His Boy
Chapter Forty: Daycare
Harry peeked excitedly out of the preschool classroom window near the reading corner. It was nearly eleven-thirty, time for pick up, and he was anticipating the awesomeness that was about to come.
It was Monday, the first day that Remus's daycare would be open and Harry was going to get to spend the entire afternoon there. He had been talking to Marny that morning, as per usual as she was his best friend at school, and she had told him she was going to be going to the day care as well since her mummy was working there now. Remus had offered Diane a job where she would be able to know her younger children were safe and still be home at night. And it would take a lot of stress off of Natalie so she could be a regular kid instead of always having to spend the nights looking after her two younger siblings. Sirius would be helping out on Mondays and Wednesdays every other week as well.
"Here they come!" Harry bounced up and down excitedly, calling to Marny who was playing nearby. She looked up from the doll she was rocking and stood up. The doll fell to the floor and she raced to peer out the window as well.
Sure enough, Remus was strolling down the walk holding the hand of a little girl from the kindergarten afternoon class. She was all smiles, jabbering on and on about things while bouncing from one foot to the other. She opened the preschool door and they entered. Harry and Marny dashed over from the window.
"Moony! Moony!" Harry hugged him round the leg, bouncing excitedly.
"Hey guys, let's get your stuff." Remus laughed, letting go of the kindergarten girl who looked at Harry and Marny proudly.
"I'm Jessie. I'm helping get you cause I dun have school til this afternoon."
"Right, no school for Jessie for another hour and it only takes five minutes to get here, so we have plenty of time to go back and play some more." Remus explained, helping Marny with the buttons on her jacket while Harry zipped his up and pulled on his backpack.
"Cool!" Harry smiled, glad he would have a chance to play with Jessie as well as Marny. It was always fun to make new friends, he thought.
Jessie beamed with pride as she helped by carrying Marny's bag for her, liking that she was a big girl compared to the two pre-schoolers. "We can play lots and you can be my little sister."
"Okay." Marny smiled, glad that Jessie was nice.
"Alright, that's you two sorted, now where's Sebastian?" Remus asked, rising and looking around the room for the little brown haired boy who was supposed to be joining them. There was a flash of green behind Miss Nancy's skirt as she came over, holding a small hand. She pulled Sebastian out from behind her.
"Here he is, Remus. He's a little nervous about daycare."
"It's okay, Sebastian!" Harry reached out a comforting hand, taking Sebastian's. He didn't know Sebastian very well as they weren't at the same work table, but he did know he liked green and cars. "We're gonna have fun. My Moony is really nice."
Sebastian sniffled and let go of Miss Nancy's hand, clinging onto Harry's. He rubbed at his nose with the sleeve of his jacket, looking like he felt a tiny bit better now that he knew there would be familiar faces at daycare. Harry smiled at him encouragingly and Marny came to hold his other hand.
"It's okay, Sebastian. My mommy will be there too. She's really nice. And my baby brudder, Nathan, too. He's okay." Marny smiled and Sebastian returned a small smile as well.
"Got your bag, Sebastian? Alright then, well, let's head out." Remus smiled kindly and they headed out into the parking lot. "Jessie and Marny, I want you on one side holding hands. Harry and Sebastian on the other side." The children did as they were told and Remus took their hands, toting along two children on each side, keeping them with him and safe as they walked down the sidewalk.
The day care was only one block away from the school, making it good for pick-ups and drop-offs as well as being close to the various shops in town should they run out of anything. Not that they would with the ability to just duplicate anything, but still, it was handy to have.
It was nice to stroll through town with the crisp blue sky overhead full of sunshine, the signs of new growth all around them. The air was warm and smelt quite nice, like freshly overturned earth from the gardens of people who had been starting them. Harry started skipping, unable to contain his joy at being going to the daycare on such a beautiful day. Sebastian laughed and started skipping as well. This led to the girls skipping, and finally, Remus laughed and joined them, unable to help it. There was so much joy here, in this simple walk down the sidewalk with four children who had not a single care in the world. This was the way the world should always be.
When they arrived at the daycare, lunch was already made up, Sirius and Diane sitting at the large picnic table with little Nathan working on feeding himself little bits of cereal.
"Paddy!" Harry laughed, letting go of Sebastian and Remus's hands and running straight for him. Sirius beamed, tugging him up onto his lap and hugging him.
"Hey mate. Did you have fun at school?"
"Yep! And look, Sebastian came with us too!"
"I see that. How are you doing, Sebastian? Do you like peanut butter and jelly?"
"Yes." Sebastian smiled shyly, still a bit nervous about daycare but looking more and more like he was feeling better about it despite his anxiety. He climbed up onto one of the picnic table benches as Harry slid off of Sirius's lap to sit beside him. "And pickles."
