Chapter 57: They Grow up So Fast

One Month Later. FPOV

There are certain days out of the year that parents dread and get excited about at the same time. We dread it because there’s a lot of work, and preparation that goes into it. There are a lot of things to buy, a lot of things to set up, a lot of people to invite, food to make or buy, drink to buy, paper cuts, paper plates and bowls, plastic spoons, forks, and knives. And lets not forget about the cake. Not a lot of parents honestly care what cake they get, but Buffy does and I was the one who had to special order it and pick it up from the baker. Then there’s making sure you have enough ice, because we always seem to run out of ice. Everything is hectic and loud, and halfway through it you wonder why the hell you decided to do this in the first place.

And something always goes wrong. It doesn’t matter how hard you try, one thing or another will screw up. You either forget one of the items, or one kid gets into a fight with the other and causes drama, or the younger sibling gets jealous and acts out. And again you wonder why you put up with it. But then you see the look on your kids face as they rip into their presents. How their face lights up when they get exactly what they asked for. And you get the perfect shot of them blowing out the candles on the cake, and it makes all the other shit worth while. But mostly you put up with it because it’s your kid’s birthday. A lot of the time you spend out of the moment, just taking a good look at the person you’re raising, and you think back to on all of the memories that you cherish the most.

You’re excited because you’re proud of how big your kid has gotten, how much they’ve grown over the years, and the anticipation of the future. They still think they can be anything they want to be. They still have their dreams and their hopes. They’re not jaded by the world, and they’re still very naïve and think that the world is perfect. That good always wins over evil, and that one day there will be world peace. At the same time you dread the future. You dread it because it’s making your little baby grow up, when you just want them to be your little baby forever. You don’t want them to get older and become more independent from you. You don’t want them to start dating, or move out, or go off to college. You just want to stop time and keep your baby from growing up.

If you’re like me then you try to forget about all of the uncertainty that the future has. You forget that your little boy is now a year older, and just one more year closer to not needing you anymore. You forget about all of that, and live in the now. You don’t worry that you might run out of ice, or that two of the little kids don’t like each other and have been snippy with each other since they showed up. Nope. You take pictures to capture all of the moments you don’t want to forget, and you congratulate your kid on all of the great stuff they got this year. And Mattie got a lot of great stuff. I can’t wait to get my hands on those toys. That’s one of the best things about being a mom: all of the toys. You get to be a kid again when you play with yours. But you have to be careful because sometimes you can get a little too caught up and start acting too much like a kid. And it’s really embarrassing when your long time girlfriend walks in on you fighting with your seven-year-old son over a toy.

“Mom, can I open this one now?” he asks and B looks a little conflicted. He wants to open up the tool box that my dad bought him, but there are a lot of parts, and B doesn’t want any of ‘em to get lost. So she tells him no and he groans about it a little, but he isn’t going to whine or anything because my dad’s here and Mattie is always trying to impress him. Things were a little weird between them for a couple of weeks because my dad gave Mattie ‘the talk’. That kind of thing is awkward and it took him a while to shake it off, but they’re back to normal now. If anything Mattie listens to him better now. It kinda sucks when your kid listens to your dad better then he listens to you. But we’re dealing with it. Last month when he was being a little punk it took a while but we finally made him see reason.

It wasn’t as hard as I thought it was gonna be. It was extremely awkward, and I never thought I’d have that kind of conversation with any of my kids but it worked. Get your mind outta the gutter, I didn’t tell my kid about my sex life. I left out a lot of the details, but I told him what Angel used to mean to Buffy, and how they were in love and all that shit. Then I told him how I got jealous and I tried to poison Angel to get him out of the picture. I told him that Buffy knew I was the one who did it, and how pissed she was. I didn’t tell him she tried to kill me ‘cause I don’t want any of my kids knowing the full details about the Buffy and Faith history. Anyway, I skipped forward to the part where despite all of the bad stuff I did to her, she was still able to forgive me, and love me. It did the trick and he told Dawn he was sorry for being so mean, and he’s been friendly with her ever since. He hasn’t forgotten the fact that Kyle isn’t around anymore and he’s still a little upset about that, but he’s getting better.

“Hey Faith,” I look over when I hear Kennedy talkin to me. She’s holdin Joey and he’s crying kinda hard. He doesn’t look too happy either. Kennedy’s lookin a little panicked too. She loves kids but she has no idea how to take care of a baby. That’s why she didn’t start babysitting Mattie until he was about two. By that time he was walking and kinda talking. He couldn’t say full sentences, but he could jabber out some words. “I think your boy wants you.” If he does it’s a first. This kid is all about Buffy. I can’t blame him ‘cause before we had kids I was all about only Buffy too. It’s a little frustrating though when you’re the only parent though and your kid won’t stop cryin ‘cause he wants his mommy, but his mommy won’t be back for another hour or so. Yeah, sometimes being a parent sucks.

“Alright,” I tell her and reach out for my baby. Surprisingly he holds his arms out towards me and lets me take him from Kennedy. He stops screaming, but the tears are still coming out. His bottom lip is stickin out and he still doesn’t look happy. “Aw, poor baby boy. Did the mean girl try to give you some affection?” I ask in my baby voice. Now that I can see his forehead better I know what happened. He’s shy around people he doesn’t know very well, and Kennedy and Cordelia are two of those people. He let Kennedy hold him, but he was probably on the edge of tears. And then she gave him a big ol’ kiss on his forehead, leaving lip prints from her lipstick, and he started crying. That happens with almost every woman that holds him. And lot of them do. Babies are chick magnets, and they always want to hold the baby, and sometimes I let them, and they always end up giving him a little kiss and he always freaks out.

