2014
A/N: Nothing really to say here, so enjoy the story!
"And after that sad, yet important story, we come to another important story," Amy began.
"But, this one is a bit more…amusing," Ricky finished.
As soon as Ricky heard movement from the other room, he inwardly groaned. Great. Let the festivities begin. And it's probably not even 6:30 yet. And, as life would have it, the clock showed it to be 6:26. Ricky moved closer to Amy, pulling the blanket up closer to her head, hoping that she would be able to continue to sleep while he gave John breakfast. But (Ricky expected no different) that plan did not go "according to plan."
"MOMMY! DADDY! WAKE UP! It's time to go to school! We have to get ready for SCHOOL!" John screamed, somehow (as only a five year old could) managing to jolt both of his parents awake at the same time. Satisfied that they were awake, John quickly left the room to pack his backpack for the five hundredth time.
"Were you this excited to go to the first day of Kindergarten?" Amy asked gruffly, since her voice was rough from sleep.
"Well, for me, it meant that I was able to have two nice meals and eight to ten hours away from my parents; so, yes, I was very excited to be going to Kindergarten. And you? Oh, and by the way: Good morning. How are you?" Ricky said smiling.
"Abusive parents, right. What time is it anyway? Oh, and good morning to you too. Also, I have a class at 8:45, so would I be able to shower and you could get him some breakfast? Then we can all walk to school together—we are 'carpooling' with the Kennish family to school—and then we can go our separate ways from there? How does that sound?" Amy asked, already getting up and heading towards the shower.
Ricky sat up, "I love you Amy."
"Woah, a blast from the past! I love you too, by the way. And I'm talking your minimal response as a 'of course Amy, you can do anything you want because you are the greatest person ever' and so I'm showering," a somewhat loud crash was heard from the kitchen and Amy slightly winced. "And will you go help him get some breakfast before he hurts himself? Thank you!" God, why am I marrying this girl? Oh right, because she's the greatest thing that has ever happened to me. Another crash was heard from the kitchen. And he is a close second. What is he even doing anyway?
"Ricky!" a yell could be heard over the water from the shower, "I thought I asked you to go help him!" And off I go.
After a battle with the blankets on their bed, Ricky headed towards the kitchen. In the kitchen, Ricky found John and what looked like a Science Fair volcano made of cereal on the table. "Hey bud, what are you doing?" Ricky asked, already concerned for the well being of everyone this morning. "It looks like you could use a little help. Why didn't you come get me?" Ricky asked, grabbing a kitchen towel from the counter as he and John started to clean up the milk and cereal mess.
"I was trying to make breakfast for you and Mommy, but I couldn't get the bowls down." John looked like he was close to tears. That would explain the cereal in the glasses. And the broken bowls on the floor.
"Hey buddy, it's ok. Here come 'mere. There you go. All better?" Ricky asked, hugging John tightly, "now since we have so much time 'till you have to get to school, why don't we make muffins or something? We could even bring them over the to school with Mina's family when we go them today!"
John's face lit up instantly at the thought of his friend, "you mean Mina's coming to school too!" The joys of having a five year old: they completely destroy your kitchen, and then they forget that their best friend is going to school with them, even though the two of them have been talking about it for weeks. Months, maybe!
"Yea buddy, Mina's going to school," Ricky said, laughing a little.
Later, after the cereal explosion was cleaned up and muffins were in the oven, Amy walked through the hallway into the kitchen. "So what had happened?" Amy asked, kissing Ricky lightly and saying good morning to John. God even with wet hair and t-shirt she still looks gorgeous. And the ring makes it even better.
God, why didn't he put on a shirt this morning before he left our bedroom? This could cause…problems. "Well, John wanted to make breakfast, but he needed just the slightest bit of help," Ricky said, obviously exaggerating the slight part, "and since I thought that blueberry muffins were just a little bit of better 'First Day of School' breakfast, I 'helped' John make some," Ricky responded.
"I'm sure they will be yummy, but," Amy said, her voice dropping as she barely whispered in his ear, "not as yummy as you look right now," she said, taking an unnoticeable (to some—yet very noticeable to others) nibble at his ear. Ricky growled in response before they two of them resumed their morning duties. Ricky, as he was the early morning shift, went off to take his shower and get dressed, while Amy helped John set the breakfast table and make sure he had everything in his backpack in the kitchen.
"Ricky! I can't believe you just told everyone I said that!" Amy yelled, completely embarrassed as John laughed loudly at his mother's choice of words.
"I always wondered why the two of you were so—'into each other'—on that first day of school," Mina remarked as she laughed along with John and most of the other guests.
"What? You have plenty of embarrassing stories to tell against me—and you use them to your advantage, I might add—but when I got the chance to tell an embarrassing story about you, I get punished for it?" Ricky smirked and tried to stifle a laugh.
"Urr…This is not funny!" Amy squealed.
"It kind of is, Ames. I mean, John was what? Like a foot away from you?" George asked, trying, and failing, to stifle a laugh as well.
"Well then, we just won't get to the good part of the story then," Amy pouted.
"Oh, come on Mom! I want to hear the good part!" John said, knowing that this would be good.
"So what else are you doing today? I know you have a couple classes, but what else do you have to do?" Ricky asked Amy as he cleared the plates from the table and began to wash them as John played in his room.
"Well, I'm meeting with John's elementary school to see if they still need the assistant teacher, because I'm planning on taking an independent studies type thing this term, then I'm supposed to call Ashley and my parents, and then I might be meeting with some people for lunch…just things like that. Why do you ask? Because I could try to move some things around," Amy smirked.
"Well…um…I wouldn't mind that—at all—but I was just wondering if you would want to have lunch or something, reminisce about how our son is now in Kindergarten, that kind of thing. Oh, and there is a 'your child is now in school' meeting that Emily is dragging Dave too, and he wanted me to come. Do you want to come?" Ricky asked hopefully.
"To the meeting? No, not really. But I may take you up on the offer for lunch: I'll call you at some point."
"It's a date then," Ricky spoke as he smiled. "Oh, and you never told me if you were excited to go to kindergarten…"
"Oh…well," Amy started.
"Mommy! Daddy! WE HAVE TO GET TO SCHOOL! WE ARE GONNA BE LATE!" John yelled to his parents.
"Baby, it's only 7:25. Let Mommy have a little bit more coffee, and let me pack up my stuff, and then we can all go. Sound like a plan?" Amy asked, hoping that she would get at least twenty more minutes of a less-stress morning. I'm sure Mina is probably still asleep. And so is the rest of the Kennish family. What did we do to get the child that is so excited for school again?
But, not truly surprisingly, Mina was not asleep. In fact, not even five minutes later, the Kennish family (or maybe just Mina) banged on the door to the family's apartment. "Coming, coming! OH, Hi Kennishs, come on in! Do you guys want some muffins? John and I made them this morning. Speaking of which, Mina why don't you go find John in his room?" Ricky asked, hoping that Mina wasn't as persistent with going to school at this time of day as John was.
But, not to anyone's surprise, Mina was just as, if not more, excited than John was: "Pop, we have to get to school soon! Or else we're gonna be late!"
"Baby, what did we say about school? It doesn't start for almost half an hour and it takes ten minutes to walk down there. We can leave in, maybe, five or ten minutes," David said to his daughter before she and her little brother went to play with John. "God, she woke us up at 6:15 this morning. Fully dressed. Backpack packed. I already can't wait for middle school when they will be begging us not to have to go to school. This is almost torture."
"It's better than them just sitting at home doing nothing. At least now they have something to do for eight hours," Amy said as she walked into the kitchen area. "And I definitely am not ready for them to be in middle school. I feel like I was just in middle school myself—Oh wait, I was in middle school only," Amy stopped to count on her fingers, "six years ago. God, has it really been that long?" Amy sounded genuinely surprised, but then started to laugh along with the three other adults.
After about a minute or two of small talk, Mina and John ran into the room, with Adam trying desperately to keep up behind them, "Mommy! Daddy! Mam! Pop! WE HAVE TO GO RIGHT NOW! IT'S BEEN TEN MINUTES!" Mina and John said in unison.
Kids have such an interesting sense of time. And of timing, for that matter. "Buds, it's only been two minutes, but fine. If you really, really want to go right now, we can go," Ricky said, grabbing a couple of last minute items and a muffin to go. "But we have to walk slowly and carefully down the street. Ok?" Both children nodded, and the party of seven headed out the door.
Even if you were on the top floor on their apartment building, you would still be able to hear Mina and John on the ground floor. The two young children barreled through the foyer of the building, gave Ms. Hilladay a brief 'good morning' and 'we are going to school!' before continuing to run around the lobby. But, as all four parents had taught them, the two stopped right in front of the door and waited for their respective parents to show up. Once the group reassembled, John and Mina took each other's hands—as well as their fathers' hands—and headed out the door. Finally, after a long walk of pulls and squeals of laughter, the group arrived at the school.
"Well, this is your stop. Have a fun day!" Dave Kennish remarked, pretending to head to the nearest subway station.
"Daddy! You have to walk me in! And I will have to say goodbye to you!" Mina reminded him, causing him to make a 'how could I forget?' type of face.
"Oh, no," Amy mumbled (somewhat) to herself.
"What Ames, did you forget something? I could go get it for you. After we drop the buds off I have to go back to the apartment anyway." Ricky asked, worried that he had forgotten something important today as well.
"No, it's just…never mind. I'm sure it will be fine," Amy smiled fakely.