"Well it's good that we're having peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and pickles for lunch today then." Diane smiled as she hugged Marny and Marny kissed Nathan on the head. She and Jessie climbed onto the benched by their plates and all of the kids dug in, hungry after their nice little walk from school.
Once lunch was finished they headed inside. The kids took off their shoes and coats and put them in the cubbies marked with their names. Sirius and Remus set up the three pre-schoolers at one of the tables in the art area to do their homework while Jessie helped Diane wash Nathan's face clean and get him settled down upstairs for his afternoon nap.
"We can do our homework together every day now." Harry announced happily to Marny and Sebastian, holding a red crayon over the picture of the letter T dancing with a turtle that had a lowercase t on it's shell.
"Yeah!" Marny agreed excitedly, scribbling her turtle a nice bright yellow even though most turtles were not yellow. Sebastian picked a nice green for his turtle, liking it best out of all the colors anyway and started coloring away at his page happily. It didn't take very long to have all of their pages done and back in their individual homework folders.
"How about we go play outside now, since it's such a nice day?" Sirius suggested brightly and the children cheered, running for the door. Shoes were put back on, jackets were zipped and buttoned up and then all of the children raced out to the playground area, Jessie taking the lead for the merry-go-round.
"Who wants to spin!?" She shouted, climbing on and sitting down to grab hold of the bars. Harry joined her, sitting down on the other side of the merry-go-round while Marny and Sebastian decided they would rather play on the see-saw. Sirius grabbed hold of the merry-go-round bar and began to push it, running around it quickly to get it moving fast enough to thrill the two kids, but not so fast that it scared them or made them want to throw up.
Harry cheered, laughing as the world spun around him brilliantly. Colors zoomed by, a mesh of new green, brown, and the sweet lilac of the house trimmed with white. He could see Marny's blue coat and Sebastian's green one getting down off of the see saw and running for the swings where Moony began to push them, one with each arm.
Outdoor playtime soon ended when the clock struck twenty past noon and Jessie had to be taken to kindergarten. Diane offered to do it and off they went, strolling down the sidewalk, little girl with a backpack on.
Harry roared, looming over Marny and Sebastian with a stuffed dinosaur. He held it high. "Rawr! Rawr! I'm gonna eat you! Rawr!" The other two pretended to be scared, half laughing, half screaming as they ran away from Harry and the dinosaur. They raced around the play area, chasing one another until it was about one o'clock and Remus came to calm them down.
"Alright guys, we need to quiet down because it's quiet time. That means we're going to go upstairs and I want you all to lay down and have a nice rest while I read to you."
"But Moony I dun need a nap!" Harry shook his head. He liked books, but he didn't like having to lay down when he wasn't sleepy!
"That's alright, Harry. You don't have to sleep, but you do have to come lay down and listen to the story because it's quiet time." Remus explained, ushering them towards the stairs. Harry pouted, crossing his arms as he followed Marny to the stairs. He wasn't the least bit sleepy!
They went up to the older nap room and got mats and pillows from the shelves, laying them out in a row on the floor before flopping down on them. Remus covered them each with a blanket and sat down in a rocking chair that was in the room with a book. He began to read, his voice filling the little ones' minds with images of pirates and treasure. Soon though, all three children had their heads resting peacefully down on the pillows, their eyes closed. Nothing but Remus's voice and the images of the story flitting through their minds as they were lulled into a peaceful resting bliss of half asleep limbo. Once the story was finished, Remus rose from the chair and turned on the small tape player on top of one of the book shelves. Soothing music filled the room, simple classical lullabies without words.
Harry awoke two hours later around three in the afternoon. He rubbed at his eyes and sat up on his sleep mat, looking around the room. Marny and Sebastian were stirring as well and the tape player had stopped playing it's music a while ago. He stretched, feeling quite refreshed even though he hadn't thought he needed a nap. Moony was tricky that way. He always knew when Harry did actually need a nap despite the little boy's protests.
Harry reached over and gave Sebastian a shake. The other little boy groaned groggily and sat up, looking around. He smiled when he saw Harry and then poked at Marny to get her up.
Sirius peeked into the room just then, knowing Harry usually only slept for two hours when he had a nap. He smiled, seeing the three children up. "Hey guys. Sleep well?"
"Yes." Marny giggled, standing up and dancing around on her mat happily. She did a little boogey move, making the boys laugh and join her.
"Alright then! Good, I'm glad you slept well. Now let's get these mats put up and have some snack."
"Snack!" Sebastian cheered and grabbed up his mat and pillow, shoving them onto one of the shelves the best he could. The other two did the same and they paraded down the stairs and through the play area to the snack tables where they found Jessie already starting in on graham crackers and milk.
