April 15th 2023

Chapter 205
Balloons All Around

It would have been entirely possible, despite the fact that his family had run with this theme since the day he was born, that Noah Patrick Friar would not have liked Star Wars. Sure, he had been born on May the 4th, and everyone had found it so funny to lean into the connection, with toys, and clothes, when he'd been a baby, and a toddler, so he'd almost had no choice but to like it, but the years had gone by, and he had kept on liking it, so they'd run with it. By now, that whole world was a shared experience in the Friar household. All the movies, all the shows… Any books or comics that they felt they could share with the kids, they would share, but even on their own, almost subconsciously, Maya and Lucas had carried on into those spaces where the boys couldn't yet follow. It had actually become something for the two of them and Ava to bond through. She would devour those books faster than either of them could, but sooner or later they would all have made it on to the other side and they could talk about it together. The day any of her little brothers would be able to get into that part of their collection, oh, their big sister would be right there to guide them along.

Well, now, as his fifth birthday had approached, Noah had but one wish for his birthday party: He wanted it to be all Star Wars, and everyone had to get dressed up like the characters.

Everyone was on board. Sure, they might have waited until Halloween – and maybe they would just dust off their costumes in half a year's time – but a costume birthday party sounded great, too. All they had to do was figure out what each of them would be dressed as, and that in itself would be a big decision. One of them decided quickly: It had been his nickname, and for that his favorite character, for as long as his grandfather had gone and started calling him it, so Noah would be Chewie. That was one… then quickly three, as Ava had declared how cute it would be if they made the twins into a couple of Ewok. They were kind of bear like, which would fit with their nickname.

Jamie had announced very loudly that he wanted to be Yoda, like he was worried that someone else would pick him before he could, as though they didn't know that he was his favorite already and would have ever tried to take him first. So that was him taken care of, and right after him, Elliott had been another 'almost too easy' choice. For a long time, his favorite had been Luke Skywalker, and it would make him look to his father as though to say 'hey, that's like your name.' Lately though, he had turned his attentions to another, and that was who he chose for his brother's party: He would be Obi-Wan Kenobi, and he'd made sure to run up and get them one of his action figures, so they'd know which version he wanted to go as.

"Who do you think I should go as?" Ava had turned to her little brothers with a smile. If they knew her at all – and they very much did – then there would only be one choice: she would be her favorite character, Ahsoka Tano. She already had this whole idea of how to use her hair to help create her costume.

All that was left after that was deciding who their parents would be, and through the mess of their voices all going at once, this also felt like an easy pick for them: They had to be Han and Leia.

"Tell you what, I'm really glad Elliott got past his Luke phase, or this could have been very weird," Maya hummed, as she worked to transform her hair – the color transformed through a spray – into the needed buns. "Or that they didn't make you into him, because of your… name… Well, hello," she grinned as Lucas reemerged, his growing beard now gone and his hair given the appropriate styling to turn him into his chosen character. "Oh, I am not getting over this, I hope you know that."

"That makes two of us," he grinned, looking her over. She took a turn, laughing.

"Kid's party, kid's party," she reminded herself and him, and they nodded, shook hands, and went off to help the rest of the family get ready before they distracted themselves right off into more birthday parties…

X

Planning Noah's birthday had been easy, seeing as he had chosen what he wanted his day to look like, but then nearer the end of the month, they had two more birthdays in the family, and one of them was fairly on the open, too, but before that one came along, they had the very special one reserved for the one and only Huckleberry Dad, as Lucas would be turning twenty-eight years old. Did he particularly want a surprise party? The more pressing question would be whether or not they could actually surprise him, as of course they would do something.

In no time, the head of the Dad-Party committee became Maya and Ava, and as far as coming up with times where they could discuss these plans without him being around, well, they had plenty of those if they really gave it a thought, but the one that became their go-to as the month advanced was on the afternoons where Maya would leave the middle school, drive to the elementary school, collect her eldest two, and take them back with her. While Elliott would sit in on the baking club meetings as a very devoted taster of all things, his big sister would get to go ahead and meet with her clients.

