A/N: I committed to NaNoWriMo and then… well then, I just didn't have time for this. I promise, it'll get better. I just wrote some stuff in my head this morning, so not all is forgotten. Thanks for not abandoning me!
"Whoa sissy, you look fantastic!" Ben gushed as Avery came out of her room in a soft purple Christmas dress.
"Thanks so most, Ben. I feel fantastic! I am ready for my singing thing tonight."
"I 'member my last Christmas pageant," he started wistfully. "I was a lot of fun. What is in your Christmas pageant sissy? Lots of songs?"
"Yes. We are doing a… uh… being in a barn. Teacher calls it a big word. I am a angel. Get to wear a halo thing an' wings mama maked."
"That's cool! I only got to wear a Santa hat when I done it."
Avery nodded and the pair started down the stairs, Ben being careful not to crowd her too much. She'd been excited for her Christmas pageant for weeks, asking lots of questions about the nativity scene that her religious preschool had decided upon. Lindsay had been the one to field most of the questions, as Adam's churching had only come in the form of sporadic Bible summer camps. Avery didn't seem to think too deeply about it, just went with the flow and enjoyed practicing her Christmas songs.
"I am ready to go," Avery announced, spinning in a circle at the bottom of the stairs and smiling brightly. "Just gotta get some shoes on."
"How about your fancy plop-plops?" Ben asked, pulling the slightly heeled shoes from the basket by the door.
"Nah, those are slippery. I think I will wear my pink ones."
She pulled the pair of Converse from the basket and held them out to Ben, who was more than happy to tie them for her.
"Where is everyone?" he asked, once he was finished.
"Maybe daddy is heatin' up the car! He does that so we do not get cold."
Ben nodded and they looked out the window, finding Adam, Lindsay, and Colton in the front yard, having a snowball fight.
"Hey! They are having a great time without us! And here we are in our fancies and cannot go out!"
"We shall get our coats an' stand on the porch to watch," Avery decided, pulling her coat off the hook and putting it on. "C'mon Ben."
They bundled up and ventured out to the porch, standing there together on the first step and giggling at the antics of the rest of the family. Adam and Lindsay were the ones really engaged in an intense battle, Colton was just firing off snowballs as fast as he could make them, not caring who he hit.
"Hey-o, y'all! Didja forget about sissy's performance tonight?"
"Daddy tackled me into the snow!"
"Mama called me a stinker!"
"Then daddy hit me with a snowball," Lindsay explained, slipping a little but catching herself before she really fell down. "He smashed it in my face."
"Yeah, but then he kissed you," Colton retorted with a grin. "And you shoved snow in his ear."
"Boy, you two are brutal," Ben sighed, shaking his head.
"Sorry bud. Sometimes I just can't help teasin' your mama like that."
"Why?"
"Because she's so cute when she tries to get me back."
"That's weird," Colton sighed, standing up and dusting the snow off of himself. "Hey Aves, you look great."
"Thanks Coley! I am so happy to go tonight. If mama and daddy would ever become grown-ups again."
The kids all chuckled and Adam and Lindsay tried to make themselves presentable, but they were going to have to change clothes before they could leave. Herding the kids back inside, they checked the time and headed upstairs tossing the wet clothes on the floor and rifling through the closet for something else to wear.
"Hey," Adam starting still breathing heavy from the exertion and cold air outside. "How badly does Avery need to go to this thing?"
Lindsay smiled, not needing to look at him to know he was giving her a slow once over.
"Just imagine how upset she would be if we told her we weren't going, and tell that to your libido," she said, sliding into a pair of jeans.
"Yeah, okay. But in three hours when we get home again…"
"I'm all yours."
He smiled and pulled her towards him, catching her in a searing kiss that made her start questioning how long it would take Avery to forgive them for not making it to her pageant.
"We aren't allowed to change in a hurry together anymore," she said, pulling away from him and grabbing a shirt.
"Okay, I can live with that."
"Let's go so we can get back."
"Yes ma'am."
"It's sure good to be back at my old stompin' grounds," Ben said with a sigh as he looked around the auditorium. "I sure miss the simple days of going to preschool at this place."
