"OK, so this is Video Diary Entry Number Seven.
So I thought today, I'd tell you a little about your family. There's me of course. Seeley Joseph Booth. Your Daddy. What can I tell you? I'm pretty tall, and I guess I'm fairly good looking, at least that's what your mother says. I was raised Catholic. That's your religion. We're Catholics and I guess God is pretty important to me. I was a pretty normal kid. I played a lot of sport, I didn't really like school much. When I grew up I was a soldier for a while, but now I work for the FBI. They are like police, but much better." Booth smiled.
"I have a brother, Jared. He's younger than me. We don't really get along too well. He's in the Navy. I haven't seen him for a really long time. He and I were brought up by our grandfather. Your great grandfather. I call him Pops but his name is Hank, Hank Booth. Your sister Christine calls him Grumpy Hank. Not because he's grumpy, but because when she was little she couldn't say Grandpa. Well, sometimes he is a little grumpy.
You have a Grandmother. My Mommy. She is Nana Marianne. And you have Grandpa Max who is Mommy's Daddy. And there is also Mommy's brother, Russell and his family. We don't see them too often as they live on the other side of the country. I guess this is all pretty confusing right now, but once you meet everyone, you'll get the hang of it."
Booth picked up a photo and held it up to the camera. "This is your big brother Parker. He's a teenager now. He doesn't live with us. He lives with his Mommy. She and I. Um, we. He doesn't live with us. He's in high school and will be going off to college soon, but he does visit occasionally. He's pretty tall like me, and a loves sports." Booth looked at the picture, remembering the day it was taken.
It was their last day in Australia. They were standing with their arms around each other's shoulders. Parker's hair was blowing in the breeze so it looked like it was standing straight up in the air. Parker was almost as tall as Booth. They were both grinning straight at the camera. We have the same smile and eyes Booth thought looking at the picture. "He's looking forward to having two little brothers. He wants to teach you all kinds of cool stuff like how to throw a football, how to steal a base. That's baseball. And how to ride a bike. Although I told him that I actually want to teach you how to ride. We'll have to talk about that one. Maybe he can help because there are two of you."
He put the photo down and held up another one "This sweet little lady is your sister. Christine Angela. We named her after your Mommy's mother and her best friend, your Aunty Angela. She's six years old and is dying for you two to hurry up and be born so she can start bossing you around. I have to warn you. She's a lot like her mother, so, we guys. We have to band together or else we will have no hope." He smiled brightly at the camera "she looks like me except for her eyes. She has your Mommy's beautiful blue eyes. I wonder what colour your eyes will be and who you will look like? You are identical the doctor says, so I guess that means we might even have trouble telling you apart!" he pondered. Then set the photo to one side.
"and this" Booth held up a photo of a bride. "This beautiful lady is your Mommy. This was the day we got married. The best day of my life." He said looking down at the photo, a smile playing on his lips. "It took a long time for us to get to that day." he continued, his fingers playing over the photo, tracing the contour of her face. "We first met about fifteen years ago, I guess. We worked on a case together. I remember I kissed her and then later on she slapped me. Not all in the same day. Anyway. We didn't see each other for a couple of years after that. Then, one day I found out she was going to be working with the FBI. Between you and me, I can say that I wasn't exactly thrilled. Your Mommy was kind of bossy and we didn't really like working with each other at first. But we sorted it out eventually."
Booth smiled down at the photo and laid it to one side, picking up another one. It was of them, dressed up as a Squint and Wonder Woman. He grinned, holding it up in front of the camera "See us? It was Halloween and everyone at work got dressed up for a party, but your Mommy and I had go off to catch a bad guy instead." He looked at the photo again, "Your Mommy looked really hot that day! She didn't think I noticed, but I did" he said grinning widely.
"Anyway we had a lot of ups and downs along the way, but one day, we suddenly realised that we really loved each other, and we had your sister. Then we got married, and now we're having you two! Well, that's your family!"
He switched off the camera and smiled. The twins were due in about seven weeks and he was getting excited and nervous. They were going for a scan next week to check on the size and development of the babies. He wanted to try to get the video footage from the scan to include in his video, but getting it without Brennan finding out why wasn't going to be easy.
What Booth didn't know was that Brennan had been standing in the doorway listening to him for most of his recording. She had woken up from her nap and gone looking for him. She wasn't prepared for what she found. Once again, Booth had taken her by surprise by making a video for their children. Tears had trickled down her face as she listened to him describing their family to the camera. She had almost laughed out loud when he talked about when they had first met. She had snuck away from the study to wipe her face, just as he was finishing up and got about half way back up the stairs when she heard the study door. She turned around and started coming back down the stairs slowly.
"You're awake!" Booth said as he saw her coming down the stairs. She smiled, her heart filling to the brim with love for this wonderful man, her husband and father of her children. "I was hoping you would wake up soon. I wanted to start putting that crib together this afternoon" he added. He met her at the bottom of the stairs, holding out his arms to her as she stepped onto the bottom step and wrapped her arms around his neck. He nuzzled her breasts, kissing each one, then bending down and kissing her tummy. "How are you feeling?" he asked her looking up into her blue eyes. They were particularly bright.
