(Please no Anti-Barney hate. I grew up with the show and it's near and dear to my heart and sometimes the Anti-Barney can go overboard to the point I wonder if the person is mentally OK and stable. So no Anti-Barnet hate in the comments, please. I don't want to read those let alone report them. Trust me, I've been down that rabbit hole and I barely survived getting out of it.)

Chapter 7

It was August and it was birthday time! And not just anyone's birthday but Max and Mary's birthday. Today they just turned 4 years old. They just finished signing the papers, and already started their warms up to the basics before the choosing of the cast. The company decided to save that for either September or November though the girls already requested to be each other's understudy. Luckily the company didn't have a problem with that since the 2 did sort of look-alike with the only thing to fix is the hair since Mary's is brown, and Abby has strawberry blonde. Hopefully, they'll figure something out to fix it. Maybe with a wig or spray-on hair-dye or something. It's 7 am and Beth came in for the first part of the present. Getting rid of the blankets. Mary and Max still shared a room so Beth walked up to the middle aisle of their beds, grabbed the blankets near their feet, and swiftly got them off the twins. It didn't wake up Max but it did for Mary. "Ah man, the cold birthday breeze." She groaned. Mary turned over, open one eye, and saw Beth. "Other than a cold front, what's up?"

Beth smiled. "I just had to get up here to give you two your small birthday presents before your big ones." She said to Mary. Then she looked at Max and whispered in his ear. "Though you get nothing if the other doesn't wake up for his…baseball collection book." That caused Max to wake up. Beth laughed. "Knew that would work." She pulled 2 small presents out of her pockets. "Happy Birthday M & M." She handed it to them.

The 2 quickly for their small gifts and opened them. Max saw that his sister wasn't lying. It was a small card book, wallet size, to put in cards of all kinds, not just sports. "Cool!"

Mary opened hers and saw it was a small Baby-Pop plushy doll from the Barney collection. "My own Baby-Pop!" She held the doll close. "Thank you!"

Beth ruffled their hair. "Now get up and get dressed. It's Saturday, meaning no school, and no ballet. Grandpa is making breakfast for us. Let's go." The 2 quickly got up, made their beds, and got dressed.

Once downstairs, their parents were working on their stuff so the grandkids went to their grandparents. Grandpa saw them. "There's the birthday twins!" The 2 ran up and hugged them. "4 years old, who would've thunk it." Once the hug was done, he asked, "Who's ready for French toast with cinnamon butter?"

The twins jumped up and down. "ME!"

Soon the grandparents and the grandkids were at the table eating their breakfast as they talked about almost anything. After breakfast, the grandparents came to the table with presents of their own. "Here Max," said Grandpa. "This is from Omi and me."

Max opened his present and saw it was a board game. "Cool! Candyland! Is this the same one you played as a kid?"

Grandpa laughed. "No. For one I lost the board a long time ago. BUT this version does have the most popular characters though. And," He tapped the box. It was a blue tin box. "no damage. I DARE you to make a dent on this one." Max smiled liking the challenge. "Good luck too, cause this was made by me." Max frowned. Grandpa's crafts are the best and, given the quality, have a 20-year warranty. That sucker ain't gonna break. Then he turned to his granddaughter. "Now this I KNOW you're gonna love."

Mary opened her present and it was a big thick book with an old-style red cover with gold trim. On the cover were ballerina slippers. She opened the book and on the first pages was called 'The Tchaikovsky Trio. Nutcracker by E. T. A. Hoffmann, Swan Princess by Richard Rich, & The Sleeping Beauty by The Brothers Grimm. Illustrated by Alexander Engel.' Mary looked at her grandfather in awe. Then she looked back at the book and flipped through the pages and saw the characters of the story beautifully drawn by her grandfather in beautiful ballerina costumes. "Grandpa, this is beautiful. Did you make this all by yourself?"

Grandpa said, "Well I can't take all the credit. Your grandmother helped a bit with the writing. Thank God for the internet." Both grandparents laughed a bit. He closed the book and tapped the cover. "Now little one, there is one more present that goes with this," Mary looked at him with excitement. "BUT," Mary frowned. There's always a 'but'. "You won't get it until your 21st Christmas OR when you complete the Tchaikovsky Trio. Until then," He placed one of Mary's hands on the book cover. "Enjoy the hell out of it."

Mary smiled and hugged her grandpa and grandma. "Thank you both. I can't wait to learn how to read."

Soon it was lunchtime and the parents are still doing their own thing, not paying attention to time, and Max and Beth were watching TV while Mary was on her grandpa's lap reading one of the three stories. Mary asked, "Grandpa, why did you pick this version of Swan Lake based on the movie?"

Her grandpa grew a little nervous. "Well…like in the ballets there are multi-endings…and the last thing I want to do is pick a bad one…So given the movie version has a happy ending, I figured I use that one instead. There are some Swan Lakes with no-so-happy endings. I was afraid to use the one from Mark Helprin because I had a hard time finding the book and I didn't want to find out the hard way if I did find it if it had a sad ending or not. Besides in the actual ballet there are about 7 to 11 endings there are only 3 that are happy so…"

Mary nodded. "Long story short, you don't me crying my head off."

He nodded. "Damn straight."

Mary asked, "Why not Princess Tutu?"

He replied, "While that's a good story, to me it felt incomplete. Especially with the villain. You don't mind do you?"

Mary shook her head. "I don't mind grandpa. I'm glad you picked this one. It's one of my favorites." She hugged him. "Besides, you're drawings are the best." He hugged her back.

A few hours later, it was dinner time and the parents were finally out of their working stupor. Tom asked, "Hey are the twins up yet? I want some of that French Toast."

Sarah said, "And some of that cake."

They walked into the living room and saw that the grandparents and the grandkids had already got the cake out. The 5 looked back at them. Mary and Max were confused but Beth and the grandparents were glaring. "What?" asked Tom.

Grandpa pointed at the clock and said, "Take a look at the clock and try hard not to wet yourselves." The 2 parents looked at the clock and saw it was 4 pm. Their faces turned white, their eyes were big, and were trembling a bit. They looked at Grandpa and he said, "We already gave them our presents, where are yours?"

The 2 were speechless and then Tom had an idea. "How about this?! After cake and dinner, we go out for ice cream. Everyone gets 4 scoops of their favorite flavor!" The twins cheered as Beth scoffed and the grandparents shook their heads.

Later that night, the twins were bouncing off the walls thanks to the cake and the 4 scoops of ice cream. So as punishment, the parents were in charge of trying to get the twins to sleep, but given all that sugar, good luck. For about 3 hours, the parents tried their best to calm their twins down so they can sleep, but it was like catching Thing 1 and Thing 2 from Cat in the Hat. It wasn't until midnight, that the twins finally crashed. So from 6 pm to 12 am, they were full of energy, and their parents' punishment for nearly forgetting their own kids' birthday. Once they crashed, the tired parents changed their clothes, tucked them into bed, put their gifts away except for Mary's Baby-Pop doll, and left the room. Once back in their room, they crashed on their bed exhausted. Then there was a knock on their door and it was Grandpa in his pjs and his robe. "By the way, it's your turn to do the dishes, good night." Then he left leaving the groaning parents in the room trying to get off the bed to go to the kitchen. He made his way to his grandkids' bedroom. First was Beth's and then the twins. He kissed each of their heads while they went to his bed to get some sleep. As he sat on his bed, he looked at his wife and smiled. Though they had a rocky start all those Christmases ago, he doesn't regret having his family.