It hadn't been nearly as hard of a sell to offer up the services of an eleven-year-old as a public speaking coach to the middle schoolers, not when this eleven-year-old could be seen on a semi-regular basis displaying those skills on the news segments she did with her father. The teachers had been more than happy to connect her with students they felt could use her help, though for sure the kids in question did a double take when they first realized their tutor was a fifth grader. Some of them came around before long, while others weren't so sure and wanted to back out of these 'lessons.' They'd been brought back around though by their young tutor as she addressed them with all the conviction of someone beyond her years, and seeing them retreat back into their seats, she'd had such a proud smile that it had made her mother snort. She was very proud, too, especially as the lessons carried on and Ava showed herself very skilled not only in expressing herself but in helping others do the same. If she kept this up, Maya had half a mind to reach out to the high school, too.

For now though, they had something more pressing at hand, and it was Lucas' upcoming birthday. On their rides from one school to the other, and as they'd head home afterward, they'd do their best to piece together something worthy of the affection they had for the man of the hour… and also guaranteed to be as fun as it would be memorable.

"I had a great idea today!" Ava announced as she came running up to the curb, hand in hand with her little brother. Elliott let go at the last moment, the better to hug their mother.

"Hey!" Maya laughed, hugging him back and looking up to his sister. "What kind of idea?"

"We could write a song for him, a song about him, and then we could do it for him," Ava spoke, looking like she'd just dropped a mic. "I already started, look," she pulled a folded piece of paper from the front of her bag and handed it over before moving to help get Elliott into the car with her, so they could get going. Maya gave the scribbled words a glance, and they made her smile, as much for being presented with this display of her daughter's writing skills as for how she could already almost hear the tune in her head…

"I'm with you there… It is a great idea."

X

Lucas had been so happy, upon the birth of his first child, to know that he and his boy would get to have their birthdays so close to one another's. It was a small thing, but it was their thing, and he'd envisioned all the years ahead of them where they could make this time of year be theirs. So then imagine his surprise when, before they could ever make it to the first end of May to follow, they were joined by another. Lucas and Maya had been blessed - a very much unplanned blessing - with a second son, born at the start of the month and before their first one could have his first birthday.

Now, over the past five years, the month had been theirs, Noah and Elliott and their father in between them. To Maya especially, they would lovingly be her May boys. Lucas knew how much she looked forward to it, too.

Noah had had his turn, with his Star Wars spectacular, and then the days had gone along, leaving Lucas more and more certain that everyone was busy working something up in secret. He didn't let them know he knew, no, of course not. He enjoyed playing the innocent in this, and besides it WAS kind of fun to mess with them a bit. That was all part of the May experience in the Friar house.

Finally, the morning came that he turned twenty-eight. It came following the preceding night, where Ava and the boys had all had these smiles about them, some trying so hard to hide them that they only made themselves more obvious. The boys had not spent the night in their room down the hall but rather downstairs, in Ava's room, with their sister, all the better to launch their plan first thing in the morning. Only the babies remained upstairs with their parents, in their cribs across the room.

As he woke up first, Lucas got up and quietly walked over to look at his youngest sons. They were six months old already, and every time that number of months went up, it always left him and Maya stunned. That was always the way, with any of their children, wasn't it? Maybe with the twins, because there were the two of them at once, it felt doubly as powerful. He would look at them, finally sleeping in separate cribs and remember how long it had been before they'd managed to have them both make it through the night without pitching a fit because they weren't next to one another. The reasoning went that once they'd realized they were still next to one another, if in neighboring cribs, they had stopped fussing. Now, they slept, each of them looking as though they were reaching to the other in their dreams.

"All's well in bear land?" Maya's waking voice made him turn and smile.

"Peace reigns," he confirmed.

"Good, then get back here," she patted the empty space next to her. He was more than happy to oblige, and he nearly came at a run and jump, which had her bury a laugh in a snort. "Well I'm glad to see one more year hasn't gotten in your way."

"Never," he vowed before catching her in a kiss that she very happily returned.