I look over when I see Mattie get up from the table. He runs over where all of his friends are standing around and he joins in on whatever game they’re playing. I’m not sure what it is. Mattie’s starting to show more interest in sports, which is normal. He wants to join the football team this coming school year, but me and B aren’t too sure about that. He proved without a doubt that he’s really fuckin strong, and we don’t want him to accidentally hurt another kid running to make a touch down or something. I think it’s a little sad that he only wants to be around his guy friends now. Lindsay used to be apart of their group, but now that all of them have reached adolescence they’ve kind of shunned her a little bit. They still play together sometimes, but not as much. I would feel horrible about it, but it seems little Lindsay has also reached adolescence and wants to hang out with other girls instead of the group.

“Hey baby,” Buffy says and gives me a little kiss on the cheek. Joey instantly starts whining and reaches out for her. I pass him off to her and he calms down. I give her a little kiss on the lips and I feel her smile. I pull back and just look at her. She looks so beautiful, but I always think that. “It seems a little unreal, doesn’t it?” I give her a questioning look and she nods her head in the direction she’s staring at. I follow her gaze and see the group of boys and now they’re playing a game of touch football. “Think about it Faith, he’s ten years old now. Nine and half years ago he looked a lot like this.” I look at her again and now she’s looking down at Joey with a little smile on her face. “It just doesn’t seem real.” I take a step closer to her so I’m in her personal space and run the back of my fingers on her arm.

“I know. I mean, it’s been an entire decade. We’ve been on this planet for over three decades. Makes you feel kinda old, doesn’t it?” I look into her eyes and I have a little smile on my face. I’m only saying all this just to mess with her. To me she’ll always be beautiful. But I don’t think she’s worried about my opinion. I think she’s worried about what other people think of her. I look for any sign of a freak out or something, but nothing changes. Ok, so she should either get an Oscar for that performance, or she really doesn’t care about getting old. I think I’m gonna go with the second one. I still gotta try to smooth things over or I will be in trouble for this later. “But one thing that hasn’t changed is you are still the most beautiful woman in the entire world.” She smiles and I can’t help but feel relieved. Dodged a fuckin bullet on that one. Good thing I’m good at coming up with that romantic crap whenever I need to.

“Don’t look so relaxed. You’re so not getting any tonight. You might even be sleeping on the couch,” she whispers and gives me a little kiss on the lips before she walks off and joins her group of friends a.k.a. the Stepford wives. Alright, I know I shouldn’t say that since we’re sort of friends, and they are pretty cool people once you get to know them. We just have very little in common. I watch as they fawn and dote over my little boy and since he’s in the arms of his mommy he isn’t being very shy. If anything I’m not jealous because Joey wants Buffy more then he wants me. I think I’m more jealous that Buffy spends more time with the kids then she does me. But whatever. It’s been that way for ten years now. You have a kid and suddenly your priorities change. You look at the little life that you helped create and you think: oh my God, that’s my child, half of his DNA is mine. And then you look at your partner and you think: who the fuck are you? I don’t care if you need attention, I’ve got a baby to take care of.

Ok, that maybe a little of an exaggeration, but basically it is kind of true. You stop caring whether or not you get any time to snuggle with your partner during the day, or how many nights a week you have sex. Your sole priority is to make sure that the baby doesn’t die. And all of my kids are still alive so I think I’m doing a pretty good job so far. Mattie has been having some anger issues, but that’s normal. He’s growing up, and part of growing up is becoming overwhelmed with so many hormones that nothing really makes sense and you get frustrated and take it out on the people around you. Or was that just me? I really don’t think I’m alone on this one. I think sometime soon I’m going to have a little sit down with him and have ‘the talk’. I know my dad already talked to him about some stuff, but he’s my kid and I feel like I should too. I have to let him know that he can talk to me about anything. That’s the goal, will he really open up all the way and be totally honest? Probably not. He’ll be awkward, and maybe have some questions, but I highly doubt he’ll ever come to me with those types of questions.

I pick up the digital camera off the picnic table and start taking pictures. This isn’t my sort of thing, but I feel like I should because nobody else is. I don’t like taking posed shots. Nope, I’m all about the candid. I get a few shots of Mattie playing football with his friends, and I’m starting to rethink the whole not-letting-him-join-the-school’s-team thing. He is really good, and I know he’s holding back a lot. I guess if he proves that he can use self-control and not hurt anybody, I really don’t see the problem. It would be good training for him. If it’s one thing I’ve learned from Giles is that: ‘being a slayer is about far more then brute force, and simply winning your opponent. It’s about concentration and learning self-control so you will be able to judge what would be the best next move instead of diving right into a fight and increasing your chance of losing’. Wow, Giles’ voice is so boring I almost fell asleep just thinking about it. Thank God the party is over now. All this noise was starting to drive me a little crazy.

BPOV

My little boy is another year older. It seems like only yesterday I was waking up at two in the morning to change his poopy diapers and breastfeeding him for twenty minutes before he’d finally fall back asleep. Whenever my mom would talk about what it was like raising me and Dawn she always said that it seemed like we grew up in the blink of an eye. It didn’t seem like that to us because we were still growing up and that seems to take forever when you’re the one doing the growing. But it does seem that way. One minute I was six months pregnant, and giddy at the thought of having a baby. Then I blinked and the next thing I know I’m on my back and screaming, and sweating and I have a doctor between my legs telling me to push. I blink again and Matthew is seven months old and swallowing a penny that was unknowingly dropped on the floor.

