Anonymous: "How about a princess tea party prompt? :)"
averybody laughs at me because I just write what feels right all the time and so people will be like "Fluffy fun time please" And I'm always like "Sorry, this is depressing."
Sorry to do that again but I feel like if you're asking for this you've read TGO. I don't write TGO oneshots set after the multi-chapter. Sooo, this is going to be very sad but still a princess tea party. I've also never really written a "sad day" exactly…just alluded to them. April's super preggo in this that's how it is in this world at the time this story takes place.
100 Encore, Day 57: "Just Sit Up (Tiaras)" I really can't decide on this title….
"Mama," Arabella whispered knocking on April's bedroom door, "Please can we have princess tea party eben if daddy comin' late?" She peered through the small opening in the door. It had been a happy day, but then her daddy had called and said he'd be working late and her mommy had gotten sad.
They were supposed to have one more princess tea party before baby Laidy came, and because it was a special one, April said Jackson could be invited. He'd known about it for a few days, and while very few dad's are actually excited for everything that comes with a princess tea party, she'd hoped he would understand the importance of spending some time with his family before everything changed again. But some intern had mixed up patient medications or something an now legal was involved and Jackson had to stay late. They were never actually excuses, always valid reasons, but they hurt just the same.
"I'm too tired diva, the baby makes mom so tired lately, you know that."
The baby and Brae and daddy all made mama so tired. None of them even listened when Bellie told them to stop the best way she knew how. She knew her mom had a baby in her belly long before her parents told her, and even after she yelled at her dad because the baby made mom so sad, he still worked so much.
Because her mama didn't yell, Arabella opened the door and walked over to the bed, dragging a bench with her so she could climb up and get in herself. "Mama, the pop so big I can't do snuggles," she giggled.
But April didn't turn her head to look at her daughter. "That's not funny Arabella!"
"Sorry," Bellie sighed and turned from her side to her back. She stopped reaching for her mother's hand under the covers.
Arabella really wanted a tea party. Sometimes she pretended she didn't like them just because her sisters annoyed her, but she liked to play dress up and practice Avery manners because her mom said they were so important to Pop Pop and Nana.
Jackson had called right before dinner, so April had served the girls in silence after she told them the tea party was cancelled, cleaned up and went straight to bed. She tried to take care of the girls, even feeling her worst, Sometimes she'd wake up from a nap after picking Bellie up from school and they'd already have fed themselves. But the point was she'd woken up. They would never go hungry.
And they were usually tucked in with kisses every night, too. As she lay there with her mom, thinking about what to do, Bellie wondered if she would have to be the one to read bedtime stories that night. She couldn't read all words yet, but she knew some and knew a lot of books by heart. She knew she could do it, but she didn't want to. It made her really scared to think of that her mom wouldn't tuck her in that night. On her worst days, mama just told them all to stay in the big bed. She'd never been triggered this late in the day before.
But then Bellie got an idea. "Mommy, we will have a Jama tea party! I will help Tee an Brae get in they jamas astead of dresses. I will get tea an' cuppies an' we will hab tea party in you bed. All you hab to do is just sit up, OK?"
"OK, Bellie." April wiped a tear from her eyes. The tea was iced, the cupcakes were cooling, the cups they used for tea parties were plastic. April was a good mom, she tried.
Energized by her brilliant plan, Bellie kissed her mom's cheek and crawled down from the bed. "Tee, it time fer jammas, k? I will help Brae Brae 'acause we havin' a jamma princess tea party astead a dresses one. Mama too tired fer gettin' up. You hab to get dressed and then bring the cuppies to mama. I will bring Brae an' tea an' cups. You can wear a crown wit jamas. "
Tenley didn't look up from the picture of Ariel she was coloring when Bellie ran into the play room with her orders. She kept on coloring the mermaid's hair, perfectly within the lines. Even when Brae started screaming because Arabella told her it was time for jammas and knocked her blocks over before carefully (yet still quite literally) dragging the toddler out of the room, Tenley kept coloring until Ariel's hair looked perfect. Then she neatly tore the page out of the book, following the seam exactly, no jagged edges.
