March 18th 2023

Chapter 201
Candy Hearts and All the Colors

They had both learned a lot of things in their years as parents, and as their children were still growing they were bound to learn a lot more. It wasn't all about individual care either, especially as they had more children, and more after that... One of the big ones lately was just about learning to accept the fact that some things would not happen exactly when they would have liked - because there were too many other things that needed to take priority - and that was okay. For one, there was something like the twins' nursery.

They didn't know how on Earth this had happened, but Simon and Jack were coming up on three months old already. Their family might say in the very next breath that they could not think of life before them anymore, but it still blew their minds to look at the little bears and see how much they were growing already, developing. More and more, they would hear from their Nana Katy especially that they looked so much like their mother as a baby.

When Ava and the boys had first heard this, there had been an immediate search for pictures of baby Maya that they might hold next to the twins. The opinions differed, from Ava and Elliott, who absolutely saw it, to Noah, who never seemed sure, to Jamie, who persisted that the babies did not in fact look anything like his Mommy. His parents respected his opinion, even as they very much saw that resemblance and were delighted for it.

Now, as to the nursery, they'd had a couple of false starts along the way, eventually abandoned each time for whatever reason. Always, they'd told themselves that it wasn't that big of a deal. The babies were still sleeping in their room, were barely being encouraged to be kept in their respective cribs as of late, and they wouldn't mind the fact that their room wasn't ready for them yet. No, the ones that were going to mind would be grown people. There'd be the family members and friends, who would occasionally note this and, well-meaning as they'd always be, even offering their services to come and either help or straight out do it alone, would only make those who cared most feel more aware than they wanted to be.

No one was as aware as Lucas and Maya, and the latter especially, and while they held to that lesson that things sometimes had no choice but to wait, it didn't negate the need to finally do something about it.

Well, there were benefits to their current situation, the one where she was on maternity leave and he worked for his father in an office of two. If, for instance, he asked for a day off in the middle of the week - which he would compensate at other times - for a special Valentine's Day date with his wife and the mother of his children, he could be assured that he would get it... especially this one.

It was really a two-part event, the first of which would take place over the previous weekend. When they woke up on Saturday morning, Lucas briefly removed his arm from over the just waking Maya so he might reach into his night stand.

"What are you doing?" she quietly asked, flinching and laughing when his other hand inadvertently tickled her. Item retrieved, he folded back over her so he might present a card. "You made that yourself?" Maya guessed, a smile in her voice.

"Felt appropriate," he confirmed, kissing the top of her head.

"Mmm..." she smiled on before opening it to see what it said.

What it contained was an invitation. It told her that they were going out that day for supplies so that, on the coming day of February 14th, the two of them could have a date, just them, transforming their youngest sons' nursery. He knew she wouldn't have wanted to do anything on that day that would have required going out, especially as she wouldn't have wanted to leave the twins, and this felt like the best way to mark their love on that day. They would be together, doing something for their children, themselves a product of that love. It was entirely up to her whether she felt like doing all this. If she wanted to wait some more, or if she just wanted a more standard kind of Valentines date, the plans would be changed.

"No, never," her response to that had been very clear, dramatically holding the handmade card protectively to herself. "You know I love to make art with you," she turned her head to look at him and he kissed her. When she started to laugh lightly in the middle of it, he felt he knew just what that had been about, and he laughed along with her, as good as speaking the response, suggesting that five of those collaborations were small blond boys, each as wonderful as the next.

They wouldn't have minded taking all the children with them on this first part of their date, as complicated as it could be to travel with the six of them and shopping. But on that Saturday, with four of them already having activities planned out, it would end up being the same crowd as on the coming Wednesday, just Lucas and Maya and the babies. They made a very purposeful trip to the mall, the better to return home as soon as possible. That did not mean that it was short, or that they rushed in any way, but they knew how quickly things could derail if they weren't mindful, and they didn't want to be out there all day.

The days that followed were soon turned into what could only be described as nearly a hundred hours of anticipation, this especially for the artist and currently homebound Maya. Well, no, not homebound. If anything, she might have gone out of her way to spend as little time as possible just being at home with Jamie, Simon, and Jack. She took them on walks, took them to visit people, or through this store or that gallery... It was either that or being at home, feeling the itch each time to go into the nursery and start the work on her own. It would have been so easy, wouldn't it?

