"Autumn, do you wanna look at a book?" Sofia asked a student who had developmental delays at her school.
Sofia tried to spend at least one lunch hour a week volunteering in the Special Education classroom. She knew that having a fellow student come and hang out with them made the students happy, and therefore, it made her happy to be there. Of course, the teachers were also grateful for the help.
Autumn nodded.
"Go to the shelf and pick one," she told her.
"Sofia..." one of the other students called.
"Yeah?" she asked, going over to her. "What's up, Erin?"
"Time for class?" she asked.
"Not yet," she told her. "Lunch is over at twelve o'clock. What time does it say now? Look at the clock."
Each student in the class had different abilities, but Erin was working on telling time. She easily became fixated on time, so her teachers figured that maybe she would be able to learn how to read a clock if they worked on it enough with her.
"Twelve clock," she said.
"Try again," she encouraged her. "Where's the little hand?"
"Twelve."
"Well, almost twelve. Still eleven, though."
"Oh."
"Where's the big hand?"
"Ten."
"That means what?"
"It eleven fifty," she smiled.
"Yes. So ten more minutes until class. The bells are gonna go off in five minutes. Then it's time to go to class."
"Oh."
"Okay?"
"Yep."
Autumn came over with her book. "Which one did you pick, Autumn?"
Ella walked into the room. "What are you doing tonight, Sof?"
"My moms are working, so I'm watching the boys."
"Oh."
"Why?"
"Tate's cousin just broke up with his girlfriend –"
"You are not setting me up with anyone."
"Why not?"
"Because I said no."
"Fine."
"Nice try, though," she laughed. "But I think I can find my own date if I wanna go on one."
"Dinner's here!" Addison called up as the doorbell rang.
Daddy's birthday rolled around just days before Ella was to turn a month old. Since she was still so young, they had decided to order in to celebrate instead of going out. They had had pasta and salad delivered from a nearby Italian restaurant they both liked.
"The food's here, Ella!" Mark told their newborn as he finished changing her. "Well, Mommy and Daddy's food. All you eat is breastmilk, huh? That's all you need!"
He picked her up and kissed her cheek. "Let's go downstairs. You can hang out in the bouncy chair so we can eat."
She made a little fussy sound as they were coming down the stairs. "What?" Addison asked her. "Are you mad you don't get dinner with us? It smells yummy, doesn't it?"
Mark put Ella's bouncy seat in the kitchen and put her in it. "You like that one, Ella?" he smiled as she stretched her little body out. "Is it comfy?"
Addison plated their meal and they sat down to enjoy it. "Happy birthday, Daddy."
"Thanks," he smiled.
"I know this isn't exactly the date night we would've had, but –"
"It's great," he smiled, looking over to their tiny girl. "And I have to go to work in a couple hours anyways. It's not like we would've had tons of time."
"True," she said. "That's gotta be so hard."
"What? Working on my birthday?"
"No. Just working. Leaving her," she said. "I'm so not ready to do that."
"She'll be at the hospital daycare."
"I know, but –" Ella began crying, so Mommy got up to go get her. "What, Elle?" she asked. "What's the problem?"
"She might just wanna be held. She's clean and fed."
"We can do that, right?"
Addison kissed her little fingers as she sat back down and resumed eating dinner one-handed. She had become pretty good at this lately. They both had. Ella was definitely not a fan of being put down for very long. She wanted to be a part of whatever was going on.
"What I'm not looking forward to is having both babies here," Mark said, continuing their conversation.
"What?"
"I mean, of course I'm looking forward to the other baby," he clarified. "But managing both of their schedules and not always having them in the same place won't be easy. Right now, I'm here a lot. But I'll have to be at my place more when Callie has the baby. So that I'm close by for that one, too."
"It's not like my place is far," she said. "And I mean, Ella and I can come over to your place, too."
"I know."
"It'll work out."
"I know. I just wasn't there for Sloan and I want better for them. I want to be there as much as I can."
"And I think that's great," she smiled. "So does Callie. It'll be fine."
"Yeah."