I blink again and Matthew is five years old and starting his first day of kindergarten. I remember having a little meltdown at the mall because I just left my little boy in the hands of somebody else. I remember feeling unneeded because he was fine. He didn’t show any type of separation anxiety, and he couldn’t wait to go back the next day and play with all of his new friends. I blink again and Matthew is nine years old and beating the hell out of that little bully David for hitting his little sister. I still can’t believe he did that, but I can’t say I blame him. When I was that age I was way protective of Dawn, when I wasn’t putting her Barbies somewhere in sight but out of her reach. Ok, so I was kind of a mean big sister, so what? It’s not like Dawn never did anything like that to me.

Anyway, Matthew’s tenth birthday party ended hours ago. We’ve already cleaned everything up, helped him open all of his new stuff, put most of it away, and we went out to dinner. We figured this was a good enough reason to go through the hassle of eating out. Matthew and Addison are always really good when we eat out because they know when we say ‘be good or you’ll be sitting in the car all by yourself’ we mean it. But Joseph is only five months old and five month olds aren’t known for being able to sit still for every long. Luckily we got Emma to babysit for us. We went to Lee’s Chinese Palace since that’s the one place we all really like. We had a really good time. Faith sort of taught Addison how to talk with a Boston accent, and that was hilarious to hear. The kids had root beer because it doesn’t have any caffeine and me and Faith had one glass of wine each. We don’t drink often but sometimes we have a glass of wine with dinner.

But we’re home now. The kids have already been put to bed, Joseph is already asleep. Poor little boy is all tuckered out from everything that happened today. He was around a lot more people and activity then he usually is and I think he just got a little over stimulated. But I’m sure he’ll still wake us up at five-thirty in the morning crying for his breakfast. After ten years of being a mom I could really go for a nice long vacation. I’ll go to a deserted beech, and lay out in the sun wearing nothing, and a waitress will bring me margarita after margarita until I get tired of those and move on to something else. Then I’ll have my personal chef make me something really nice for lunch. Something that in no way resembles microwaveable pizza rolls or hot dogs, or corn dogs, or any of the food that we feed the kids. It’ll be nice and quiet. Just me, a bartender, a waitress and a chef. I know it’ll never happen, but I can dream can’t I?

It’s really quiet right now, which is nice. The only sound I can hear is the shower. Faith always gets hers at night, and I get mine in the morning. Sometimes she’ll take one in the morning but only if she really needs to. I’m sitting on the couch in my yummy sushi pajamas, wrapped up in a blanket and just listening to the quiet. I know it sounds insane, but I just spent almost the entire day listening to ten-year-old children playing, this quiet is very much needed if I’m going to stay sane. Don’t get me wrong, I love throwing my kids birthday parties. Celebrating birthdays is just something I’ve always done, but it’s so noisy when they’re still young that sometimes I wish they’d hurry up and be seventeen when the birthday celebration will be inviting some of their friends over for dinner, and cake and ice cream and the opening of the presents. Things won’t be as loud then. I look over towards the hallway when I hear a little creak on the floor. Matthew is walking down it and towards me.

“Hey, sweetie, can’t get to sleep?” I ask and he shakes his head no. I hold up the blanket a little bit and give him a little smile. “Come sit with me.” He sits on my lap and we both shift around a little until we find a comfortable position. I wrap the blanket around both of us and he leans against me. I rest my chin on the top of his head and I wrap my arms around him and slowly rub his back. He’s been acting so grown up lately that it’s easy to forget that he’s only ten years old. I know that he’s starting to grow up, and soon he’s going to develop an interest in girls, and dating and all of that, but the key words in that sentence are ‘starting to’, and ‘soon’.

He still isn’t there yet, and I think it’s a little unfair that we expect him to be a lot more mature then he is. Take the him overreacting on Dawn for example. He was upset, and he lost control of his emotions. I don’t think he would have been so mad, and held onto the anger for as long if we sat him down right away and let him talk about how he was feeling. We just expected him to apologize and get over the anger right away. We were trying to force him to pretend that everything was ok, when really everything wasn’t, and he wasn’t willing to go along with that delusion. He got angry about it, and at everyone who was pretending that what Dawn did was ok, and all of that is totally understandable. And eventually he did apologize and he did get over the anger. I don’t know what Faith said to him, but it worked.

“Have I ever told you how proud I am of you?” I ask and he slowly shakes his head no. I smile a little and give him a kiss on the top of his head and then rest my chin on it again. “Well, I am. You’re growing up so fast, and sometimes I think you’re growing too fast. And don’t roll your eyes at me.” He gets that from Faith, and trust me it’s annoying. “Every mother wants her son to be her little baby forever.” I really didn’t mean for this to turn into a heart-to-heart but that’s where it’s going. “And one day you’re going to meet a girl and the first time you lay eyes on her you’re going to know that she’s special.” And yes I’m talking about the first time I saw Faith. “She might be a little…different from you and all of your friends, or every other person you’ve ever met, but that won’t matter.” I give him another little kiss on the top of his head and I keep talking. I wonder how confused he is right now. Probably a lot.

“You’ll definitely talk to her because you’ll feel like if you don’t at least try to get her attention then it’ll be the biggest mistake you’ve ever made. So you’ll talk, and you’ll become friends after a while.” Obviously I’m not really talking about my experience with Faith, but whatever. “But then both of you will develop deeper feelings for each other, and one of you will do the asking, and you’ll start dating. Things will be casual at first. You’ll bring her home for dinner so we can meet her, and you might sit out on the back porch and start kissing.” He tenses up a little bit and I smile. He’s still at that age where kissing a girl is the most disgusting thing in the whole world. “But then things will start to get serious, and before you know it you’ll be head over heels in love. The world will stop spinning, time will stand still, and it’ll seem like the stars are lining up just so you can be happy.” For some reason I feel like I’m channeling Willow.

“Then you’ll ask her to marry you, and she’ll say yes, and both of you will be so happy. You’ll throw a big dinner party at your apartment and have everyone over to announce it, and everyone will be really happy for you. And then you’ll get married and move into a house together.” Ok so things might not go exactly like this, but they could. “And you’ll be so busy being newly weds that you won’t really think about dear old mom. Then you two will start your own family, and the only time you’ll ever really come and visit me is to have me babysit so you can go into town and get some shopping done, or just spend some quiet time with your wife.” I smile a little bit and give him a little squeeze. “Do you know what I’m trying to tell you?” I’m not even too sure what I’m trying to tell him. He’s quiet for about a minute as he thinks it over. Then he sighs, takes in a deep breath and says.

“Don’t fall in love and get married because then I won’t want to spend any time with you?” he asks and I laugh a little bit. God this kid cracks me up. He takes after Faith. She can always make me laugh when she really wants to. I give him another little kiss on top of his head, and then I feel him lean into me a little more. Ok, it’s getting a little hard to breathe over here. “But I thought falling in love and getting married was a good thing? How come you don’t want me to do it?” Alright so maybe this little talk wasn’t such a good idea after all. I sigh a little and keep rubbing his back. Maybe if I do this enough he’ll fall asleep in my arms. It’s been a long time since he’s done that.

“It is a good thing, sweetheart, and I do want you to fall in love, and get married, and be happy. I guess I’m just feeling a little old. I mean, you’re ten years old today, which means that I’m thirty-four years old. You probably don’t understand right now, but someday you will. When I was younger I used to go out every night, and slay, and then go dancing with Willow and Xander. I had a boyfriend who I was crazy about at the time. I used to appreciate everyday because I never knew if it was going to be my last or not. See, when I was a teenager I was the only slayer. There weren’t thousands more who could do the job for me. Aunt Willow, and uncle Xander and grandpa Giles helped, but when it came down to it, I’d be the one dieing to save the world, and not them. Back then a slayer didn’t live passed her early twenties. Now I’m in my mid-thirties and I have three kids and I don’t go out anymore, and I just feel old.” I sigh a little more and he nuzzles me a little bit. I guess he’s starting to get tired.

“But you’re not old. Whenever we go to the store and I go somewhere else for a little bit and come back I always see some guy talking to you, and he always tries to get your phone number. Old people don’t have guys asking for their phone number.” He’s right that does happen a lot more then I would like it to. It’s not that I don’t appreciate it, I just have stuff that I need to get done and the last thing I want to do is turn down an attractive guy who thinks I’m attractive enough to ask out on a date. I pull him away from me a little bit so I can look at his face. I smile and give him a give kiss on the cheek and rest my forehead against his.

“God bless you,” I tell him and smile again. I sit up a little straighter and he rests his head against my chest again. It feels good just sitting here with him in my arms, and the rest of the house is quiet, and I don’t have to worry about what needs to be done, or when Faith is going to get off her lazy ass and help me out. Normally I would feel bad about saying that but it’s true, she’s gotten a little lazy. It never used to have to practically pull her teeth to get her to help me out with the household chores, but for whatever reason she doesn’t want to help and she’s not shy about telling me how much she hates it. I think she does that on purpose though, because sometimes I get so irritated that I freak out a little and tell her to just go sit back down and I’ll do it myself. But I forget about all of that and just sit here and enjoy this.

“Hey,” Faith whispers and walks into the room. She’s in her pajamas now and her hair is still a little wet from the shower. I smile at her and she looks down at Matthew. He fell asleep a couple minutes ago. “Couldn’t get to sleep, huh?” I shake my head no a couple times and rub his back a little. Faith sits down next to me, and she situates herself so she’s turned towards me a little. She holds her arms out to me and I carefully move me and Matthew so that I’m in her arms leaning against her, and Matthew is in my arms leaning against me. I’ve always loved this sandwiched feeling. Having Faith hold me while I hold our son. Never once has it made me feel claustrophobic or uncomfortable. And right now at this very moment while I’m sandwiched in between my wife and oldest child, life is absolutely perfect.

FPOV

“So Mattie, what does it feel like being ten?” I ask and sit down at the table. For whatever reason Buffy got up earlier then she usually does and made a huge breakfast. She usually doesn’t do this but trust me I can get used to it. Mattie doesn’t say anything, he just shrugs his shoulder. He’s not being rude or anything, he’s just trying to chew up the huge bite of waffle he just took. “You can take smaller bites, ya know. It’s not going anywhere. And be careful, if you mom sees you doin that she’ll have a fit.” I set a great example by downing half a pancake in two bites, and drink an entire glass of milk while my mouth is stuffed with food. I look around the kitchen and I don’t see Buffy anywhere. Or Addy, or Joey. What the fuck? I see a piece of notebook paper stuck to the fridge by a magnet, and get up and take it off. I unfold it and read out load what Buffy wrote.

“‘If either of you have eaten any of this breakfast you now owe me. Addison and Joseph have dentist appointments and I have a doctor’s appointment, and I’m going to stop by Dawn’s for a bit and help her with the twins so I’ll be gone for most of the day. The clean dishes need to be put away and the dirty ones put in the dishwasher. The entire house needs to be vacuumed, dusted, and the kitchen and bathroom floors needs to be mopped. The laundry needs to be done, and the trash needs to be taken out. I’ll pick up dinner on my way home. Love your one and only, B.’” I can’t believe she did this. And it’s not like we can just ignore this and eat the breakfast and say we never saw the note, ‘cause she’ll know we’re lying and she’ll get pissed. I don’t just mean a little angry. I mean the kind of pissed that has me sleepin on the couch for three nights and not getting any for at least a month.

