Toothpaste
"Up!"
"No, Emma, not right now," Sam said to her two-year old daughter as she wiped Ashton's face, which was smeared with peanut butter from her lunch, off with a wet cloth. "Mommy's busy cleaning Ashton right now. Go play with one of your toys in the other room."
"No wash!" Ashton said fussily, squirming her head to try and avoid the cloth. As she squirmed, Ashton knocked over a carton of milk that had been sitting on the kitchen counter.
"Mommy," Sam and Freddie's six-year old son, Jason, said, coming into the room with a board game. "Can you play with me?"
"Um, I can't right now, Jason," Sam replied, scoping Ashton up in one arm and grabbing a handful of paper towels in the other to clean up the spill. "Why don't you ask daddy?"
"Well," Freddie said, coming downstairs. "I finally got whatever it was that the twins got all over their bedroom wall off."
"Daddy," Jason said to his father. "Will you play with me?"
"Sure, buddy," Freddie said. "Let me just-"
"Look!" Emma said, running back into the room, wielding two flattened tubes of toothpaste in her tiny hands. "Me messy!"
And indeed she was; she was covered in toothpaste from head to toe.
"Aw man, she must've been playing in the bathroom," Sam said, still struggling with a squirming Ashton. "It's got to be a mess in there."
"I'm on it," Freddie sighed. "Though I'm sure it can't be much worse than Emma. She's covered in the stuff."
"Here," Sam said, picking up Emma in her other hand. "I'll give them both a bath in our bathroom. Ashton's got peanut butter all over herself anyway."
"No bath!" the girls both began to cry.
"I'll be up in a minute to help you, once I get the toothpaste mess taken care of," Freddie told Sam.
"Okay, but hurry," Sam said as Emma got toothpaste all over her shirt.
Sam and Freddie both hurried off to take care of what they needed to do, both seemingly forgetting about poor Jason, who was still standing in the other room with his board game.
…..
"Emma, no, stop throwing cereal at Ashton," Sam said, handing each of her toddlers a Sippy cup full of juice.
"No milk!" Ashton said firmly, pushing away her cup.
"It's juice, sweetie, see," Sam said, trying to tilt the cup into Ashton's mouth. "Yummy apple juice."
"No apple!" Emma said, banging on her high chair tray.
Sam sighed. "You guys don't like anything, do you? Well when daddy gets home later, I think I'm gonna leave him with you two and mommy's going to go relax."
"No!" the twins both said in unison.
Just then Sam heard a honk outside, which meant that Jason had just been dropped off by his carpool.
"Hey sweetie," Sam said to her son as he walked into the house. "How was school?"
"You and daddy didn't come to my play," Jason said.
"You're play?" Sam frowned. "What play?"
"My presidents play!" Jason replied. "I was George Washington!"
"What? That was today?" Sam exclaimed. "I thought it was next week. Today's the…oh. It-It was today. Aw, Jason, I'm sorry. Daddy and I completely forgot about that."
"It's okay," Jason mumbled.
"Hey," Sam said. "I know. Why don't you show me your part of the play right now? That way-"
But suddenly Ashton began crying because Emma had taken her Bambie doll and was biting its leg, and in all the commotion, the lid of Emma's apple juice wound up popping off, sending the drink all over the floor.
"Hey!" Sam said. "Emma! Give her back the doll!" she grabbed a sponge to wipe up the mess just as both the girls pushed their bowls of cereal off their highchair trays.
…
"We forgot his play?" Freddie frowned.
"Yes!" Sam said, laying down on her and Freddie's bed later that night. "He was the only kid whose parents didn't show up!"
"I thought it was next week!" Freddie said. "Today's the…oh."
"He was so sad when he got dropped off today," Sam sighed. "I can't believe neither of us remembered."
"Hey, we're lucky to remember our own names, dealing with the twins lately," Freddie said. "I love them and everything, but they're taking terrible twos to a whole new level. I don't think I sat down once during dinner, I had to keep cleaning something up."
"I know," Sam nodded. "They're a handful. But you know what? I think we're so busy with the twins lately that we've sort of been, you know, forgetting about Jason."
"Yeah, you're right," Freddie sighed, sitting down next to his wife. "We really haven't been giving him all too much attention. I mean, we forgot his school play, we haven't been able to read to him at his bedtime for the past few weeks, and every time he wants to play, it always seems like we have to drop everything and deal with the girls."
Sam sighed. "We're terrible parents."
"I feel like one," Freddie mumbled. "Poor Jason…this isn't fair to him."
"Yeah, no chiz," Sam said. "What are we gonna do?"
"I know," Freddie said. "Tomorrow's Saturday. Why don't we call up Carly and ask her to babysit for us? That we can spend the entire day with just Jason, doing whatever he wants."
"Huh," Sam said thoughtfully. "That's a good idea…I think he really needs this baby."
"Yeah, I know he does," Freddie nodded. "So…having more than one kid's a lot harder than we thought, huh?"
"Especially when we wound up with twins," Sam smiled.
Freddie put his arm around her and kissed her. "But as much trouble as they are…they're really worth it, aren't they?"
