“Fine, you crazy old woman, keep your secrets. The tuxes will be here Friday, and I have to pick up my dress tomorrow. I can’t believe this control freak here is letting someone else make the food.” I elbow Bodie softly in the side so he knows I’m teasing him.
He grunts, then chuckles. “Well, Angel, that’s because my restaurant is still catering it. They know all the food allergies, and I’m confident in their abilities.”
I walk away to finish the pudding, rolling my eyes. “Of course you would find a way to still have control over the food, and Maw-Maw, we are almost done here. I’m putting the puddin’ in the pan, slapping the wafers on it, and it’ll be ready for tomorrow. Everything else is done and ready to be cooked in the morning”
She walks by, flicking me on the ear. “Good, now hurry up so we can start our new family traditions, heifer.” She saunters out of the room like she’s a queen.
“That woman drives me so crazy sometimes. I love her more than anything and she gave up so much to raise me and my sister. However, she's nuts.” I’m grumbling at Bodie because I know if I talk any louder and she hears me, she’ll come back and I’d rather not have another food fight.
“I know, love, but it’s part of her charm. Let me throw that in the fridge and we can go to the media room. I love the fact there is a mini kitchen in there. It really beats carrying everything across this big ass house.” He kisses my head, then puts the banana pudding in the fridge so I don’t end up dropping it like I did the first one.
“Don’t I freaking know it. I’m glad our suite is fairly central to everything. Hell, I still haven’t explored this whole place. It has fifty-three rooms. According to Maw-Maw, it had more at one time, but they joined some of them to make the suites and the room that’s now that playroom. I don’t understand who needs this much space.
“Maw-Maw hated living here alone for so long. She actually blocked most of the house off until we moved in. Pretty much all of the bottom floor is functional, and we use all but three or four of the rooms in our wing, but the other floors are basically all storage or just empty. I do want to go through the storage rooms for Saige’s and my old cradles for the twins. Maybe we can figure out how to use more of the rooms at some point.” I finish just as we are walking into the media room and of course the crazy eggnog-drunk woman hears me.
“Making plans to change my house already, Isla Claire? Who said I put you in my will?” She’s giggling and trying to act stern since she’s well past tipsy now, but thankfully, she is still a calm–although a lot sassier–person when she drinks. Plus, we hid the rest of the alcohol.
“Nope. Just telling Bodie I want to look for Saige’s and my old cradles. I also mentioned we should see about making use of a few of the empty rooms at some point,” I reply as I walk over to where I have the presents stashed and hand them out to everyone.
The guys insisted on filling my box as well so I don’t know what’s all in it. After everyone has theirs, I sit in between Callum and Silas. “Okay, everyone open your gift!” Everyone tears into their present and pulls out the matching pjs.
I got everyone green and red ones that have snowmen and Santa all over them. “Everyone go change into your new outfit real quick. Vivian, you come with Mommy, and I’ll help you change, then we can watch some movies and snack. Everyone, be back in five minutes so we can pick movies out of a bowl to decide.”
Five minutes later, everyone has changed. They each have different movies I know they all like, so I made sure that all the movies would be something they all tend to enjoy.
“Okie dokie, I have a die you three will roll, and whoever gets the lowest number gets first pick of the movie. Lochlan you can roll first, baby.” I hand him the dice, and he rolls a five.
“A five. Okay, Vivian, you're next. Roll it gently, sweetheart.” She still yeets it off the table so she has to try again. “You have a six. Arden your turn.” He rolls his confidently. “You got a two. So Arden will choose the first movie, then Lochlan, and Vivian you’re last, alright?”
Before I can even pass the cup towards Arden, Vivi throws herself down onto the floor, into a full fledged meltdown.
“No! I want to go first! It’s my turn! My movie first!” I’m staring down my tiny banshee, really thinking about the fact I’m going to have to deal with this shit again in two years.
“Momma, she can take my turn.” Lochlan tries to push the cup towards her.
“Absolutely not. She’s going to have to learn that not everything will be fair, and she won’t always be first. She starts pre-school soon and is going to have to learn to share. Thank you for being sweet to your sister though, baby.” I kiss him on the forehead, then kneel next to my child who is now acting like she is getting an exorcism.
“Vivian, look at me.” I lift her head up so I can look into her pretty brown eyes.
Her little sniffles break my heart, but I want her to learn healthy ways to deal with her emotions. “Baby, I know you’re upset, but you can’t always go first. It’s not fair to your brothers, or anyone else you play with. It’s okay for you to express the fact that you're sad, but it’s not okay for you to scream and throw yourself down on the floor. How about next time you are sad, you use your words and we talk through your big feelings, how does that sound?” I pull her up into my lap, and after a couple seconds, she nods her sweet head, making her curly brown hair bounce.
“I’m sorry, mommy. I just wanted to go first,” she sniffles.
“I know, princess, and that’s okay. Maybe you’ll go first next time. How about we let bubbas pick their movies, then you can pick your movie, and we can start watching them?” She nods her head again, then wiggles down to run to Ellen for snuggles.
In the end, we only wind up watchingDr. Seuss’s The Grinchand half ofThe Nightmare Before Christmasbefore the kids pass out.
Now for my favorite part of Christmas, being Santa Claus.
Isla
Let me tell you, trying to finish building everything, figuring out how to put together the indoor jungle gym, bringing all the guys’ and the grandmothers’ gifts to the family room, and assembling everything that needed to be built with six different people was pure fucking hell. I fully believe if you want to test a relationship, build shit or try to move furniture.
It was after well past one in the morning when we all finally fell into bed. We decided on putting air mattresses in our room and letting the kids sleep on them so we would hear them if they got up. I don’t think any of us were even able to function anymore, when we hit the bed.
I feel like I’ve just closed my eyes when I’m woken up by my three silly monkeys jumping on the bed. One of them is plucked out of the air right before I’m about to get a knee to the kidney.
“Oh, no, we don’t, little man. No jumping on Mommy. You’ll smush the babies, but Daddy Odin would love for you to jump on him.” Orin snickers as Arden goes to do a cannon ball right into Odin’s balls.