I know exactly why she’s doing this too. She’s mad because I’ve been slackin off lately and not helping out around the house. She ends up doing all of the chores herself while I sit on my ass and watch TV. Sometimes she can nag me into doing something but most of the time I get out of it. But I guess she’s tired of playing Cinderella and wants to get out for a day without doing any chores. I don’t blame her. I hate doing housework almost as much as I hate white chocolate. But when I imagine what’ll happen if we don’t have all this shit done I don’t see anything good. So we might as well suck it up and get this stuff done. It shouldn’t take too long. And when it’s all over I get to sit on my ass and watch TV, maybe even have a couple beers.

“Ok, so you do the dishes, the dusting and take out the trash. We’ll both do the laundry and I’ll do the rest.” He nods his head a little bit and takes another bite of his breakfast. We eat in near silence. The only sounds that can be heard is the scraping of the forks on the plates, and us chewing. It is a little strange that we’re not talking to each other. Breakfast is usually pretty loud because all of us are more busy talking and making each other laugh then actually eating. But I’m really fuckin tired and I can’t for the life of me think of anything to say that would start a conversation. Joey was up most of the night crying because he’s teething again and two more teeth are growing in. He had a little bit of a fever, which is normal, and he’s going to be ok. I just wish he wasn’t in pain, not only ‘cause he’s my baby and I don’t want him to suffer, but because over the years I’ve gotten used to sleeping and I enjoy it very much.

“Mama?” he asks and I look up from my plate. He looks serious and a little nervous. He’s going to ask for something, I know it. I say ‘what?’ and Mattie takes a deep breath and he puts his fork down. “I’m going to be going back to school next month.” This is about the sports thing, I know it. I really don’t think I’m going to be able to say no to him again. He wants to join a sports team more then anything, and it’s not like it’s a bad thing. There’s just the possibility of him hurting someone really bad. “And I was wondering if you thought about me playing soccer, and then basketball, and then baseball? ‘Cause Lucas said we have to sign up right away so we can order our uniforms.” He sounds so...desperate. He really wants to play. Ok, so lets look at the facts. Those three sports are minimum contact. At least when it’s fifth graders playing. Soccer might not be a good idea, but I really don’t see a problem with the others.

“Look, Mattie, I know you want to play sports really bad. You want to have fun with your friends and all that, but I gotta be honest, I don’t think soccer is a good idea. I know you’d never hurt anyone on purpose, but accidents happen, and I think it’s too risky you playing a game where you kick a ball really hard. You might accidently kick it too hard and the goalie could get seriously hurt.” He looks so hopeful because I haven’t said anything bad about the other two. Since I don’t want to completely shut him down I’m going to do the one thing that parents do that not only frustrates the kid, but makes the other parent mad. I’m gonna leave it up to Buffy. Well, not completely. “When your mom gets home we’ll talk about basketball and baseball. As long as you’re really careful, and you use a lot of self control I don’t see a problem with you playing. And you know how much your mom worries, so she might say no at first, but I’ll try to compromise with her.” And by compromise I mean giving her a large amount of head.

“Ok, thanks.” I give him a little smile and I can tell he’s in a better mood. We finish with breakfast and we start doing our chores. I’m so bored I think I’m about to drop dead. I hate vacuuming. It was totally invented by Satan. There’s no other explanation. It doesn’t take long for Mattie to finish all of his stuff. I did give him all the easy shit. So he starts doing the laundry. Buffy taught him how to do it on his own, and I know why he’s doing it now. He isn’t trying to help out. Any other day and he’d be outside playing ‘cause he finished everything I told him to do. Nope, he’s sucking up. He’s trying to butter me up so I’ll let him play basketball and baseball for his school. At first I’m a little annoyed. I don’t want my kid thinking he has to do things around the house for me to get me to argue his side of something for him. But now that I’ve been thinking about it for a few minutes this could really work in my favor. I’ve already mopped and done all the other shit. I saved vacuuming for last ‘cause I didn’t think it would be so bad. But now that I’m finally done with it all I wanna do is sit down, and relax.

Mattie’s relaxing on the couch too. He’s watching some dumb kid movie. Now normally if I wanna watch TV I have to wait until whatever the kids are watching is over and then I can turn it. The little theory I got goin is Mattie will pretty much kiss my feet if I ask him to, so I should be able to turn the TV to something way better then this shit and not get any lip about it. I walk in and sit down on the couch in my spot. Everybody in this house knows that the middle cushion is mine. The only reason I’m so aggressive about this spot is because Buffy won’t let me get a recliner. That’s right, she won’t let me. Apparently she put too much hard work into decorating this room and she doesn’t want some big, bulky, ugly chair taking up a lot of space. And that is such bullshit, but the chair I want isn’t ugly. It’s practically a thing of beauty. Black leather, a built in massager, and heat or cooling control. Come on! I so have to have that. And I will get it, I just have to go about doing it the right way.

“Hey, hand me the remote.” And just like that he gives it up. He didn’t even argue with me about it. Fuck, this is sweet. I put my feet up on the coffee table and wiggle my toes a little bit. Damn I need to repaint my nails, they’re getting pretty chipped. Oh well, I’ll worry about that later. “Would you get me a beer?” At least I asked. I may be treating him like a servant, but I have manners. He hesitates for a couple seconds but then he gets up and goes into the kitchen. Man this is fuckin awesome. I should totally do this shit more often. Maybe if I ask nice enough he’ll repaint my toes for me. Then again I think I’ll worry a little bit if he’s any good at it. ‘Cause that’ll mean he’s done it before. Yeah, I think I’ll wait until B gets home and tonight I’ll ask her to do it, because she likes doing shit like that for me. She’ll paint my toenails, brush or comb my hair and shave my cunt, but she won’t let me get a chair. She’s seriously fucked up in the head. I look over when I see Mattie walk back in the room and he’s carrying two bottles of beer. Huh, this should be interesting.

“Thanks,” I say when he hands me one. He puts the other one on the coffee table and then sits back down on the couch. I eye him for a couple seconds and twist off the cap and toss it onto the coffee table next to the other bottle. I take a little sip and give him a sidelong glace, and he’s just sitting there watching TV. We’re both still in our pajamas but it’s a Sunday so we don’t have to get dressed if we don’t want to. We never go anywhere on Sundays. “You feel like throwin back a cold one or something?” He looks at me like I just asked if he wanted to smoke crack or something. He shakes his head and leans his head back against the couch.

“No. I know you’re gonna want another one so I brought it out so I won’t have to get up again.” He knows I’m going to want another one? Ok, is he trying to tell me that I have a drinking problem because I know I don’t. And don’t look at me like that. I don’t have a problem. So I have the occasional couple of beers, that doesn’t mean there’s a problem. When I do drink it’s not like I get drunk, I just have a couple to calm my nerves. You try living in a house with an insane woman, and three kids and see how quickly your nerves get fried. Besides my doctor told me that having the occasional couple will reduce my stress rate, relax my muscles and help me sleep a little better. You really going to argue with what a doctor said, huh? But still, this is going to bug the shit outta me if I don’t ask.

“Mattie, do you think I drink too much?” Again with that look. So maybe he doesn’t think I have a problem. Maybe he was just being nice and got me another one so neither of us would have to get up. He tells me no and starts watching TV again. See, I was right he doesn’t think I drink too much. I’m not even going to bother asking Buffy ‘cause she thinks that even one is too many. Like I said, I’m doing this for my health. So enough about all that shit. I don’t want to think about it anymore. I start watching TV again and just relax. I notice that every time I take a drink Mattie glances at me through the corner of his eye. And I know exactly what he wants. He wants to know what it tastes like. Well parents are supposed to offer their children a wide range of experiences, and how else is going to learn if he doesn’t experience anything?

“Wanna sip?” He looks at me for a few seconds and he’s really tense. But he nods his head yeah. “Alright, but just a little sip. And if you tell your mother we’re both dead. Here.” I hand him the bottle and he’s still really tense, but he looks a little excited. He licks his lips and flexes his fingers over the cool glass. Then he brings the bottle up to his lips real slow and takes a little sip. And the bottle is ripped from his mouth lightening fast and he starts coughing, and gagging, and all the liquid is spit out, and his face is turning really red. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. You know better then that shit.” I take the bottle from him and take another drink. “And I better not catch you stealin this and taking it out to your friends. It’s never too late to start spanking you, remember that.” Me and B have never spanked our kids but there are some times when a good ass spanking is just what they need, and that would definitely qualify.

“Now get the couch cleaned up before your mother comes home. And eat some of those sour cream and onion chips so she won’t smell it on your breath. Don’t want her to kill me just for teaching you a lesson.” That would fuckin suck. I’m just trying to teach the kid about right and wrong and she’d take it the wrong way and murder me and bury me in the backyard. Probably in her garden ‘cause if I’m going to be a corpse I might as well be put to use and fertilize her flowers. He walks back into the room and he has a wet rag and the bag of chips. He’s still coughing a little bit and now I feel bad for him. I’m supposed to be the parent and all that shit so I shouldn’t have done that to him. But still, he was curious so if it wasn’t me giving him a sip he would just wait and set some from one of his friends’ dad or something. He starts to clean up the couch but he’s still coughin kinda hard so I go ahead and clean it for him. He gets a glass of water and sips at it and now he’s better. I still make him eat some chips ‘cause that shit’ll cover up the smell. Hopefully B won’t get suspicious ‘cause now she’s home and if she finds out she’ll kick my ass.

BPOV

Today has been a pretty great day so far. The kids both got clean bills of health from the dentist and I got a clean bill of health from my doctor. We didn’t go straight to Dawn’s like I said I would in the note I left. We did a little bit of shopping first. Matthew doesn’t like to shop for clothes but my little girl is a natural at it. We bought her a bunch of new dresses and skirts, and some really nice shirts and some news shoes. I got Joey some new clothes too, but it’s been so hot lately that we haven’t been dressing him in anything but a onesie, and that’s only when we go somewhere. At home he’s just in his diaper because the air conditioner is giving us some problems and we keep forgetting to call someone about it.

After the shopping we went out to lunch and it was nice. I never get to spend time with just Addison and it was great to get to spend that time with her. Joey was asleep during lunch so I didn’t have to pay any attention to him and Addison loved that the conversation was all about her. I don’t think my little girl is conceded or anything, but she’s a middle child, and the youngest is a five month old, and the oldest is a ten year old who wants just as much attention as she does so she doesn’t really get a lot of one on one time with me or Faith. And it was very interesting talking to her. Apparently her favorite color isn’t yellow anymore, it’s light green, and she doesn’t like pickles or onions on her cheeseburgers. She never used to care, but for whatever reason she doesn’t like those anymore. I learned a lot of stuff and I didn’t think I would. I thought I knew my baby girl better then that, but I guess not.

