Delight

"What are we doing daddy?" Freddie's five-year old daughter, Emma, asked him.

"Well," Freddie said, grabbing a box of cake mix from the kitchen cabinet. "Since we burned mommy's mother's day breakfast-"

"But she said she still liked it," Ashton, Emma's twin, interrupted.

Freddie chuckled. He knew Sam had to force herself to choke down the completely blackened pieces of toast and very hard scrambled eggs the kids had brought her in bed. They had also burned the bacon too, but to Sam, bacon was bacon. Maybe leaving the kids in charge of breakfast while Freddie tried to wrap Sam's mother's day present hadn't been a good idea.

"Yeah, she did," Freddie nodded. "But I still think that maybe it would be fun to make mommy a special mother's day cake."

Looks of pure delight spread over the twins' faces. "Do we get to help?" Emma asked excitedly.

"Well she is your mom," Freddie smiled. "Go get your brother and we'll start making it."

"Jason!" Ashton screamed.

"I could've done that," Freddie sighed. These kids definitely had their share of Sam's genes in them.

"What?" Freddie and Sam's nine-year old son asked, coming into the kitchen.

"Want to help us bake mom a cake?" Freddie asked.

"Yeah!" Jason exclaimed.

"Okay," Freddie said, reading the back of the box. "Emma, you'll be in charge of stirring-"

"No fair!" Ashton cried. "I want to stir daddy!"

"Too bad!" Emma said, sticking her tongue out at her sister. "I am!"

"But I should get to! I'm older!" Ashton pouted.

"By eight minutes; it doesn't count!"

"You can take turns stirring," Freddie said, breaking up the fight. "Jason, you can crack the eggs and-"

"But how come they get to stir and I don't?" Jason frowned.

"You can stir too!" Freddie said, rolling his eyes. "Go get three eggs from the fridge right now, though. Okay, Em, pour the mix into the bowl. Ash, fill this cup with water and pour it in after Emma pours in the mix."

"I can't see the eggs!" Jason yelled across the kitchen, standing in front of the open fridge.

"Jason, shh!" Freddie hissed. "Or you'll wake-" He was cut off by a loud wail.

"Tyler's up!" Ashton announced.

"Yeah, thanks," Freddie sighed. "Okay, just do what I told you to do and I'll be back in a sec."

Freddie ran upstairs to his and Sam's youngest child's room. Tyler was standing up in his crib, crying to be picked up.

"What's up, buddy?" Freddie said, picking up his son. "You hungry? I think mommy left some bottles in the fridge…"

He walked back downstairs with Tyler in his arms. Just as Freddie reached the foot of the stairs, though, he heard a loud crash from the kitchen.

"Perfect," he mumbled as he made his way back towards his other children.

"It was Jason's fault!" Ashton said as soon as Freddie came into the kitchen.

"No it wasn't, it was Emma who did it!"

"What happened?" Freddie asked, but his question was answered once he saw the bowl that once held the cake batter on the floor, the contents oozing out.

"I didn't do it daddy!" Emma said. "It was-"

"I don't care who did it," Freddie said quickly, placing Tyler in his high chair. He looked at his watch. "Okay, mommy's going to be back from that spa place she went to with aunt Carly in less than an hour. Here," he handed each of the kids a rubber spatula from one of the kitchen drawers. "Just scrape the batter back into the bowl. I mopped in here last night."

While the kids scraped the batter back into the bowl Freddie grabbed a bottle from the fridge and gave it to Tyler. Once the kids had the batter they could salvage back into the bowl, Freddie poured it into the cake pan and placed it into the oven. In forty minutes the cake was out and cooled, and each of the kids were now busily icing their creation, getting heaps of icing on the counter and onto their clothes.

How does Sam deal with these kids all day? Freddie asked himself as he sponged the spit-up off of Tyler's onsie. I love them and all, but they're just horrible sometimes.

"Do we get to put candles on the cake?" Emma asked, licking the icing off of her knife before dipping it back into the container again.

"That's only for birthdays, sweetie," Freddie said. "You guys done?"

"Yeah, isn't it pretty?" Ashton asked.

Truthfully, with its uneven icing job and obvious fingerprints, Freddie thought the cake looked very unattractive.

"Very pretty," he nodded.

"Can I go get some of my Galaxy Wars action figures to put on it?" Jason asked, spooning a large clump of icing out of the container with his hand.

"You know mom would kill me if I let you do that," Freddie said, taking the icing container away from his son. "Now you three go change before-"

Suddenly they heard the front door open.

"Hey, Sam," Freddie said, greeting his wife with a quick kiss. "How was the spa?"

"I got to sit in a tub full of mud," Sam said. "So it was pretty cool. They only had these weird teas there, though, so I'm starving."

"We made you a cake, mommy!" Ashton said happily, running up the her mother and hugging her leg, leaving a large icing stain on Sam's jeans.

"You did?" Sam smiled.

"All by ourselves," Emma said proudly.

"Daddy made you guys do all the hard work, huh?" Sam laughed, grinning at Freddie.

"I did the most," Jason said.

"No you didn't!" Emma retorted.

"Did too!"

"Everyone helped equally," Freddie said.

"Can we have some now?" Ashton asked.

"Sure," Sam said. She looked over at the counter, which was a complete wreck.

"We had…a little accident while we were making it," Freddie whispered.

"Well, it's my day," Sam shrugged. "I'm not cleaning it up."

"You know, the kids don't make disasters like this on father's day," Freddie mumbled.

"Of course not," Sam said. "Because I'm in charge."