After about fifteen minutes of walking the premise of the elementary school, the adults decided that they were lost. "I swear, it didn't take us this long to find the classroom yesterday," Emily Kennish remarked.
"Well that was because there were a million people helping up find our way to the classroom. That was the day before the first day of school anyway; it's always completely calm. The actual first day of school is always complete chaos. That's just sort of a fact of life," Ricky returned. As the continued to walk towards the classroom Amy was beginning to look more and more nervous: "Ames, are you sure you are O.K? I can go home and get something for you if you would like. Oh, and by the way, you never answered my question about your kindergarten experience. What was it like?"
"Uh, it was fine. Actually, no it wasn't," Amy said, pulling Ricky aside. "You can go with the Kennishs John, Mommy and Daddy will be right there. Yes John, we will be right there. Oh God, it is coming true."
"What's coming true? Is there some sort of curse on the Jeurgens family going to Kindergarten or something?" Ricky asked, slightly amused.
"NO! It's just that…well, on my first day of Kindergarten…I was really nervous. And scared. Like really scared. I cried for almost an hour after my mom left. And I had been to preschool before! But the whole, staying for a whole day, and there were kids that were twice my size…it just scared me! And, well, I had been really excited the whole morning leading up going to school, but once I was actually there—I just got so nervous. And I just really don't want John to feel that way," Amy said, turning a beet red.
"Ames, I'm sure John will be just fine. So is that why you kept avoiding the question? Because this is yet another embarrassing story about you?" Ricky asked, now fully starting to laugh.
"Stop it! It wasn't that funny! Ok, maybe it was," Amy began to laugh as well.
"Mommy! Daddy! Come on! I want you to meet my teacher and see all the toys he has in his room! Come on!" John exclaimed, pulling both his parents toward the classroom.
"Hi, I'm Mr. Dunfield, but you can call me Andy. And you must be Amy Jeurgens and you must be Ricky Underwood: John's parents? It's very nice to actually meet you in person, since you were not able to make it yesterday. John seems like a really sweet kid; I'm sure we will have a lot of fun this year. So, you are welcome to stick around, but if you are worried about mushy moments, you may want to just leave quietly now. Don't worry, I'll take good care of John," Mr. Dunfield concluded, putting a stopper on all of their collective worries.
Not even an hour later, shortly after Amy and Ricky had gone back to the apartment and had a 'proper' goodbye, Amy got a call from John's elementary school. "Hello?" she asked.
"Is this Ms. Jeurgens, John's mother?" A secretary from the school asked.
"Yes, this is she."
"We have a bit of an issue. It appears that John may have broken something in his arm. Would you be able to come pick him up and take him to the hospital? We have called the Children's Hospital nearby, and they agreed to set his arm as quickly as they can. He may even be able to make it back for the afternoon!" The secretary said in an almost relieved tone.
"Oh. Yea, of course I can come get him." After all that worrying, and all he does is break his arm. Wow.
"And that would be the story of the first time John broke his arm," Amy concluded. "I was so shocked when they told me that John broken his arm. I mean, of all the worries a parent has on the first day of school, usually your child breaking their arm is not one of them."
"I remember that! Our Kindergarten class was so worried when John fell down and he started to cry. And it seemed like the whole class sat in the Nurse's office with him," Tony, a boy who had been one of John's best friend from Kindergarten said.
"Yea, and Mina was worried sick that her 'Mam' and 'Pop' would be mad at her for not taking care of her friend. It wasn't until I was about thirteen when I realized that Mina's 'Mam' and 'Pop' were you guys, not her mom and dad," Matthew remarked, gesturing towards Ricky and Amy.
"Well hey, I was the only one who knew him at the time! It was my duty to make sure he didn't get into too much trouble!" Mina said, defending herself.
"Mi, it's ok. No one blames you for already being madly in love with John at the tender age of five. I mean, who wasn't?" Tony added. Mina looked at John for help, but John continued to laugh at his incredibly amusing, yet amazing, friends.
"I knew that it would be better for John if he went to school with Mina intown," Ricky whispered in Amy's ear, bringing her back to reality.
"Yea, I guess you were right." Amy smiled.
A/N: And done! Wow! That was a longer one. Please review! And I have a review topic: Who is so (so so so SO) ready for Secret Life to come back on! So, if you're excited and ready—and don't you dare try to deny you're not—you should review about how ready you are! Yea, that's about it.
Oh and also two things: 1. In case you did not notice, the "blast from the past" was from episode 4x06 (Don't Go in There!), and I just love that scene, so I thought I would throw that in there; 2. I love (love LOVE) the idea of a male Kindergarten teacher. I want to marry one someday (or I want to marry Darren Criss, I haven't decided yet); and 3. I didn't really have a three I just wanted you to review so review! Please!