So, after Addison made me feel like a bad mom we headed over to Dawn’s and that’s where we are right now. My little sister could really use a break, and some alone time but unfortunately that can’t happen today. Normally when I come over here to help her out I watch the kids while she goes out for an hour or two. She does a little shopping, or goes out to eat, or just goes to the park and hangs out. Watching the boys by myself isn’t too hard once you learn to tune out the noise at feeding time. But today Dawn can’t go out because I really don’t think I’d be able to watch two one-month-olds, a five-month-old and a three-year-old by myself. So we’re spending some sisterly time together and just talking. Addison is watching TV, the twins are asleep, and Joseph is feeling a little drowsy from the children’s Tylenol that I gave him not too long ago so he’s just sitting in my lap and zoning out. There are some things I want to know and hopefully she’ll be willing to answer them.

“Anyway, so this August Faith is going to be taking a business out at the community college. It’ll take a while but she’s going to get her business license and she wants to open up a motorcycle shop or something. If she does her dad is going to go into business with her, but I’m not too sure. She was talking about it the other day but I wasn’t really paying attention.” I take a little sip of my coffee and she does the same. She isn’t breastfeeding the boys so it’s ok for her to drink caffeine. Actually it’s a good thing she’s drinking caffeine or I don’t think she’d be able to stand. “So, Dawn, I don’t want to be intrusive or anything, but have you decided if you’re going to tell Michael about the boys?” She looks down into her coffee cup and she has a guilty expression on her face.

“No, not yet. Everything is just so crazy right now. I want to wait until I’m moved into the house and everything gets settled before I call him. I’m pretty sure he’s going to want to be a great father to the boys, and if he sees that I’m living in a hotel then he might try to sue for custody or something.” And the thought of that is totally scary. I can’t even imagine what it must be like to think that. But still something about all of this is bugging me. Dawn hasn’t seen Michael since they broke up right before she went to UCLA, so how does she know that Michael will want to be a good father? I ask her that, only I word it with a little more sensitivity. She gets a small smile on her face and a dreamy look in her eyes. I can’t help but feel like she still has some pretty strong feelings for Michael. She was so in love with him when they split up. And they only broke up because she was going off to school. They ended on good terms. But four years is a long time to be apart and they had both moved on. At least that’s what she told me.

“When we were dating, before I applied to any colleges, we used to talk about the future and being together. We talked about moving to LA together and him opening up his own auto repair shop, and I was going to open up my own fashion agency. We planned on having two kids, a boy and a girl. Whenever he’d talk about the kids he would get so excited. He was so determined that he was going to do it right, you know? His dad walked out on them when he was little and he said he’d never do that to his kids. When he came up to visit and we were talking he didn’t mention having a girlfriend, or any kids and I think he would have mentioned that. So, I don’t know, I just think that if I tell him about the boys he’s going to want at least joint custody, and I’m more then willing to give it to him if he moves here.” She looks down again and this time she’s sad. I know that the last thing she wants is a big custody battle over her children, and it’s really hard to say if it’s going to come to that or not.

“Dawnie, I’m sure everything is going to be ok. I don’t know how Michael will react to this, but I’m sure he’d never try to take your children away from you.” She doesn’t look so sure, and she’s got to be feeling so lost right now. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to help her. I reach over the table and hold onto her hand. It’s the only thing I can think of to do. She smiles a little bit, but it’s a sad smile, and I know that until she actually talks to Michael and gets a reaction she isn’t going to be ok. She’s going to be stressed and anxious and worried all the time and it just isn’t healthy for her or the boys. Babies pick up on other people’s emotions really easy and if they sense that Dawn is stressed out then they’re going to be stressed out. And they’ll be crying all the time and it’ll stress her out even more and everything will get worst. I glance over at the clock and sigh a little bit.

“I’m sorry, but I have to go. I told Faith I’d pick up some dinner on the way home. But call me if you need anything. I mean it, sweetheart, don’t be afraid to call anytime.” I stand up and give her a kiss on the forehead and she stands up and gives me a little hug. She hasn’t been as clingy as I thought she was going to be. Taking care of a newborn is scary enough, I don’t even want to imagine what it would be like to go at it alone. I know I’d probably be clinging to anyone who came over to help. Then again I’d probably be living at the slayer facility where I’d get endless amounts of help. I put Joseph in his car seat and tell Addison it’s time to go. She’s reluctant because she doesn’t want to stop watching whatever little kid movie she was just watching but I tell her that we’re going to get some dinner and she jumps right up and comes to my side. Dawn walks us to the door and I give her one more hug. “I love you.” She says it back and I give her a kiss on the temple and then I leave. I’m able to make it the whole thirty second walk to the elevator before Addison starts asking questions.

“Why is aunt Dawn so sad?” she asks and holds onto my hand. She doesn’t normally do this but the doors just opened and there’s some people already inside. Neither of us says anything as we get on and I press the lobby button and we wait. There’s a woman standing to my left and she’s glancing down at Joseph and smiling a little bit. We get this a lot whenever we go out. People just love babies, and mine is definitely a cutie. I hate the people that try to touch him without my permission. That gets irritating to no end. This woman seems respectful though. She’s going to ask some questions though, I just know she is. She looks over at Addison and smiles a little more and then up at me and the smile is still on her face.

“If you don’t mind me saying, you have some very beautiful children.” I smile and say thank you and Addison steps forward and to the side so she’s standing right in front of me and closer to the woman who just gave her a compliment. “How old are they?” And there come the onslaught of questions. After this it’s going to be ‘well you and your husband must be proud’. Then I’m going to say ‘oh, I don’t have a husband I have a wife’. Then she’s going to say ‘I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean anything by it’ or whatever. And then she’s going to ask about the paternity and if we artificially inseminated or if we adopted or one of the few other things people have asked us. So I might as well smile and get it over with. But before I can get a word out I’m interrupted by a little attention seeker.