"Hey, so, fair warning, as on board as I am with whatever you've got in mind right now, I feel like I need to point out the... very imminent... incursion..." Maya breathed, her voice here letting him know that she was very close to forgetting this herself, in favor of his own plans. He grinned, kissed her once more and sat up. "Right... Yeah, good call, good call."

As disappointed as they both might have been, for now at least, it was impossible for them not to be bright with smiles as soon as the troupe came climbing up from the basement to collect the birthday dad. Jamie came zooming in first and hoisted himself up on to the bed in record time, Noah right behind him. Elliott looked about to do the same but, seeing big sister Ava on her way to the cribs, he followed her. He was very good at holding his baby brothers, and so she passed him one - Jackson, who his siblings called Jack-Jack - before she took up Simon for her herself, crooning good mornings to her sweet Si and kissing him on the cheek. The tiny boy showed his appreciation for this gesture by clamping on to her face and squealing.

They were all there, crowded around their father and as they came, Lucas could see the painted letters on their faces, an L on one cheek, a D on the other. Even though he'd figured it out, he asked them what they were for, and Jamie explained by pointing to his brother's face. L for Lucas, D for Daddy. It was just what he needed to start the day.

X

They would look at the pictures from the day of his birth, and as much as they would always tell themselves that it felt like a second ago... It was hard to look at images of a then twenty-one-year-old Maya, so very near to becoming a mother without knowing it and say that it hadn't happened exactly when it had happened. Six years ago. Six years exactly, as of this day. That was how old their first baby boy was today.

He would look at those pictures, too. They would watch Elliott observe his younger mother, with a belly full of him, and it would really start and sink in how he was moving out of one era of his childhood and into another. He would be starting the first grade in the fall, which in itself felt so, so strange. They tried not to be those parents, losing it at every new thing, but how could they help it? Their sprout was growing, and growing, every day less of a sprout.

In reverse to a few days back, when the boys had all bunked down in the basement their sister, it was Ava who had been invited to come and spend the night in her brothers' room. Not long ago, they had equipped her with a good cushion and a sleeping bag, for those nights where she would stay up there, as it was a semi regular event. To fit with the room, of course, it featured her favorite Star Wars character.

Before either of his parents could get up and go wish him a happy birthday, the great ELF, Elliott Lucas Friar, came sneaking away from his room and his birthday 'sleepover,' the better to peek in on his baby brothers.

"Are you guys awake?" he whispered and, in their bed, Maya and Lucas lifted their heads to get a look at the scene, the brand new six-year-old stood right where the two cribs met. They could also see little feet moving in each of the cribs, confirming that, yes, Simon and Jackson were awake and merrily looking back at their big brother. Elliott greeted this by waving one hand at each of them and then reaching in to give a squeeze to one foot here and another there. "There's another birthday today, and this one's mine," he told the babies. They made happy noises at this, batted their legs some more. "You want to come down? I can take you."

At this, the parents revealed their wakefulness with a cough. Elliott turned around, and his smile was everything. He went and scrambled up to the foot of the bed, climbed on and crawled into his mother's arms. Maya closed in around him, kissed him many more times than six.

"Happy birthday, Sprout," Lucas presented a fist for bumping, and Elliott allowed just the one arm to leave his mother's hold, so he could bump back, splaying out his fingers at the same time his father did, both of them giving the very necessary sound of explosion.

"We're making waffles, right?" Elliott asked, turning his head up to look at his mother.

"If that's what you want then that's what you're getting," Maya promised. "What kind of waffles should we make? Banana? And chocolate?" she guessed, and the nods she got in return said it all. "You got it. Are we going now?" Elliott considered this.

"In a little while," he decided.

"In a little while," Maya repeated.

"I want to stay here with you," Elliott explained, and for it being his birthday and not either of his parents', he had still given them both a wonderful gift. Maya redoubled her hugging efforts.

"Then you just stay here as long as you need." Elliott liked this, and he reached out, the better to get his father to sandwich him in between. Lucas happily obliged. The parents held their firstborn son, their six-year-old boy, and they wondered how many more birthdays they'd have with him before giant mom and dad hugs were no longer what he desired. They weren't there yet.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners