Over the next two days, Reid and Maeve, as well as several members of the team, mostly Garcia, were near constant fixtures in the hospital nursery. Currently, Garcia and Reid were arguing over whether or not their teddy bears should be in the incubators with them.
"Come on Reid…let them have their bears…"
"Right now they're not strong enough nor do they have the awareness of their surroundings to avoid suffocation. It's not safe, I'm not going to leave something in there with them that they might accidently smother themselves with…" He said firmly, he could just imagine it…paternal failure before his children even saw their own home…that had to be some kind of record, one he wasn't going to break, not as long as he could avoid any such risk. Even if that risk came from gifts given to them by their well-meaning godmother.
The twins and Maeve were coming home in just a few hours, everything was ready… the nursery was clean and decorated, the rest of the house was a safe place now and the kitchen was stocked with sterilized baby bottles ready to be filled. Spencer had come home just long enough to move the bassinettes into the master bedroom, because this is where the twins would sleep for at least the first six months… he had the baby gates set up to keep Peanut out of their room and the nursery… there were baby monitors taped to the wall in every room and in both bassinets and both cribs…
He carried the infant car seats out to the garage and fitted them to the back seat of his 1965 Volvo… without these the hospital wouldn't release the twins… which is why it bothered him that he hadn't done thing part a long time ago. Once he was confident that the car seats were secure, he drove back to the hospital.
It was a warm summer afternoon when they brought the twins out to the waiting car. He felt Evina shut her eyes tightly and bury her face in his shoulder in response to her first glimpse of the outdoor summer sun. He set her down gently in the infant car seat and strapped her securely in, then he did the same with her brother before opening the passenger side for Maeve. Once everyone else was safely inside the car, Reid got in the driver's seat and drove home.
Nana, who had gone ahead of them, was taking Peanut for a walk so that they had a good half hour home together as a family without having to wonder how they were going to introduce their children to their ten-month old puppy…
"Well here we are… we're home…"
They took the twins upstairs to the nursery
"This…is your room…but you two don't sleep in here yet… you get to sleep in the other room with mommy and daddy…" Spencer told them, as if the three day old infants could understand.
There were a few additions to the nursery, there was a gift from Morgan in the form of a finished, child-proofed shelving unit that was painted lavender and green and had the phrase "My First Book Shelf" across the top in rainbow bubble letters. There was also a magnetic bulletin board with magnets big enough that there was no way the twins could swallow them at this stage. Currently the words "Welcome Home" were written in JJ's elegant handwriting in pink dry erase marker. On Morgan's bookshelf, in addition to baby and toddler books that Jack and Henry had long outgrown, sat Blake's gift… a picture book containing the alphabets of various world languages. Rossi had left a small, green stereo and an mp3 player containing Italian classical music.
They were all there… each and every member of his team had brought something, something that didn't just reflect their shared family-like bond, and their welcoming the twins into that bond… but each gift reflected a piece of the person who had given it. To Reid and Maeve, it was all so perfect…