"I thought you was at school?" Harry asked as he sat down in one of the chairs and reached for one of the graham crackers sitting on a plate in the middle of the table while Diane handed out three more cups of milk.
"I only have school til three." Jessie explained. "Then I come back here now so my daddy can work. My grandma used to watch me, but she said now she can go home and live at her own house in Bath. She was only staying cause my mummy is gone now and Daddy hasta work."
"My mummy is gone too!" Harry's eyes grew wide at this, not knowing that other kids could lose their parents as well. Or at least, he'd never met anyone else who had before. "And my daddy. So I live with my Paddy, and my Moony, and my Lexie." Harry pointed to Sirius and Remus who were also having a snack of graham crackers, only half of Sirius's seemed to be ending up getting lost when he dipped it into his milk.
"Really?" Jessie's eyes grew wide too. "My mummy went to the circus, where did yours go?"
"Oh…" Harry frowned, confused now. Why was Jessie's mummy at the circus and not with Jessie? "Mine went to heaven."
"Ooooh. That's where my granddad went too." Jessie nodded and took a bite of her graham cracker. Harry sighed. So Jessie's mummy wasn't dead, she was just at the circus. That meant she could come back someday, unlike Harry's mummy and daddy.
"I dun have no dad." Marny said after a moment. "He's a nutter, so we left him."
"I have two mummies." Sebastian stated quite proudly, holding up two of his fingers. "My Mummy and my Muma."
"Cool! I only have one mummy, right Mummy?" Marny smiled, jealous of Sebastian's two mummies, but glad for the mummy she did have.
"That's right dear." Diane smiled and patted her head, wiping away her milk mustache with one finger.
"I used stay at preschool all day with Miss Nancy cause my mummies hafta work all day but now I can come here. I like that better cause now I dun gotta do two of the same things every day cept brush my teeth and snack time." Sebastian beamed and chugged at his milk happily. He was doing a lot better now that he had gotten used to being here. It hadn't taken him long, but his anxiety was gone. He was with two kids he already knew and everyone was really nice here.
"I'm happy cause now I get to see my mummy more and my friends." Marny beamed as well, looking very pleased with this.
""I like it cause I dun gotta watch my grandma's stinky soap operas anymore." Jessie laughed spinning in a circle, having finished her snack.
"I like it too cause it's my Moony's and my friends are here." Harry smiled, shoving the rest of his cracker into his mouth and joining Jessie in her dance. They grabbed hands and bobbed their heads as they spun in a circle together, stopping to let Marny and Sebastian join. They spun and spun laughing and dancing around until Sirius, grinning, joined them.
"Ring around the rosy, a pocket full of posies, ashes, ashes, we all fall down!" He sang loudly and the children laughed, flopping down onto the floor and letting go of each others hands as they did so. Remus joined them for the next round while Diane sat out, clapping and watching with Nathan who was transfixed by their spinning. He laughed, clapping his hands together excitedly and squirming down from his mothers lap. He toddled over to the spinning group and Marny let him in, taking one of his tiny hands while Harry took his other one.
"Baby hands are sticky!" Harry laughed as they resumed spinning, slower this time so Nathan could keep up. When it came time to fall down, they fell backwards, Nathan laughing as he landed on his diapered butt.
After a good few more round of ring around the rosy, the kids were left in an hour long block of time referred to as 'free play'. They were left to their own devices, playing whatever they wanted within the play area. Harry and Sebastian got out a bunch of large plastic cars and trucks and started driving them along the road rug while Marny and Jessie took Nathan over to be their baby in a game of house, closely watched by the adults.
"Let's make a puzzle!" Harry said after a while of playing with cars.
"Okay." Sebastian nodded, liking the idea of puzzles. They pulled one off of a shelf and dumped it's contents down on the puzzle table, sitting down to construct it. Harry wasn't very good at puzzles to be honest. He usually needed help from his Paddy to get them done properly. Sebastian seemed to be good at puzzles though, as he bit his lip to find to right pieces that went together. They had also chosen a puzzle meant for kids a couple years older than them though, one with smaller pieces, at least twenty altogether. This wasn't like the six or ten piece puzzles Harry was used to at home.
"I think this one goes here cause it's got a flat side." Sebastian pointed to one piece and Harry nodded in agreement.
"Yeah, all the flat side ones go around the whole thing. That's what my Paddy says."
"Yeah. That's what my mummies say too." Sebastian smiled and they picked out the flat pieces, putting them along the edges and working at sticking them together in the right order until they had managed to form the outer square area of the puzzle. There were only six pieces left to figure out for the middle now and as they did so, Harry noticed something.
"Sebastian…" He laughed, pointing to the puzzle. "I think we made it upside-down!"