“I’m three,” Addison says and looks up at the lady. She’s smiling and her dimples are on display for everyone to see and be dazzled by. “And Joey is...Joey is...Mommy how old is Joey?” She looks up at me and I can’t help but smile. Sometimes she’s too cute for her own good. I tell her five months and she nods her head a little bit. “Joey is five months. And I have a big brother too. He’s at home. He just turned ten. That’s this many.” She holds up both of her hands with her fingers spread out and she’s looking at this woman with all the seriousness a three year old can get. And this woman says the one thing I really wish people wouldn’t say.

“Wow, that’s impressive. Your mommy and daddy must be very proud of you knowing your numbers.” Addison’s face turns into a very ‘what the hell?’ kind of look and I’m trying really hard not to smile. For a second I want to speak up and say something, but I think I’ll let Addison deal with this one all on her own. Ok so not all on her own, I’m going to say something, but I’ll let Addison break the news to this woman. I notice that the look on Addison’s face has changed. She looks...offended is the only word I can think of to describe it.

“I don’t have a daddy,” and she sounds just as pissed off. Oh man I really wish I had a video camera so I can capture this and watch it over and over again. “I have a mommy and a mama.” She turns around and walks back to my right side and holds onto my hand. Her grips is pretty tight and it hurts a little bit. Damn this kid is pissed. The woman looks up at me and she has a ‘what the hell?’ look on her face and I just smile a little bit. And here comes the me explaining things. I hate this part of the conversation. I should get a tattoo on my forehead that says ‘married to another woman’. That would get rid of this explanation all together.

“It’s true. I don’t have a husband, I have a wife.” I stop talking and we get thrown into an awkward silence. Luckily we’re on an elevator and the door just opened on my floor. I smile one more time at the woman and get step out into the lobby and shake my head a little bit. Addison’s never gotten so defensive about me and Faith before. I’ll have to have a little talk with her about this later. I buckle Addison up in her car seat and strap Joseph’s into place and we leave the hotel. The thought of my sister living in a hotel is still weird to me and I don’t think I’m going to get used to it. I’ll just be glad when she’s settled into her new house and everything starts to find a normalcy. Luckily she left her agency on good terms and she almost immediately got hired at some big agency in Las Vegas. She’s going to be making twice as much as she was in Redding, and she’s going to have better hours. They were very willing to make her schedule flexible because of the babies. She won’t be going to work for them for another couple of weeks, and then the boys are going to start going to day care.

I stop by a KFC and pick up one of the large meals. I don’t really feel like standing in Lee’s Chinese Palace for half an hour waiting for my food to be cooked, so fast food is just fine for tonight. Today was a good day but I’m still tired, and I can’t wait to go to bed and curl up in Faith’s arms and sleep. When I get home she’s sitting on the couch, watching TV with Matthew. There’s an empty beer bottle on the coffee table and a half empty bottle in her hand. Her drinking does bother me a little bit only because she bugs me to get the beers for her. It’s not like she gets drunk, she just has one or two to help her relax. Perfectly fine with me. As long as she stays away from the hard stuff I have no problem with it. So now we’re all sitting at the dinner table eating the food I picked up and Matthew is looking a little nervous. He keeps glancing over at Faith and then back at me, and then down at his plate. Ok, what is going on?

“Mom, do you think I can play on my school’s basketball team?” he blurts out and then goes quiet. I’ve already talked to him a little about this. I think it would be too dangerous for him to play on a team like that. Faith feels bad about it because he wants to play so bad, but it’s just too risky. Well, I thought the football idea was too risky. He never said anything about playing basketball before. “I know I can’t play football, or soccer ‘cause I’m a slayer and someone might get hurt. But in basketball we don’t touch each other, and Mama said as long as I control myself it shouldn’t be a problem.” I give Faith a little glare and she’s finding her mashed potatoes and gravy very interesting right now. I don’t know what to say to him because this basketball thing was just sprung on me. So I do what almost all parents do to their kids.

“I don’t know, Matthew. Let me think about it for a while ok? We’ll talk about it more tomorrow.” He looks disappointment but glad that I didn’t tell him no. He does seem a little bummed out though. I give Faith another little glare and she knows exactly why I’m glaring at her. She took all the pressure off of herself by saying ‘I don’t know, you’ll have to ask your mother’ or something like that. She made it so the decision is all up to me and I’ll be the bad guy if I don’t think it’s a good idea. After dinner Faith does the dishes because she knows she’s in trouble and I put the kids to bed and head straight for my bedroom. I change into my pajamas and crawl under the covers and don’t even wait for her. I turn out all the lights and try to go to sleep. About five minutes later she comes in and turns on her lamp and changes into her pajamas and gets under the covers and then turns out the light. She tries to spoon me but I shrug her off. “Nope, don’t touch. I’m still mad at you.” She sighs a little and gives me a kiss on the back of my neck.

“Be mad all you want but I still think him joining a team is a good idea. I never told him it was up to you. I told him I’d talk to you about it and see what you had to say. So please babe, don’t be mad at me.” I sigh a little bit and she tries to spoon me again. This time I don’t stop her. So Matthew knew she was going to talk to me, but he asked me himself anyway? He never used to do that. He usually goes to Faith for everything and then she talks to me about it, or says ‘I don’t know, ask your mother’. But he asked me himself, even if he was a little nervous I have to give the kid some credit. I don’t mean to be intimidating but sometimes I am, and he’s starting to be less intimidated. I’m glad he thinks that way. It just proves how much he’s growing up. That woman on the elevator was right. I am proud of my kids, and not just because they know their numbers.

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