"I feel wonderful! A bit hungry." she smiled at him, stroking his cheek. She loved the feel of the soft scruff on his face. He never seemed to get that hard scratchy bristle that some men did. "Can I get you something?" he asked her, holding her elbow as she stepped off the bottom step. Her feet were encased in his old slippers again, he noticed.
"No, that's OK. I'm just going to grab some fruit I think and a glass of lemonade and I'll come back up and sit with you while you put the crib together." she said. Booth nodded and watched her wander into the kitchen "Can you grab me a couple of apples?" he called out after her as he started up the stairs.
The nursery was in shambles.
They had gone a little crazy on their shopping day last month. Not only had they bought a new crib. They had bought a new twin pram, matching linen for the cribs, two new baby seats, two new mobiles to hang over the cribs, six huge boxes of disposable nappies, despite Brennan's dislike of them, she realised that with two babies, she would never be able to keep up with all the washing and so she relented, and several sets of tiny blue baby clothing.
Booth's favourite thing was the baby clothes. He could have gone completely crazy and bought out half the store. They had tiny basketball and hockey uniforms, and sporting jerseys, teeny little soft baby sneakers, baby baseball caps with team logos. Brennan had rolled her eyes and told him that she wanted her babies to actually look like babies for at least a few months, and not like miniature athletes. Booth had put back the two pair of baby sneakers and the little baseball caps. She had however, relented and let him have the Flyers bibs and two little Flyers jumpsuits. She had seen his face when he first saw all the sporting baby stuff. She couldn't deny him a couple of things.
The rest of the baby clothing however, was more traditional. Blue sleepsuits, blue and white singlets, blue booties, some tiny blue hats, and several blue baby blankets. The weather would be changing by the time the babies arrived and they would be well into Fall. She reminded Booth that they would probably receive a lot of baby clothes for boys as gifts when the twins were born, and that they would possibly grow out of some of them before they even got to wear them, the same way Christine had outgrown some of her tiny newborn outfits before she had even worn them.
He could see the point of what she was saying and agreed that it made sense although the sales woman was seeing dollar signs and tried her hardest to make a big sale. Brennan was however, really excited about the new double pram that the woman had convinced her she needed. It had independently reclining seats and was only 28 inches wide so that it would fit through all standard doorways and was one of the lightest double buggies available. She had been worrying about getting one that was going to be manageable if she was out on her own. It had been expensive, but as far as she was concerned it was worth every cent of the thousand dollars it had cost her.
Of course Booth had thrown his hands in the air and acted as though she was literally throwing money on the sidewalk for strangers to pick up. But as she had pointed out to him, if she was going to stay at home for a while after she had the twins, and he was going to go back to work, she needed to be able to get out of the house occasionally. And a manageable pram was mandatory. He wasn't going to be around every time she wanted to go for a walk or even just wheel the babies out to the back yard while she did some gardening.
Brennan also pointed out that she could have spent a lot more if she had purchased one with mobile phone chargers and drink chillers included. She had, of course, absolutely no intention of wasting money on something as frivolous as that, but she wanted to make the point to Booth that it was a good purchase. He had relented and admitted that it was very light as he loaded it into the back of their car, realising that she wouldn't be able to lug around a huge, cumbersome twin pram by herself, and praising himself for making a wise purchase in the end.
Booth kneeled down and got himself settled on the floor. He pulled the box containing the small parts of the new crib towards himself. Using a box cutter he opened it and started pulling out the components. The base was separate, as were the four sides. He literally just had to put it all together. He had put Christine's crib together six years earlier with a minimum of fuss. At least that's how he remembered it.
Brennan however had a different recollection of the afternoon that resulted in him putting his fist through the base of the crib, and her having to take him to the emergency room to have it X-rayed while on the way to purchase a new base, and arrange for someone to come to the house and put it together for them. But she wasn't going to bring that up. Best to let sleeping dogs lie.
After about two hours of him groaning and grumbling about the quality of the parts, he finally threw the screwdriver across the room, embedding it in one of the nappy boxes. Brennan was sitting in the rocking chair quietly reading a book, looking up occasionally to watch his face getting redder and redder. He eventually threw his hands up and looked at her, exasperated. "This is impossible!" he announced. "I don't know how they expect anyone to be able to put these things together. Just look at these instructions! They're not even in English! Just a bunch of poorly drawn pictures!" his voice strained.
Brennan smiled and held up her phone. "Shall I ring the store or do you want to?" she asked, trying very hard not to smile. She had wanted to just arrange for the crib to be put together and delivered, but Booth, being Booth had argued that it didn't take a genius to put together a simple crib. It was just four sides, a base and some legs! How hard can it be? His own words ringing in his ears. Booth gritted his teeth and reluctantly admitted his defeat. "Fine" he said shortly. "You call them." He got to his feet and retrieved the screw driver from the box of nappies. "Here. You better return this when they come. It's the wrong type, doesn't fit the screws." he said handing it to her.
Brennan simply nodded and tried to look sympathetic to his plight. He had no sooner left the room when she burst out laughing. She pulled the Phillips head connection out of the convertible handle and turned it around to the flat screwdriver, pushing it back into the handle and clicking it into place, then put it back in the box of parts. The instructions were clearly printed on the side of the handle. She didn't have the heart to tell Booth.
Not yet anyway.