. You're a big boy and big boys share with their friends."
He continued pouting, but said nothing.
Shaking her head, Alex met Emily's gaze, clearly struggling to resist rolling her eyes. And, in spite of Ethan's protests, she proceeded to cut a slice of cake for everyone.
"I still can't believe you can bake too," Emily effused as she watched Lilian mash cake into her mouth. "I think I've baked once in my whole life and, let's just say, fire may have been involved..."
Alex couldn't help but chuckle. "Okay, you are officially no longer allowed in my kitchen," she teased.
"Probably wise..." She nodded solemnly. "You probably wonder how my child is still alive, right?"
She just shook her head, smiling.
"Maybe I should take some cooking lessons before the next one, huh?"
Alex raised a brow. "Next one?" she repeated.
Suddenly, she seemed sheepish. "I guess I always imagined having at least two kids," she said, "But then again, I kind of assumed I'd be having children as, you know, an adult." Feeling a little vulnerable, then, she asked, "Didn't you want more children?"
"At one time, I suppose I did," Alex said slowly. "But between Ethan's condition and James leaving, I've kind of accepted that more children aren't really in the cards for me..."
Emily fixed her with an expression of disbelief.
"What?"
"Have you seen you!?" she said incredulously. "You're fucking gorgeous!"
It was Alex's turn to give a disbelieving look.
"Believe me, you could have any man – or woman – you wanted," she insisted.
She still didn't seem convinced, even if she didn't say so. "Regardless, I think the whole 'having a toddler' thing would deter most of these potential suitors."
"Not all of them," Emily said under her breath. Whether she'd intended for Alex to have heard that or not, she didn't know...and, for her part, Alex didn't comment on the remark.
The conversation came to a definite ending then, seeing as both children had become quite covered in icing and were reaching the limits of the chaos that could be caused within the confines of their highchairs.
Emily wrestled with Ethan, doing her best to keep the slippery toddler inside the bathtub. "No, you may not get out, you're still filthy," she said firmly.
Lilian seemed to find her mother's struggles extremely amusing, based on the way she shrieked with laughter. She, at least, seemed more or less content to remain in the tub, so long as she had all ten thousand bath toys in reach.
It was Emily's turn to do bath time; she and Alex took turns because, between their workloads, one of them was usually too swamped to manage both toddlers and coursework. It was just her luck, though, that she pulled the short straw when both children were sticky and sugar high...
For whatever reason, in spite of Ethan's seemingly permanent bad mood when it came to his mother, he was usually a delight for Emily. "Wubba duck?" he asked.
Emily rolled her eyes because she'd already sang the song four times, but gave in and once again chorused, "Rubber ducky, you're the one – you make bath time lots of fun..." While she sand, she scrubbed shampoo through Ethan's sticky brown hair.
She could feel Alex's gaze on her from the doorway then...
Glancing over her shoulder, she offered a soft smile. "Lilian is all clean if you wanted to get her into her pyjamas," she said. "It might take me all night to get your son clean, though."
Alex crossed the cramped little bathroom to lift Lilian out of the tub. "Are you all clean, little mousey?" she cooed, tousling the girl's messy curls with a towel.
Lilian responded with a yawn, leaning her head on Alex's shoulder. It was moments like that that made Alex's heart melt with affinity for the girl – and for Emily who had shared her daughter so willingly. It was moments like that that sated her desire for more children, though she never said as much.
As she snapped Lilian into her onesie, then her sleepsack, she hummed quietly, old lullabies that she'd never learned the words to, but vaguely remembered her German grandmother singing when she was a child.
Lilian blinked sleepily up at her, her little rosebud lips curved in a soft smile.
"Sleepy mousey," Alex murmured, kissing the top of the girls' head. And, as she lay her in her crib, it wasn't so hard to imagine doing it all over...and her heart clenched, just a little, with want for something that didn't seem possible.
Emily was somewhere between sleep and wakefulness when there came a knock on her bedroom door. She groaned, rolled over, kneading her eyes with her knuckles. "For the love of God, Alex, someone better be dying," she threatened.
In an uncharacteristically meek voice, Alex asked, "Can I come in?"
Reluctantly, she sat up, coming sleep-mussed hair from her face. "Yeah, I guess..." Silence followed as Alex tiptoed over to sit on the edge of the bed looking rather awkward. Finally, Emily got impatient and asked, "Is there something on your mind...?"
"I lied," she confessed quietly. At Emily's continued expectant look, she added, "I do want more children. I thought I didn't, but...when I hold Lilian, when I put her to sleep..." She sighed, shook her head. "It ignites something inside me that I thought I'd put to rest when James left."
"Okay..." Emily said slowly, unsure why she felt the need to tell her this, especially at such a late hour.
Seeming to sense this, Alex internally debated something. "I'm going to say something totally crazy and ridiculous – I know it's ridiculous – but I just... I have to say it."
"Okay?" Emily repeated. If anything, Alex's reassurances were worrying her...
"What if..." She inhaled deeply to bolster her nerves. "What if you and I...had a baby?" She visible winced. "Together..."
Emily said nothing, blinking in stunned silence.
Alex opened her mouth to say something, but couldn't quite seem to muster any words. It was all she could do to keep tears from welling.
Emily knew she needed to say something in that moment...and the thing that she ended up blurting out was, "Okay."
"What?"
"I told you," Emily said, finding her blurted answer to be sitting surprisingly well now that she'd said it aloud, "I've always wanted more kids."
Alex couldn't quite seem to absorb the answer. "Really?"
She shrugged. "What could possibly go wrong?"
"That response doesn't fill me with confidence," she said dryly.
Which was fair... "Okay," Emily agreed, "We maybe shouldn't make this decision at one AM, but one AM me is on board."
"Why, though?" she couldn't resist asking.
For a moment, Emily simply stared pointedly at her. "Alex..." she said deliberately. "You're an extremely intelligent woman, but...let's just say, you're maybe not the most perceptive person I've ever hit on."
Now, it was Alex's turn to blink in stunned silence.
She simply laughed. And, since words didn't seem to be doing it, she leaned in to kiss her softly. She expected Alex to be a little skittish in response, but she surprised her by reciprocating rather enthusiastically.
When she pulled back for air, Alex whispered, "Oh..."
Emily laughed quietly.
"Maybe I'm not romantically perceptive," she agreed, "But I'm not blind either."
"And you're a really good kisser," Emily added with a little giggle.
"You're only saying that because it's one AM and you're exhausted," Alex teased.
She shrugged, smirked. "Possibly," she said. "Which is why I'm going to go back to sleep. You're welcome to stay." At Alex's raised brow, she added, "Platonically, of course. For now..."
Alex laughed, but nonetheless snuggled into Emily's side, pleasantly surprised by the turn the early morning waking had taken.
