"I was thinking we should have a family day." Tom states, eyeing the boys in the back yard. He sat on the back patio with a coffee in his hand, hair still tussled from recent sleep.

Maddie stood behind him, just walking out the back door in her robe. She watched as Sonic raced with Tails, the sweet little fox playing with his hero.

"Come on, kid!" her first son teased. "If you go any slower you'll be going backward!"

Tails laughed. "Only Sonic the Hedgehog could boast like that!" And with the push of a button a little device on his back ignited and he zipped past his brother and into the tree that they had marked the finish line.

"Cheater!" Sonic yelled, dramatically placing his hand over his forehead. "And from my own brother! The agony…the heart break…the…"

Tails zipped by and tackled his older brother, the two laughing as they rolled along the grass. Her eyes sparkled as she watched her boys continue to wrestle on the ground in front of her.

It took a moment for her to realize that her third boy was not participating in the fun. Not always a surprise, especially in the morning. He was always the first to rise and the last to bed, using his time alone to take in the quiet, to meditate. It was the only time she ever felt he was truly relaxed. Her eyes scanned the yard and were ultimately rewarded when she saw a flash of red at the edge of the wooded forest that lined their property. He sat quietly, back against a tree, eyes closed, large hands resting gently on his lap. She smiled as she watched him taking deep breaths.

She walked over to Tom and placed her hands on his shoulders. During the time she moved the blue blur in the back yard was now zipping back and forth around her eldest. Apparently Sonic had become tired of wrestling, focusing his energy elsewhere.

"Pine cone" he said, placing one on the quills of the echidna.

"Leaf."

"Bark."

"Stick."

"You are trying to distract me, hedgehog." the elder rumbled, cracking an eye and looking at his brother with a ruffled brow. "It will not work."

"Seems to be working!" Sonic quipped, a smile playing on his lips.

"You will do best to stop." he replied, not moving from his sitting position.

"I'll stop, I'll stop!" she heard Sonic answer back. "I'll stop…when you come play with us."

"I do not wish to play," she heard. "I wish to think."

"Then I guess you are going to be one with the earth once I'm done planting things in your quills…"

Then the blue streak started again with an annoyed growl emitting from the eldest.

"I think getting out of the house would be good for them…" she said, wrapping her arms around Tom's upper torso.

Tom snickered, "Yeah…before they put another hole in the house."

"What were you thinking babe?"

"What about the zoo? It might be fun for them to learn about some of the animals on earth." He turned and smiled at her. "What do you think?"

"I think it's a great idea."