Everyone and anything familiar belongs to Janet. Mistakes are mine alone.
"You're an evil woman, Babe," I felt the need to point out.
"Noooo ... I'm not. I was just being a good wife and a responsible mother. You didn't want Olive to get - or try to eat - a bunch of Halloween candy, so I thought I'd be nice and offer the guys a trick or treat alternative so they wouldn't feel like she was getting gypped."
"Which leads back to the evil part of my statement. Although you're trying hard to appear innocent, I know you just wanted to torture the men a little by making them have to shop for baby girl hair ties and/or barrettes."
"I admit, the visual of our guys standing in a store aisle debating which baby barrettes to buy is a funny one to me, but they got the last laugh," my wife said, sticking her hand inside the faux pumpkin my baby sister had painted for my baby in a Dia de los Muertos-style sugar skull using the same colors that are in Olivia's costume. "Olive's Uncles managed to follow the rules while also breaking them. Who could've pictured anyone making and selling grenade hair 'pins', eyeball ponytail holders, or skeletal-finger barrettes?"
"Did you think they'd buy what you would?" I asked, watching my wife release said hair accessories back into the pumpkin where she found them.
"Nope. I honestly thought they'd ignore the request and sneak her whatever candy they know is safe for her to nibble on. I really should know better by now. They're too smart to disobey an order they know came from you. Plus, they would never pass up an opportunity to mess with me. If I say 'hair bow', they automatically hear hair 'bow and arrow'. You gotta love them."
"Or patiently tolerate them," I teased, my eyes cutting to one of the Uncles 'flying' Olivia over to her pumpkin for another horror-hair-piece deposit.
A few had deviated from baby curl-catchers and went for giving temporary tattoos out instead. The back of one chubby hand had become a temporary home for an in-flight bat seconds after Cal had given the pack of non-toxic skin stickers to our daughter.
"Now Olive is officially a 'Bat Baby'," Steph had told me, after she'd applied it in the control room kitchen.
At the same time, she had snagged one that simply said 'Boo!' for herself.
"I guess this now makes me your 'Boo-tiful' Babe," she'd joked with an accompanying laugh.
"As if you could be anything else," I'd replied, pressing a kiss to the rings on the finger below the Boo decal.
"Incoming Olive-insect," Ram needlessly informed us, since Steph and I are both now watching their approach.
Our daughter's small 'inked' hand led the mission and her treat-bomb landed inside her painted pumpkin with the help of her Mama moving it just in time to catch the cleaver hair clips.
"These things are going to be really hard to explain to Olive's preschool teacher," my wife said, glancing once again at what our daughter has collected so far.
"Her preschool will be subjected to us and my security firm long before Olive in introduced to them. They'll understand everything by then."
"I know you're not joking," Steph said, stealing our baby from Ram. "I'm sorry in advance, Olive, for what you're going to have to put up with because your parents are Daddy and I."
"She seems to be doing okay," I told her. "Most children have to do some work and walking for their Halloween treats. Olivia is getting flown courtesy of Air Uncle from desk-to-desk-to-apartment for hers."
Lester wandered over with one of the popsicles Ella made for Olive that used yogurt plus orange and pineapple juice frozen in stripes so she can have a 'candy corn' treat along with the bigger kids.
"If you wanted Olive to walk," Santos said, creating a holiday miracle by handing off the treat to Olive rather than eating it himself, "you shouldn't have put wings on our girl."
"Yeah, you knew exactly what would happen if you did," Bobby told us, adding his opinion as well as pink spider elastics to the mix.
Steph sighed and I did an internal one. I can't argue that since she and I each said as much when Steph was looking at costume options for our baby. My only input was it had to be easy for her to walk/crawl/or scoot in and no masks should be covering her face. My wife just wanted to go with whatever caused an immediate Olive-reaction. A fuzzy purple butterfly was it.
I couldn't complain because the fuzzy cotton that made up the long sleeved body suit and polka-dotted belly would keep our daughter comfortable in every part of the building. The 'antennae' are fiber-filled and attached to the body suit's hood, so they couldn't hurt her or anyone else. Valerie helped Steph find shoes that would go with the costume and wouldn't be tripping hazards. And the wings can be slipped on or off at will, allowing Olivia to revert back to caterpillar state any time they annoyed her too much to run around in.
She'll once again have the best of both worlds. Right now as she soaks up all of her Uncle's and GodTank's undivided attention as she made a dent in her frozen treat, since Julie has big sister responsibilities in Miami. And in an hour, Olivia will also get to experience a Halloween party like those her mother still fantasizes about.
Having a career in security and also bond enforcement, both of which require entering homes sometimes worse than what you can imagine, not to mention the enemies Stephanie and I have made because our jobs, meant my wife and daughter are not going to be knocking on any doors except the ones being opened by people I've thoroughly vetted.