"Yup," Sam grinned. "Wouldn't trade them for anything."
…..
"Hey, morning," Sam smiled as Jason, still wearing his pajamas, came into the kitchen the next morning. She slid a plate of chocolate chip pancakes, his favorite, in front of him.
"Whoa! Pancakes!" Jason grinned, digging in.
"Yup, and there's bacon frying right now," Sam told him, pouring him a glass of orange juice.
"Where are Emma and Ashton?" Jason asked, looking over at the twins empty high chairs, where they would normally be smearing syrup all over themselves by now.
"Well," Sam said, sitting down next to her son. "Daddy's dropping them off to play with Clarissa at Aunt Carly's right now. She's going to watch them for us all day so that we can spend today doing whatever you want."
"Really?" Jason asked excitedly.
"Really," Sam nodded just as Freddie returned home.
"Hey, he's finally up," Freddie smiled. "Morning, Jason. Did mommy tell you that today's your day?"
"Uh-huh," Sam said. "So what do you wanna do first, Jason?"
"I can pick whatever I want?" Jason asked.
"Whatever you want," Freddie replied.
"Um…can we play my alien game?"
"You bet," Sam said.
"And-And can we get ice cream?"
"Absolutely," Freddie grinned.
"And can we go see the new dinosaur exhibit at the museum?" Jason asked. "I want to see the new stegosaurus skeleton and look at the fossils."
"Whatever you want," Sam said, rustling his hair. "Now go get dressed, sweetie, so we can start."
"Okay!" Jason said, hurrying off to his room.
…
"I don't think I've ever been in museum this long without breaking something," Sam whispered to Freddie as they watched Jason starting, fascinated, at a display of dinosaur eggs.
"Have you ever even been in a museum at all?" Freddie asked her knowingly.
"Once!" Sam defended. "To see some exhibit about chainsaws!"
"Of course," Freddie grinned.
"Oh shut up," Sam smirked. "Anyway, I'm gonna run to the gift store and buy Jason a dinosaur souvenir."
"Okay," Freddie nodded. As Sam left the dinosaur exhibit, Freddie stepped closer to his son.
"You having fun, Jason?"
"Uh-huh," Jason smiled. "This place is cool!"
"I know," Freddie laughed as they walked over a life-size model of a triceratops. "You really love dinosaurs, don't you."
"I wish they were still around," Jason said sadly. "Except for maybe T-rexes. Because they're sort of scary."
"The museum will be closing in five minutes," came a voice over the loudspeaker.
"Aw man," Jason frowned.
"Hey, we'll come here again sometime," Freddie promised him. "But right now we better go get mommy so we can head home."
"Okay," Jason nodded.
Freddie took his hand and led him downstairs to the gift shop, where Sam was waiting with a big bag.
"Hey sweetie, look what I found in there for you," Sam said, pulling a stuffed red dinosaur out of the bag.
Jason's jaw dropped. "Whoa! Thanks!" he grabbed the dinosaur and hugged it.
"What kind of dinosaur is that?" Freddie asked Jason.
"It's a pterodactyl," Jason replied. "It can fly!"
"Wow, someone's a little dinosaur expert," Sam chuckled.
"We'd better get going," Freddie said, looking at his watch. "Carly's gonna be dropping the twins back off soon."
"Oh, right," Sam nodded. "Come on, Jason. Time to go home."
…
"How were they?" Sam asked Carly as she took her sleeping twins from her best friend's car.
"Pretty good," Carly replied. "I took them and Clarissa to the park all day, so they ran around the whole time and tired themselves out."
"That works," Sam said.
"You guys have a good time with Jason?" Carly asked.
"Yeah, he said he had a good time," Sam nodded.
"I'm glad," Carly smiled. "Anyway, I should probably get home so I can get Clarissa to bed. I'll see you guys tomorrow."
"Okay, thanks again," Sam said. She headed back into the house with the twins, both still fast asleep.
Once Sam and Freddie put Emma and Ashton in their cribs, they went into Jason's room. He was already in his pajamas, playing with his new stuffed dinosaur.
"Ready for your bedtime story?" Freddie asked.
"Uh-huh," Jason nodded.
"Okay, well daddy and I want to talk to you for a little bit first," Sam told him, setting the six-year old on her lap.
"About what?"
"Well," Freddie began. "We know that lately both of us have been pretty busy taking care of your sisters. And that means that we haven't exactly made a lot of time for you. Which was wrong of us."
"Yeah, it was," Sam agreed. "Which is why we're going to try and work on that. Maybe not every weekend, but every once in awhile we'll have special days where it's just you and us. Would you like that?"
"Yeah!" Jason smiled.
"And you know that even if we are busy with Emma and Ashton," Freddie continued. "We still love you."
Jason nodded. "I love you too."
"And you love your sisters, right?" Sam said. "Even if they take a lot of mommy and daddy's time away from you?"
Jason nodded again. "I like being a big brother."
"And they love having a big brother like you," Freddie grinned. "Now let's read. We have a lot of stories to make up for."