Colton snickered and leaned down to tie his shoe. Every day it became more apparent that there was an age gap between Ben and himself, and while he loved his brother, sometimes he found himself laughing at Ben rather than with him. He tried to cover it up, he knew how sensitive his brother could be, but occasionally he had to have a chortle over it all.
Ben began chattering excitedly to Junior about his preschool days and Junior listened intently, still slightly jealous that Ben had gone and he had not.
"So how's your ma doing?" Colton asked, leaning over to Sarah to talk to her.
"She's okay. She's been going back to work for a little while some days. She says she hates doing paperwork all day and just interviews and stuff but she knows she can't do much else right now."
"Yeah, your ma isn't one for just sitting around all the time," Colton confirmed. "How come Isa decided to stay home with her tonight?"
"I don't know. Isabeth's been acting pretty strange since everything happened. She cries sometimes."
"She does?"
"Yeah. It's kind of freaky. Isabeth never usually cries."
"She doesn't tell me anything about all this. She acts just the same to me as before. Maybe I should try and talk to her more."
"It couldn't hurt. I know that she cares what you think."
"I'll do that then."
"Oh, it's starting!"
They all stopped their conversations as the line of preschoolers filed across the stage excitedly. They all spotted Avery quickly, for she was the only redhead in the class and the one who was waving the most enthusiastically. The kids began to sing their first song, at various speeds and volumes, the signature of any children's performance.
"They must have practiced a long time," Sarah noted. "They're all pretty good."
"You think so?" Colton whispered back in shock.
"Yes. Confidence is most of the journey and they all have it."
He chuckled and shook his head, watching as Avery caught her halo out of the corner of her eye and began to tip her head back to get a better look at it. The act of reaching her hands up to grasp it sent her stumbling backwards and right into the manger. The audience gasped while the rest of the kids kept singing, unaware that their clumsy counterpart was stuck in the manger, her legs kicking frantically as she tried to get out.
"Pretty good?" Colton laughed, taking a look at Sarah's horrified face.
"Oh, poor Averylin! I wish someone would help her."
"She'll be fine," Colton assured as Avery finally managed to get herself upright, shaking her head and turning back to look in the manger.
"I crushed the baby Jesus!" she hollered, yanking the doll into her arms and patting his back. "It's okay! He's fine!"
She moved back to stand with her classmates, holding the plastic doll and singing as if nothing had happened, as if her family wasn't sitting there trying not to laugh. She wouldn't have minded anyway, had she known.
"Our children should never be on stage," Adam whispered while Lindsay hid her face in her hands.
"I agree completely."
"But sissy is pretty darn adorable up there. That's what me and Junior think," Ben added. "And I'm gonna tell her that."
"You don't need to, Ben. She already knows."
Ben shrugged and turned back to the stage, wrinkling his forehead up at what he saw.
"I thought I warned her not to dance," he said after a moment. "I reminded her about my embarrassment that one time."
"I don't think she's dancing to the music buddy," Adam chuckled as Avery ditched the doll and ran off the stage. "I think that was a potty dance."
"Wow, this night isn't going so good for sissy, is it?"
"I don't think she minds."
Avery was gone for a few minutes, and when she came back, her costume was tucked into her underwear in the back. Her teacher noticed it before most of the audience and was able to fix the problem quickly. Avery seemed embarrassed but joined the rest of her class for the final number, singing for all she was worth.
Once the kids had taken a bow and filed off the stage, Avery bounded over to them crashing into Adam's legs with a laugh.
"Daddy, do you think I done most good?"
"You did very well, Tink."
"Great. It was fun. Except when I falled in the manger. I began to worry I would not get out of it."
"Yeah sissy, you really managed that manger," Ben laughed. "I sure like to make puns."
He laughed at his own joke as everyone put on their coats and gloves to go outside to the car. Avery chattered excitedly about the backstage antics and how Mary's dress had been ripped in a scuffle but was patched up "most well" by their teacher, just in time to go onstage. Clearly it had been an evening fraught with adventure.
"Well Thomas, I should tell you about our family meeting tonight," Avery started, choosing some pajamas out of her drawer. "You were snoring on me so you did not hear what mama and daddy said."
