“So they were mean and didn’t love us because they weren’t raised to be nice?” He turns his head like a cute puppy, trying to understand.
“I don’t think they didn’t love you, sweetie. I don’t think they knew how to show you properly.” She takes a pause for that to sink it.
“Mommy, our daddies, Maw-Maw, and you show us how much you love us, even when we’re in trouble? Well, I guess that makes sense. Can I finish opening my presents now?” he asks, completely back to his normal self.
“Of course, sweetheart.” She kisses his head, and he turns back to his gifts.
“Momma, come look at my dinosaurs!” Lochlan comes running over and ‘helps’ me up, then pulls me over to his presents.
“Look how cool, Mommy! They are almost as tall as me!” He’s jumping around so excitedly.
“Oh my goodness, how cool! Do you love it?” I nuzzle his head. “Yeah, Look how big my Spider-Man is too!” I can’t wait to see their faces when they see their jungle gym.
Maw-Maw stands up and claps her hand., “Kiddos, you ready for your next surprise?” Of course all three kids immediately jump up and start bouncing around.
“Silas, lead the way!” He takes off at a slow jog, and the kids run after him. The other guys, or man children as I’d call them, follow suit. Maw-Maw, Ellen, and I follow at a slower pace.
We catch up with them at the playroom. We put in a plexi-glass window that we have covered in wrapping paper.
Maw-Maw moves to where she can grab the handle. “Are you ready to see what Noni and I got y’all for Christmas?”
All three kids and the men holler, “yes.”Told you. Man children.
She pushes the door open, and all eight of their mouths drop. We wouldn’t let the guys see it until now either, because even though it’s made to be safe for younger kids, it will hold their weight as well.
All three kids go running to different areas. Vivian goes and jumps straight into the ball pit. Arden goes right to climbing on the jungle gym, and Loch goes to the ninja course.
This is probably a tad bit extensive, but my kids went without for so long. I feel like I have so much to make up for. I know we have to be careful to balance spoiling them and making sure they are humble and appreciate what they have in life. We make them clean up after themselves. They have to keep their rooms and their play-room clean. We make sure to hammer in manners, and I don’t really let them know we can buy them anything they could ever want.
They don’t get everything they want when we go to town, and I will never put them into any type of private school. I want to balance out making up for their rough start in life with raising good people, so hopefully we manage that.
Arden comes barreling over and throws himself at his grandmothers. “Thank you so much! This is so cool! Now when it’s raining or too cold, we can still jump and play!”
“We know, dear, that’s why we had this idea! That way you can always run around and play! Isn’t it so cool?” Ellen ruffles his hair, and he hauls ass right back to climb. Now the adults can go open their gifts and let the kids play.
We decided to get dinner in the oven before opening our gifts, since we are waiting on Will. While Bodie got that going, the guys started moving all the kids' new toys to the room it goes in, and although they all have an absolutely insane amount of crap, it being separated into so many different rooms helps a ton with clutter.
We pull the kids from their gym room and make them eat breakfast before they can go back to playing with their gifts. Since this house is so massive, we got the kids bracelets that have air tags in them. It’s also helpful when they aren’t with me, for my own piece of mind, since Stefanie has been hanging around. Now we always know where they are.
Maw-Maw being the extra bougie woman she is also had a digital map made of the house, and we all have an app on our phone we can pull up. We can pick whatever room we want to check the cameras in, access the speakers, and control the lights, TVs, and the security alarm. She has turned this place into Fort Knox to make sure the kids and I are always safe. I love her so much for it, too.
Right as we get the kids settled back where they all want to play, we have the cameras up on a split screen so we can watch the playroom where Vivian is in her kitchen and the gym room where the boys are playing. The doorbell rings, and my grandmother shoots off headed to answer it. A couple minutes later she comes back followed by Will.
“Merry Christmas. everyone. I’m sorry I’m late. I had a work emergency I had to deal with. It seems people can’t even act right for the holidays,” he greets us.
All the guys stand up to go over and shake his hand. “It’s all, good man. Glad you could make it!” Bodie grins at him. “You ready to get all the holiday shit started?”
“Of course. I haven’t celebrated the holidays in years; all my kids are grown and moved all over the country. Once my wife died, they stopped coming back to town since it was too hard to be in the house, and I never want to ‘pick favorites’ by going to one and not the others. I send everyone gifts and see them during the summertime and on Facetime,” he explains sadly.
“Well, it seems you gained a huge family out of nowhere. Hope you can handle tons of chaos,” I joke as I walk up and hug him.
“It definitely does, so how about we get the gift opening started? I’m sad I missed the kids opening everything and seeing their new play area.” We all walk over back to the couches and make stacks of everyone’s gifts where we are all spread out so it’s easier.
“I think we all should just open everything, and then we can chat about it since there is a lot of stuff. Does that work for everyone?” Maw-Maw asks, sitting down next to Will and grabbing her first gift.
We all agree, so we get started opening all our presents. It takes a good twenty minutes for us all to open everything. When I’m done, I’m blown away by my stack. Silas bought me a polaroid camera, Odin got me a new pair of white Doc Martens, Orin bought me a beautiful picture of the stars from the day we met. Callum bought me a huge stack of pregnancy leggings and tank tops, and Bodie bought me an Easy Bake Oven because I told him how bad I always wanted one, and now Vivi and I can enjoy it together.
I also received a bunch of framed pictures of everyone and me since I've moved back from Maw-Maw, a gift card for a full spa day from Will, and a pregnancy pillow and a bunch of other things to help through pregnancy from the guys.
