Ellie sat at the desk in her home office staring at the screen of her laptop, trying to resist the urge to snap it in half and throw it out the window. She was trying to put together the syllabus and lesson plans for spring semester. One class was easy, she just had to change the dates from last year's syllabus. But she was teaching two brand new classes—for her, at least—in addition to the usual Climate and Society course. World Food Economy was a course she was excited to start working on, and Evolution of Terrestrial Ecosystems was full of things she'd taught before. All of this was well within Dr. Ellie Sattler's experience, but Stanford had rigorous requirements for its courses, and creating a syllabus that fit within that was challenging.
It was even more challenging to try and do all that while a baby cried incessantly in the next room. Maddie was becoming fussier as she got older. Well, two months old was hardly 'older' but she'd been much easier as a newborn. She was sleeping mostly through the night, thank goodness, but the days were becoming far more challenging. Ellie had been putting off this prep for school in order to help Ethan. And Alan was doing a great job with it. But right now, Alan was off doing the grocery shopping for the house, and Ethan was…where was Ethan?
Knowing she wasn't going to get anything else done until Maddie calmed down, Ellie saved her work and closed the laptop. She got up and practically threw open the door to the office to find her son running up the stairs.
"Where have you been? She's been screaming the house down!" Ellie exclaimed.
"I'm sorry," Ethan called behind him as he rushed into the nursery. "I was outside in the vineyard with Alan and I didn't realize I was out of range of the monitor."
Ellie followed Ethan and stood by the door as he went to pick up his beautiful, loud daughter. "I thought with the app, you didn't have to worry about being out of range."
"Well, we live out in the hills so turns out we don't have service out in the vineyard," Ethan explained.
She sighed in slight frustration. "Another problem to discover," she grumbled. They'd just figured out how to keep the pterosaurs away from the grapes and now they didn't have cell service. Which wasn't really the worst thing in the world except with the baby monitor not being available if Ethan was working out there or, god forbid, if anything happened to anyone and couldn't call for help.
Ethan picked up Maddie and rocked her a little. "Oh, time for a change," he announced.
Maddie, thankfully, immediately started to settle when her father held her. Ellie felt the anxiety churning in her stomach and the tension headache start to ease. She watched as Ethan, now very practiced after two months, change the baby's diaper. It was really miraculous. Her son was a parent. Her baby boy had a baby of his own. And at only twenty-one years old, Ethan was a really good father. Maddie was very well cared for and very loved. Even if she did cry and drive her nana insane.
But watching Ethan now, even feeling that immense pride over how good he was with the baby, Ellie did find herself worrying just a little. He was only twenty-one. He was still a kid himself. And there were still so many things that Ellie wanted for his life. It wasn't that he couldn't still do those things as a father, but it was going to take a lot of planning and discipline to make it all happen.
"What?"
Ellie was taken out of her thoughts when she realized Ethan had turned to her and seen her staring at him. "I was just thinking."
"About Maddie?" he asked with a small smile.
"About you," she responded.
"What about me?"
Well, now was as good a time as any to bring it up. "We need to figure out when you're going to go back to school," Ellie told him.
Ethan's face went dark. "Do we?"
Ellie didn't want this to be a fight, but she was prepared for it, if it came to that. "It's going to take some planning to decide where you want to go and how to work out childcare for Maddie. You can see about online classes with Northwestern, or you can transfer to a school around here. There's a lot of good universities in the Bay Area. Cal and Stanford, obviously, and San Jose State and the schools in San Francisco. I'm not saying you need to know exactly what to do right this second, but we should start figuring things out."
"I don't know," Ethan said, rocking Maddie in his arms. "I do miss school, honestly. And it's not like I can't do Sociology at any school. I'm going to be living here for at least another year, and even after me and Maddie move out, we'll be close by. So it makes sense to transfer somewhere around here. I just…she's still so little, Mom."
"I know," Ellie answered. "But she'll almost be a year old by the time the fall semester starts, so that'll make it easier."
"Yeah, but I just don't know how I'll be able to focus on anything but her, you know?"
Ellie's heart fluttered at that. "I do know. I was lucky to already be in my career when you and Charlie came along. But I really didn't think I'd ever want to go back into research or field work ever again after I had you guys. But things change. That's the thing about having kids. Nothing is ever the same, even day to day. You're going to be growing and changing right along with her."
Ethan let out a puff of air. "That sounds stressful."
"Maybe a little. But it's gonna be great, I promise. It'll all work out," she assured him. "And if you want to get a little practice in how it might go, you can come to class with me once the semester gets started. Sit in the lecture and then come back home and test out how that goes," she suggested.
"Yeah that could be good. Do you think Alan would be okay with that? Staying with her alone?"
"I think he can manage two hours with his favorite girl," Ellie said, smiling. Alan really did adore that baby, and it meant the world to Ellie that he did.
"I think you're his favorite girl, Mom," Ethan said, blushing ever so slightly over it.
"Me and Maddie might be tied," Ellie reasoned.
But Ethan probably was right. Maddie might have been wrapped around Alan's finger the moment she was born, but Ellie had no doubt about what she and Alan had. They loved each other more than anything in the world. And actually…
"I've got some more work to do, sweetie, but I'm gonna go check on Alan. Can you make sure Maddie is quiet for a while?" she asked.
"Sure, I think she'll go down for a nap soon. I'm gonna play with her a little bit and see if she'll get tired out."
"Sounds good. You guys have fun."
And with that, Ellie closed the nursery door behind her. She jogged down the stairs and fidgeted with her engagement ring as she headed out to the vineyard. It was still very cold in late January, but Alan wanted to see if he could start cultivating for some kind of harvest later this year, so he was out there every day checking conditions, often with Ethan's help. She hoped he wasn't too far out today. She really did need to get back to work.
A couple of compys scuttled off the patio when Ellie came outside. It was so strange to see dinosaurs almost every day. Actually, it was strange for the fact that it wasn't strange to her at all anymore. Paleontology had been so much of her adult life, and it was the last few years that the resurgence and spread of dinosaurs had become so commonplace. When she was a PhD student studying the prehistorical world, she never would have dreamed of this.
"Hey, honey!" Alan greeted, coming up the hill toward her.
Ellie was immediately overwhelmed by something she couldn't really describe. She hurried toward him and threw her arms around him, kissing him soundly.
Alan was a little confused and taken off guard, but he quickly wrapped her up in his embrace and kissed her back. "What was that for?" he asked when they pulled apart.
"I love you so much," she said. It was the truth. And it was all she could think to say right now.
He gave her another kiss and held her close. "I love you, too."
And for now, that was all she needed.