The dog looked up at her expectantly and she clucked her tongue.
"Well mama and daddy said tonight that someday, we will have another kid in our family. They said to us that they do not know when or who but this new kid will be what is called adopted. That means that its first mama and daddy could not take care of it and so someone else wants to be the kids family. Won't that be fun Thomas? We may have a sister soon! Another little lady in our home. She would share a room with you and me. Mama said that they would like for me to have a sister but it could be a brother too, so we should be ready. I do like having brothers as well. So we will see. Coley asked if it would be a baby and daddy said probably not. And that is the most information I got for you. What do you think 'bout that, Thomas?"
The dog just turned three times and settled down on the end of the bed while Colton and Ben came into the room, sporting their pajamas as well.
"Hey Aves. What's up?"
"Nothin' I was just speaking to Thomas about the new child of someday we will have."
"What do you think about it?"
"Oh, I think it will be most great. I wish for a sister."
"I don't know," Ben sighed, sitting down on the bed and patting Thomas gently. "Can we fit another kid in this house?"
"It doesn't matter," Colton shrugged. "A crowded house is better than no house at all. Or a home where the parents aren't good."
"Well I just think that mama and daddy are so busy and they try real hard to spend time with all of us but if there was another kid here then they couldn't do that as much."
"I know. I think that too. But what is more important, Ben? A kid having a home or us hogging all that love from mama and daddy?"
"Well of course having a home, Cole! I am just concerned about how it will work out."
Colton nodded and sat down on the bed as well, smiling when Avery took a seat next to him, leaning her head on his shoulder.
"It will be an adjustment. Just like when we got Thomas. Or like when Aves came home from the hospital, Ben. That turned out okay, right?"
"Well of course, sissy is the greatest!"
"But you didn't like her at first."
"You did not like me Ben?"
"I had a hard time with the adjustment!" Ben defended. "I was only three!"
"But look at it now. You and Aves are practically best friends. How would life be without her?"
Ben's eyes filled up with tears and he tossed his arm around Avery protectively.
"I don't ever want to think about a life without sissy."
"Once we have this other kid in our family, you will not want to imagine life without it either."
"Okay, I trust you, Cole."
"So we are all happy about this, right?"
"Right!"
"This will be a really good thing. And we have to help mama and daddy any way that we can. So from now on, we will not argue about doing anything."
"I don't argue anyway."
"Ben, yesterday when mama asked you to take the garbage out, you took your shoes off and tossed them across the room and said you couldn't because you'd have to put your shoes back on."
"Yeah, that was kind of a good one."
Colton sighed, trying not to laugh. The look on Lindsay's face had been hilarious.
"But Ben, you can't do that anymore, no matter how funny it is. We need to be really good kids so mama and daddy don't stress out about it, you know?"
"I gotcha, Cole. I will try not to talk back."
"An' I will be so very most good," Avery promised. "I will not get the gimmes no more."
"That's good, Aves. We'd better get to bed. Want us to tuck you in?"
Avery laughed and nodded, scooting under her blankets while the boys fluffed her pillows and tucked her in as tightly as they could.
"Sleep good Aves. I love you."
"I love you too Coley."
Both boys leaned down to kiss her cheeks before scooting out of the room, closing the door partway behind them.
"I guess I do really like being a big brother," Ben mused as the two of them climbed into their beds. "And being a big brother to another kid would be okay."
"I think so too. I think we're pretty good brothers to Aves, so we might as well be to another kid."
"If we end up getting a brother, could you promise me somethin' Cole?"
"Sure."
"Just promise that you and me will be a team like we are now. We'll like our brother but you and me have history, you know?"
Colton nodded.
"Ben, you're my best friend. Even though I call Isa my best friend and Junior is yours, you and me have a different kind of relationship because we are brothers first and we always will be. It's like how you and Aves are really close to each other and you have a relationship that's different than you and me."
"I think I get it. And you just let me know when you need help being the oldest. I'm sure it's a tough job."
"Yeah, it can get a little stressful."
"Thanks for being my brother Cole. Goin' through life together like we are. I'm glad for that. And I hope that someday there is another kid in our family what thinks the same thing."
"I'm sure there will be, Ben. I can't wait."