Disclaimer: I still don't own Star Wars!
I have a couple of requests to continue this, so I shall – but in short chapters, as it is not my primary work right now. I actually didn't have much of a plan beyond that first chapter, but I have a few vague ideas. So, here goes!
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Anakin gladly took Obi-wan's advice and set off in his speeder to his apartment. He had plans to rest and relax a bit with his wife and kids, and hopefully be more alert when he returned the next morning. Little did he know what awaited him at home.
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Obi-wan fully expected his friend to be refreshed and alert when he arrived at the Temple the next morning. Instead, Anakin again walked in late, looking, if possible, more tired than the day before.
"Anakin!" exclaimed Obi-wan. "You look exhausted! Did you get any rest at all?"
Anakin smiled ruefully. "The Force had other plans," he said. "Padmé fell asleep on the couch while dinner was in the oven, and the twins woke up from their naps before she did. Do you have any idea how hyperactive three-year-olds who have just recovered from the flu can be? Especially twin three-year-olds. When I got back, they had pulled down two sets of curtains, and dragged all of the chairs from around the table into the refresher, where they used them to make a tent with the sheets from all of the beds in the house. Why in the refresher? Because they wanted to have a house by the lake, like where Mommy and Daddy were married. This meant filling up the bathtub. Then Leia, the creative one, remembered that Mommy said there were flowers and beautiful sunsets by the lake. Those are rather scarce in our refresher, so she and Luke got out their paint sets – I still have no idea how they got them off the high shelf – and painted pictures on the sheets, using water from the bathtub, which was overflowing. This was all mostly Leia's idea; she's rather precocious. And Luke goes along with whatever she comes up with.
So I walk in the door to find dinner burning, the kids painting the sheets in the flooded refresher, and all the while, Padmé's still asleep on the couch. I decided if she had slept through all of that, she must need the rest, so I let her sleep, turned the oven off and got the kids into dry clothes. Then I gave them a brief scolding and told them to be good and not wake Mommy while I cleaned up the refresher and put new sheets on the beds. Their idea of being good was trying to set the table for dinner. I was carrying the chairs back out to the table when I discovered Luke and Leia fighting over who got to put out the plates. Neither of them like doing the silverware because they can't remember where the different pieces go. Anyway, Leia threw the silverware all over the floor and grabbed the stack of plates, but Luke managed to get three of them away from her. She solved that problem by breaking the other one on Luke's head. I woke Padmé up and we rushed Luke to emergency care, but it turned out he only needed three stitches; he's got a pretty hard head.
Anyway, it was about 1830 hours when we got back, and the kids were getting hungry, so I took them all out to eat. Three-year-olds who have just recovered from the flu go very quickly from hyper to cranky, especially when one of them has been smacked on the head and the other one has been scolded and punished for smacking him. They were both screaming when we left the restaurant, but they both fell asleep in the speeder on the way home. Of course, they woke up the moment we got inside the house and were cheerful and hyper again. Padmé finally got them to settle down and watch a holovid while I finished cleaning out the refresher. Of course, due to their impromptu nap, we had a hard time getting them to go to bed. Three stories and three glasses of water for each of them. When they finally settled down, I told Padmé to go lie down while I cleaned up the burnt dinner and the broken plate in the kitchen. I figured, she had to survive this kind of thing every day, so the least I could do was take care of it this once until she was fully recovered.
It took me almost until 2130 hours to get that pan clean of all the burnt food. Then, once I finally got into bed, Luke had a bad dream and started screaming, which woke up Leia. It took two more stories to calm them down; then Luke wanted another glass of water, which meant Leia had to have one, too. I finally got them back to sleep around 100 hours and was just settling in to sleep myself, when Luke woke up again, naturally, and had to use the 'fresher. I took him to the 'fresher, put him back to bed, and was dozing off when Leia woke up and started crying because she'd wet the bed. So I got up again, bathed her and put her in dry pajamas, changed her sheets and put her back to bed. By then, it was 300 hours. I went to sleep and had a really strange dream of my own, which woke me up. It wasn't really a bad dream – just weird –but for some reason, it had me wide awake. This was around 400 hours. Then of course, the sun started to rise, and I couldn't get back to sleep, even though I was dead tired. I got up and made breakfast for everyone, then helped get the kids dressed when they woke up, and then I came here. Obi-wan, I love my kids and would do anything in the world for them, but sometimes they can be such troublemakers!" Anakin finished.
Obi-wan smiled. "Now you know how you made me feel!" he teased.
Anakin looked horrified. "I was never that bad!"
"No, you were much worse," Obi-wan groaned. "I'm sorry you had such a difficult night, especially since you're slotted to teach a class on basic levitation to the five-year-olds this morning."