Marie decides it all has to go, and Joseph agrees. Fords clothes and crib are moved into storage and the walls are repainted a soft pink as it's turned into a baby girls nursery, he moves into the guest room and the next thing he knew he had become a live in nanny as Joseph goes back to work and Marie seems to sink into herself looking at pictures of Ford from over his one month of life.
At first he doesn't mind he loves taking care of Joey,but he only stays a month before heading back to the shack, as much as he enjoys the smiles and giggles of Stanford's only living child he knows that Joseph and Marie need to get back to taking care of their daughter and living again. And hell he knows a month isn't a long time but he has bills to pay too and so begrudgingly he leaves the small family behind.
His search for the other Journals is turning up empty and before he knows it months go by and then a year.
Joey is 3 years old when Marie announces she's six months pregnant again; by some miracle Marie and Joseph manage to conceive on their own and another twist of fate in the Pines Family it's another set of fraternal twins. Everyone is excited by the prospect of a new baby even Stan as distant as he's been lately, the family seems to buzz with life again but a few days before Johanna's second birthday Sherman and Filbrick are killed in a car accident with a drunk driver and once again Stan closes up shop and goes to New Jersey.
During the funeral Stan feels numb his family seems to be dropping like flies. First his twin brother, Then his brothers son, his older brother and Finally his father. It had taken them years but Filbrick and Stan Pines had forgiven each other, lord knows they were never on fantastic terms with each other but at they were civil ... for the most part.
He sees Johanna again for the first time at the wake. She's now knee high, her brown hair is tied in pigtails and marie has put the little girl in a dress. she's currently at the snack table trying to get one of he little hands on the cookies. "whatcha doing kiddo?" he asks as he crouched down to the toddler's level "okkie grumpy tan" she said reaching for the tray.
In his mind's eye he can see his brother picking her up and telling her no sweets til dessert. But he is the self proclaimed cool uncle so he grabs a few cookies and gives some to the toddler for the rest of the night he seems to have a little buddy he's either carrying her or she's following him probably in the hopes of getting another cookie but the thought that she likes him even to some degree warms him so he lets it happen.
He decides to stay a few weeks and help his mother pack away his father's things and he helps Joseph do the same with his brother Shermy's things , it's very surreal for him his father seemed like such and immovable figure and now it looks like he just disappeared.
On August 31st 1999, weighing a grand total of five pounds each Mabel Carrie and Christopher Dipper , come screaming into the world.
He doesn't know how he got roped into this but somehow he ends up babysitting Joey when Marie is admitted into the hospital and his mother rushes to meet her great grandchildren. Marie and Joseph are good parents he knows but between Filbrick and Shermy's Funerals, the wake and a new set of twins they've had very little time to get baby number one used to any of the equipment for babies 2 and 3. Oh she knows there's a baby coming she just doesn't know what all the cool stuff is, so between himself and his mother they try to get it out of her system.
He likes to think they succeeded, when the twins come home Joey is ready to go with the rattles and she knows to be gentle with the little rocker and if he has a picture of her looking adorably clueless as little Dipper bawls his eyes out he'll just say its future black mail material.