She smiled at her masterpiece before she ran upstairs to get dressed. The picture was meant for daddy, but it was colored like a big girl would do it, so it would make her mama happy.
Tenley got dressed and then grabbed everyone's tiaras for them. She kept Brae's in her room so it wouldn't break. And she went to Bellie's room to get hers just because.
"Fer you," she said to her big sister when she went into Brae's room, handing her a plastic tiara.
"Oh thanks," Bellie rolled her eyes at Brae, who was wiggling around in just a diaper on the floor, screaming. "She don't wanna come."
"I her helper.I not big to reach cuppies."
"Fine, that one's ridic-a-lis." She pointed to her sister and stormed out of the room.
Tenley got on the floor and looked Brae in the eyes. "Come on Brae, we get you jamas on and go have a tea party wit mama."
"Ja ma?" Brae hadn't seen her mom in too long. She was scared
"Yea you don't be loud, jammas on, we go to mama." Tenley kissed her sister's cheek. Bellie never understood that if you just told her what was happening and listened carefully, Brae was not hard to talk to. But even her mama got angry about it a lot.
Twenty minutes later and Bellie and Tee had carried everything where it needed to be. They even let Brae carry the empty cups on their last transporting trip.
"Ma hi!" Brae crawled over to her mom when her sisters lifted her into the king size bed, putting a hand right on her mouth. The girls had a system. This time, they used the bench as a table, so a random chair helped them to climb on to the bed. Tenley stayed down and passed everything, including her sister, to Bellie who set the bench as a table.
"Hi cub," April yawned and sat up in bed. She'd fallen back asleep after Bellie had left her. "Oh what is this?" She glanced down at the bench, which had four tea cups and four cupcakes set on them, plus the extra bottle of iced tea and a plastic knife because mama always cut Brae's food.
"Princess Tea Jama party!" Bellie smiled slowly, unsure of how her mom would react.
"Here a coloring I maded fer ummm…" Tenley paused. She hated lying. "You!"
April gasped, huge grin on her face as she took the picture. "Me? You did all of this for me?"
"Yeah acause all we gotta do is carry it acause you too tired to come. No big deal. We didn't eben drop one thing asept Brae try to walk an falled but she just said 'moo' wen she falled." Bellie wrinkled her nose and shrugged.
"She sayed 'boom'" Tenley corrected, handing her mom a tiara.
"Did you say 'boom' lion cub?"
Braelyn nodded. "Moo."
"Boom!" April tried again, knocking their heads together gently.
"Boo!" Brae giggled. Close enough.
"You girls thought of everything," April said a few minutes later when she finished cutting up the baby's cupcake into eight pieces and started feeding her. "One," she said, as Brae took the first bite.
Tenley cut her cupcake into eighths when her mom was done with the knife and started counting in her head too.
"Yeah," Bellie nodded. "Too bad fer daddy but now we can sleep wit you right mama?"
"Of course! I want lots of snuggles even though I have a big pop."
Bellie glared at her mom skeptically, but didn't want to make her sad again. "Uhh we will try."
This time April started laughing hysterically. "But hey girls, we can't tell daddy anything about this right? He doesn't like eating in bed.
"Or babies," Bellie rolled her eyes.
"Girls ony," Tee shrugged. No big deal. There were tons of those.
"Girls only," April kissed each of her babies. "When you are done please brush your teeth and wash your face and then you can come back here." She would get up, she just didn't see the point. Washing up for bed themselves was nothing compared to setting up a tea party.
But they sang a song before they were finished, and agreed on the story Bellie would grab from the bookshelf.
The girls fell asleep that night in April's bed with a tiara attached to some part of their body. Tenley's was tangled in her hair, which her mom didn't have the energy to braid; Bellie's was on her stomach, where it migrated sometime after she put it over her face, trying to make her baby sister laugh; Somehow, Braelyn's was dangling off her left foot. Only April didn't wear hers on her body. She'd carefully placed it on Jackson's bedside table before she pulled her babies close to her and fell back asleep.