This was also the case at night, or early in the morning, whenever she'd be awake and the house would be quiet. It soon became a bit of a game between her and Lucas. Of course, he knew just what she was up to, at night as much as in the day. He couldn't do anything about that second one, and she had it handled on her own as it was anyway, but the first... It was rare that she'd be awake long while he wasn't, either because whatever woke her would wake him, too, or because whatever she'd do or try to do would wake him, too. Then the game would start.

The goal was always to keep her from going across the hall, to keep her from leaving the bed, essentially. He had many ways of making that happen, whether they involved just holding on to her, or kissing her... The final 'match' of the game, in the small hours of the fourteenth, had come down to a very direct expression of love, which they had both found so... effective... that it was a wonder they hadn't resorted to it each time before.

But now the day had come at last. Valentine's Day. They couldn't get started until after they'd cleared through getting four of their children out of the house, the eldest three off to school and the fourth off for a thrilling day out with his great grandparents. Before they would go, Ava and her brothers deployed their own secret project, a bouquet of paper flowers for their mother and father. Ava had traced the petals, which the boys had colored in, and then she'd cut them and bound them together into flowers, on to stems... They were very proud of the results, and with good reasons, as their parents would tell them. They would place it in a vase - with clear blue beads in place of water - on the kitchen table, a place of honor, there for all their meals together.

"Alright, hey, fella, hey little Peanut," Lucas lifted up Jackson from his car seat, bringing his baby boy close, kissing his cheek. The baby stretched his tiny hands, flexing his fingers at him like he might have been waving hello at his father. That probably wasn't what he was doing, no, but that wouldn't stop Lucas assigning that meaning to the gesture and running with it. "Hey," he laughed, now kissing the fingers offered before him. "You excited for today? Huh? Your room is going to be so awesome," he vowed. Jackson stretched a bit, halfway yawning, and this was interpreted as his full agreement to this statement, too. "Yeah, it will. Come on, let's go find your mom and your brother."

They'd try to do this, too, nowadays, spending some time one on one with their twins, that they might build those personal connections with them as individuals, not just as a pair. It might only be for a few minutes at a time, but it was important to them, and they hoped it would be important to the boys, too, as they got older.

While he'd had Jackson with him, talking to him throughout the ride back from morning drop offs, Maya had remained home with Simon, and if Lucas had wondered if she might have gone off into the nursery with him and gotten started, he soon saw that she had not. Instead, she'd used this time to go and piece together two outfits for the babies, outfits as appropriate to the day as they could ever be. He found Simon already redressed and he laughed at once before submitting Jack so that he, too, could be made into a tiny painter, ready to tackle the day's task... from the comfort of his crib across the hall.

It took them back to the time they had spent creating the Star Wars room for Elliott, Noah, and Jamie. This one would not be nearly as detailed and lengthy an endeavor, but still they had loved doing it all, especially for how excited they knew their sons would be. The nursery already looked like one now, and they could easily have left it as it was, but the idea had just never sat well with them. They wanted it to be for their two boys here, as it would likely remain their room even as the cribs gave way to beds. So, it was time for a complete makeover... almost complete.

"Careful, careful..." Maya spoke, more to herself than to him as they worked to take down the tree structure from the wall.

"Got it," Lucas assured her, and it was so.

The tree, as commissioned and eventually painted by Kermit Hart, which mirrored the one painted directly on the master bedroom wall against which the cribs were rested, was the one thing that would carry over from the old nursery to the new one. They could hardly imagine a day, even years in the future, where they might paint over the original, but if they did, they would still have the physical one, a gift of the little Friars' late grandfather, with its multitude of colorful leaves.

Even before they had settled in for this makeover, they had already created new leaves and added them on, for Simon, for Jackson, pressing their baby hands as gently as they could in the paint and then on the leaves. Neither one of them had found the experience all too enjoyable, both on the wall and on the attachable wooden leaves, but the results were very deeply appreciated by their family and, in time, they hoped, by the boys, too.

One who had for certain appreciated her 'Leaf Day' was Ava. She had spent many nights sleeping in that room before getting her own proper room in the basement, and she had looked at that tree more times than could be counted, maybe never imagining there could ever be a leaf on it with her handprint, her name. Truth be told, there might have been one much earlier, but both Lucas and Maya had wanted to leave her time to get to a place where she would be okay with its meaning as she adjusted to its meaning. But then Christmas had happened, and that had been all the signal her new family needed to know that the time had come at last.