"Huh?" Sebastian looked down at the puzzle as he placed in another piece and then flipped the piece over so it would fit better.
"The sky's here and the grass is over there!"
"Oh! That's funny!" Sebastian started laughing as well, both of them finding the fact that their puzzle was upside-down hilarious. They managed to get the rest of the pieces in, chortling now and then and going crazy once they had completed it.
"Look Paddy! Look Moony! We made it upside-down!" Harry called, laughing and falling to roll around on the floor, hugging his tummy. It was so insanely funny!
"Wow, you guys did a good job then! There aren't many people who can make a puzzle upside-down!" Sirius laughed, watching the two little boys prance about excitedly. They were so very pleased with themselves.
As the day wore on, the kids continued playing, though there was a structured bit of arts and crafts around four thirty where they started workings on making clay pots that they would later be able to paint and put plants in. the flowers would then be grown as a sort of Mother's Day present. Remus wouldn't even need a kiln to dry them in, he knew a simple spell that would do the job a lot faster.
When six o'clock came and it was time for children to be picked up from daycare, the group was back to playing ring around the rosy like a bunch of giddy children. Well, most of them were children, though Remus and Sirius were having a blast with it as well. The doorbell rang And Diane went to answer it, letting in one of Sebastian's mummies and Jessie's dad.
"Daddy!" Jessie squealed and dropped her hands from Harry and Mary's, running for her father who scooped her up, smiling.
"Muma! Mums!" Sebastian called, racing over to his mother and hugging her around the leg as she tousled his hair and gave him a big hug and kiss.
"How was daycare, sweetheart?" She asked, lifting him up and giving him a good snuggle.
"It's the best! Can I come back tomorrow?" Sebastian pleaded, his eyes going wide. "We're had lunch outside! And played on the playground! And did homework and had a story and a nap and snack and played with cars and me 'n' Harry built a puzzle upside-down! "
"Wow, it sounds like you had a great afternoon." Sebastian's mum laughed, setting him down on the floor. "Thank you so much for looking after him so well. My wife and I have always had trouble finding someone to look after him and now we can both work during the day instead of at night."
"He's a great little guy." Remus beamed, reaching out to help Sebastian get his coat buttoned up properly. "We had a lot of fun today, didn't we Sebastian?"
"Yeah we did, Moony!" Sebastian laughed, spinning around in circles. He hugged onto his mum's leg again, smiling brightly.
"I'm so glad you had a good day! It's so lovely to have a nice daycare in the area. I'll have to tell some of my coworkers with small children about it. Especially after seeing how happy Sebastian seems to be here."
"We'll, we're happy to be of service, Lidia." Remus smiled. "See you tomorrow Sebastian."
"Bye Moony! Bye Padfoot! Bye Diane and Harry and Nathan and Jessie and Marny!" Sebastian waves as he and Lidia went out the door, smiling and skipping.
"I have to agree, Jessie seems to be in better spirits than she normally is when I get off work." Jessie's dad smiled, still holding his little girl on his hip. He gave her a tickle and she laughed, eyes shining brightly.
"I helped with the baby all day cept for kindergarten, Daddy! And Marny is my little sister now. And I helped pick the kids up from preschool too."
"Well, it sounds like you had a pretty fun day there, buttercup. Thanks again you guys. I'll have to let the Stubins know how well Jessie's first day here went. They were thinking about sending their two year old along but weren't too sure about it yet."
"We'd be more than pleased to have more kids. We've got quite a few spaces left." Remus smiled happily, glad his daycare's reputation was a lady starting to thrive. They needed ten more children to reach their capacity limit, but in a town this small they were likely to get more around the average of ten children instead of fifteen. Then at least there would always be. Place open in case someone needed emergency care during the day time.
"Oh it would be lovely to see this place teeming with kids." Jessie's dad nodded. "And are you really open for night time emergency's?"
"Yes. Diane lives about two minutes from here and Sirius or I can be here within ten minutes if need be." Remus nodded, glad he had thought of this particular idea when it came to his daycare. He wanted people to be able to rely on him to look after their children on a last minute notice so long as they had the space and proper paperwork done
."Wonderful!" Jessie's dad shook Remus's hand and Jessie waved goodbye as they left.
"Well, that's it for today." Remus sighed, feeling fulfilled from the day's activities. They had done well for their first day of being open. "That was a great first day."
"Any many more to come, Moony." Sirius nodded, hugging Harry on his hip and reaching out to give Remus a one armed hug."
"Many more to come." Remus agreed. He was glad of the path he had chosen.
Wooo! Another one! Yay! I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter, I wasn't quite sure what to do with it at first. Anyways, lemme know what you thought if you'd like to, I always appreciate it very much.
Love always,
S.Q.O.