With Morelli and Mooch's behavior never far from her mind, Steph didn't put up any kind of fight for a 'traditional' treat or treat run. She did however playfully 'seduce me' into agreeing to again give up a floor of the Rangeman building. She, Ella, two of my sisters, Mary Lou, and Val decorated it in honor of Steph's favorite holiday so she could make it a safe one for not only Olive, but also our nieces, Mary Lou's gang, and Eddie's little monsters. Although she is far too young to ever hope of remembering her first Halloween, we also issued an invite to Kane, Harper, and their Angel.
I thought a building full of men in the prime of their lives and in peak physical condition was headache-fuel, but I quickly found that they're nothing compared to an explosion of children ranging in ages from just a handful-of-years-old to early teens ... plus an impending Kane, who runs the age-gamut on an hourly basis.
Olivia reverted back to running at top speed when she, Steph, and I went down to meet the Cole family in the lobby to personally deliver them into the thick of the mayhem. My daughter and her canine chaperones headed the welcome wagon. Our little butterfly paused in front of the three for only a beat before tapping 'Uncle Kane's' leg with the kind of enthusiasm only children typically exhibit.
"Bay ... bee!" She squealed. "Mama ... bay-bee. Bay-bee, Dabby!"
"Yep, Daddy and I see her, Olive," Steph answered. "Baby Angel came to play with us again. And she brought Uncle Kane and Aunt Harper along for the ride."
Harper leaned over and picked Olivia up so she could inspect Angelique again. Our baby is still trying to differentiate between one of her dolls versus Kane's human one. A few more visits and she'll likely see Angel as more of a playmate rather than just a stationary object. It's clear from the steady stream of murmurs I hear and all the tiny fingers I can see, Miss Cole is as impatient as her Daddy is at having to remain still. Her miniature-scale Halloween costume likely isn't easing her frustration any.
"Can you believe this shit?" Kane asked me while watching Olivia gently pat Angel's head, similar to how she greets Mo and Gunny which Harper is attempting to do one-handed. "Two of the Nation's biggest badasses are attending a Halloween party for kiddos."
"I'm getting better at accepting that we can do things like this because we're two of the luckier ones," I told him, fully appreciating the life I have now, while never forgetting the one that got me - and him - here.
"You're fucking right on that one."
"Kane ... honey," Harper said to her husband, "can you please keep the cursing to a minimum tonight? Olivia can't repeat everything she hears just yet, but the other kids can and likely will at the worst possible moments. I don't want to be responsible for them getting in trouble."
"I didn't curse."
Harper kissed Angelique's head as she hugged Olive, and then she rolled her eyes at him. I don't typically curse, but Kane and I do share a similar thought process so I understand him ... I'm just more experienced at filtering my thoughts and actions so Steph or my girls never have to apologize for me.
"If Julie were here," I told him, "she'd present you with a list of what constitutes a curse, and then give you a lengthier one of reasons not to say any of the ones she listed."
"I love that kid ... even though she's too much like you for her own good. You made us clean ourselves up every way possible every time we made it back to civilization again."
"I know what I'm doing. You got Harper to marry you and I know for a fact that she would've headed in the opposite direction had she met you before I did."
"True that. You're like the asshole-whisperer or something."
"Kane ..." Harp warned, dropping the 'honey' endearment this time.
"We ain't at the party yet. I've got three more minutes before I have to behave."
He leaned in-between Harper and Olivia's heads and kissed his wife, likely to remind her that she loves him and to prevent a forthcoming lecture. He's come a long way from the young and eager Soldier I trained, but he'll always have a few rough edges. Which as I've explained to Steph many times, those edges are needed in order to keep our families safe.
"I love you," Harp told him, "but you are still a major pain sometimes."
"I know … and purposely at times just to keep your focus on me," Kane admitted despite the look his wife leveled at him. "I still don't get why Angel had to be dressed up for this party. All she has to do is just lie there to get everyone's attention, but someone decided she needed a costume. I would've gone the Ninja or baby-burrito route myself, but my beautiful better half was hell bent on Angel being an ice cream cone. She's perfect regardless of what's on her, but seriously ... my daughter a freakin' ice cream cone? What's scary about those?"
"She's my daughter too, Kane," Harp pointed out. "So let's just say my half of Angel is the sweet looking scoop of strawberry ice cream with the sprinkles and cherry-topped headband. And your half contains the usually-full diaper and the pointy cone that could poke an enemy's eye out if needed. How's that?"
His grin is reminiscent of the jack o' lanterns currently being carved upstairs by the kids. The plastic tools are being used under the watchful eyes of my parents and tutelage of the team of Swiss Army knife-wielding Uncles waiting to help them all earn a ribbon in the competition my wife scheduled for the end of the night.
"That's my girl," Kane said to his wife.
Steph got our girl back and wrapped the arm not cuddling Olivia around me, hitting me with a smile that rivaled the kid-friendly ghost candles lighting our way to the family fun awaiting us.