They had a box of blank leaves, ready to be customized and added to the nursery tree, which was replenished by Lucas' aunt Dot if ever they needed it, but it had felt important for them to do this the way they did with all their kids in the past, including the twins. Their leaves were special, so they came along when the time did. Ava's leaf came along shortly after New Year's, and they presented it to her, the last day before she went back to school. The look on her face had said it all. She hadn't stopped smiling, would not even put the thing down for a second as she waited to get it painted, and even as she'd let it dry between stages – the base coat, the handprint, the name, and the varnish – she would never leave it unattended. Finally, the time had come for it to be hung up, secured on its spot, right there with her Mama, her Dad, and her brothers, after which she had moved on to the wall-painted tree in her parents' room. That entire day, they knew, would be one of those memories to stay with her, and they hoped that it would bring her joy whenever she needed it.

With the tree and all its leaves secured, it was finally time to get started. Was there some emotion over seeing the previous design disappear, the place they had made for their first boys? Oh, a whole load of it… They'd been preparing themselves for this moment, they knew it was coming, but when it actually came, finally arrived, it couldn't help but take their breath away a little, and maybe more like a lot. It was a moment in time, and they would remember it always, wouldn't lose it just for painting over it all, but still… it was right there one moment, and in the next, by their hands, it would be gone.

"This is fine, right?" Lucas slowly asked, standing at Maya's side as the both of them contemplated the start, the first stroke of paint. They just had to do it, right? One stroke, and then they could just carry on, no big deal.

"Yeah… Yeah…" Maya slowly nodded, sounding determined to come off self-assured even as she mildly struggled to stick the landing. She looked at him, and then the determination finally locked in. She took a breath and looked back to the wall, her face reading like she was talking herself up in her own mind. She made the first stroke, and she looked at him, nodded. That was all he needed.

Little by little, the old room disappeared, the new color took over, and the plans for the new design started to show their potential. As they worked, it didn't take long for them to get comfortable with the sort of relaxed but focused work they were doing. They would have to pause every once in a while, to look in on the twins and tend to them as needed. When they'd be in the room though, especially once Maya put some music on, the mood would be just what they needed it to be. One or the other of them would sing or dance along as they worked, much to the enjoyment of their audience of one.

"We are never going to finish if they keep putting on songs like that," Maya declared, letting out a breath as she came back from their room to find her husband giving the very best he had in 'I'm painting but I'm also dancing' moves. She did not make any attempt whatsoever to pretend as though she wasn't staring exactly the way she was staring, and she knew very well that he knew she was staring, which would have him hamming it up for her benefits.

"Sure, we will," he promised her.

"Uh huh, you want to tell your butt that?" she asked, biting back at laugh.

"You want me to stop?"

"On Valentine's Day? How dare you?" she mock gasped.

"Starting to get how we ended up with all these babies…" he whispered, and she laughed.

"That might have been one of the reasons, yes."

Difficulties in concentration or none, they kept working, kept getting sidetracked from time to time, but that was more than fine by them. They had set out, that day, to accomplish two things. They wanted to transform the nursery, and they wanted to spend Valentine's Day together, to spend that day merrily feeling their love for one another, and that was exactly what they did. By the time Lucas would take off to pick up the kids from school, all that would be left to do would be fixing the tree back up again and arranging the furniture. They'd promised the kids that they could help with that part.

"Wow!" Elliott was the first to see it and pronounce himself and, for having been the first occupant of this room in recent years, it meant a great deal to his parents for him to say that. A lot of it went to what it had meant for them to see the old look disappear, but there was also the added… benefit: if he liked it, then if either of his young brothers had misgivings, they might suddenly be a bit more inclined to look positively on to the new look. "There's bears!" he pointed, and while he'd stood briefly hesitant in the doorway, Noah heard this and quickly hurried to join his big brother, the better to see.

"Hug-a-bears!" Noah knowingly called the pair, which his mother had painted, the better to look as though they were resting under the tree once it was back in its spot.

"They're so cute," Ava beamed, looking from the bears down to Jamie, who'd come all the way up the stairs holding her hand and now stayed there with her, almost hiding behind her. They'd known he'd probably be the one to have the most trouble adjusting to the change, as he'd done with the entire existence of his baby brothers, and it was easy to see that his big sister had come along that afternoon with that very knowledge in mind and a plan. They couldn't make him love anything, but they could help him look on the bright side. "Look, they have a little frog friend," she pointed out, and Jamie perked up… just enough… He looked at the little frog, one of a few nods to his and his siblings' nicknames on the walls, sitting on one of the bears' paws, and he knew…

"That's Tadpole, that's Jamie," he pointed, his little feet unable to do anything but hop a bit.

"Yeah, that's you, bud," Maya smiled, and he ran to her. Maybe the new room could be a good thing after all… in time.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners