It seemed unreal to me that my little babies had grown into kids. Finn spent a lot of his free time in front of the television, but often watched documentaries or shows that weren’t only there for entertainment, but also taught the people on the other side of the screen something. And finally he was big enough to understand what the shows were about. So it was not much of a surprise that he watched TV on his birthday. If I had been at home, I would have tried to play something with him, but unfortunately I had to leave for work the second Freya had blown out her candles. This way he was on his own, as his father was busy bonding with his daughter.
Since our children were born, Felipe had always cared a little more about Freya. I don’t know why, but somehow he was getting on with her more than with his son. Maybe it was because she had his hair? I don’t know, but it must have been pretty hard for Finn, so I always tried my best to keep him busy, too. This tradition seemed to be going on now that our twins had grown up.
Yet this wasn’t right, was it? I didn’t want to be friends with just one kid, while the other one didn’t get much attention from me. So I went up to Freya and offered her a bedtime story as soon as I had returned from work. She happily accepted and decided that she would like to hear something about chess and its basics. This was something I was absolutely unfamiliar with, but everything I had to know was in that book and so we had a good time talking about the different chess figures and the ways you could use them in game.
That night both of our kids slept well in the bed we just bought them. First we had been thinking about buying two separate beds, but then thought that a bunk bed would be even more fun. And apparently we were right.
The next morning I had to get to work really early, so that I didn’t see my kids until the late evening. My shifts were intense right now, but I was heading straight to the next promotion and so I just had to grin and bear it. Someday I would have more time to spend with my children.
And until then they were getting along on their own, playing with our pets, with each other or alone! They never seemed to be lonely or bored, which was great.
After work I decided to stay out for a little while and have fun. Alone. Although I really loved my family, I sometimes needed a little alone time, just for me and my guitar. The people who stopped and watched really liked what I was playing and gave me huge tips!
While I was in the park, playing some happy tunes, something incredibly sad happened at home. We were aware that Buffy had been a senior when we had adopted him, but none of us would have thought that his day would come so soon. And now I wasn’t even there when the Grim Reaper showed up to take him!
Finn later told me that Death had just gotten on our little darling and then rode into the light. It must have been so horrible and I hated myself for being absent that very afternoon. Stupid selfish me!
The twins dealt with Buffy’s death in different ways. While Freya stayed inside a lot, spending her free time working out, Finn went to explore the neighborhood. School hadn’t started yet and he finally wanted to go out on his own. Only a few streets from our house he found a family who owned three horses – one cuter than the other! He instantly fell in love with one of the foals and from now on went over to that house every now and then to play with it and feed it.
The foal and he were getting along just great and it seemed that Finn had found his first friend outside the family. Even if it wasn’t exactly human. The only thing that worried me a little was that he didn’t make any efforts to get to know any new people. But maybe that would change as soon as they started school, which was supposed to happen the next day. Both of them were so excited about that, but I guess they weren’t as excited as me and Felipe. Our little babies were about to start school!
The next day Finn and Freya got up really early and made themselves some breakfast. Freya even cleaned the dishes afterwards! I was so proud of them, being independent and everything. Hopefully they would get along well with all their classmates and have a great time. If I’d had the chance, I would have loved to tell them I loved them, but they rushed off before we got a chance to get downstairs. There was no way they wanted to be late and as Felipe and me both had the day off, we overslept a little. Work was really exhausting and so we needed to catch up on sleep.
It wasn’t until lunch that we crawled out of our beds. I had wanted to make some awesome dinner for the kids so that they wouldn’t be starving, but school was over sooner than I had anticipated. So there was some time left in which Freya changed into more comfortable clothes and went to grab a book. She told us reading was really easy and almost everybody in their class could already do it. There would be only a few children who were having trouble, but most of them were really good. Writing however seemed to be more of a problem, but the teacher had decided to start out slow and had them write their name and then paint a picture around it. It had been a nice first day in school and both Finn and Freya were looking forward to the next day. I guess this is the best thing that could happen to me – two children who both liked school. Finn even sat down to practice some writing! You could really see that he was ambitious and wanted to manage that skill before his sister did. They were so young, yet there were the first signs of competition. Now this was going to be interesting. At lunch we made sure to tell them that we loved them no matter how long it took them to learn how to write.
Well, what our kids had told us on their first day –with school being great - apparently hadn’t been completely true – the next afternoon I found myself talking to their teacher on the phone about why I let my daughter be late on her second day of school! I tried to explain to her that by the time the school bus came I had been out for work, but she wouldn’t listen to me. Instead she went on about how the first days of school would already be very important for children and that it was necessary that they weren’t interrupted in their learning process by missing days. I knew all of that, of course! And I couldn’t believe Freya would skip school, or parts of it. As soon as she got home I talked to her about it, being really furious. She wasn’t sorry about being late, but told me one more time that she knew how to read and that she wouldn’t be missing anything if she just skipped a few lessons. This was the point I exploded and I told her to stand in the corner for an hour, thinking about what she had done. Afterwards I expected an apology. The minute I said that I already hated myself - seeing my little girl in the corner, staring at the wall and sniffing every now and then almost broke my heart. But I had to be strict about this. School was very important.
Finn used the knowledge he already had to help other kids, which made him really popular. One girl, Peggy Diamond, was so grateful for having his support that she asked him if they wanted to play together after school. Finn agreed, of course! She was a sweet kid and they really had a blast. I wondered if one day they would be more than just friends… they were still young, but I wasn’t. And I really wanted grandchildren someday. So forgive me for thinking this far ahead.
Freya figured it was a good idea to do her homework if she wanted me to be mad at her. So she sat down by herself and wrote the letters she was supposed to write. She really was good, but I had never doubted that. After all, she was my little princess. And so I told her that I was no longer mad after she proudly presented what she had written. Still I made her promise to go to school every single day and to attend every single lesson.
Felipe told her the same. And although she just rolled her eyes and told him she’d know all this, it was good for her to hear it from both of us. This way she could see it was really important to both of us.
Some days later a decision had been made. Everything in the house had been packed into trucks, the pets were persuaded to go into their transport boxes and we moved! We had realized that the house was too far away from school and from the police station, so we moved more into the center of the town. The rooms were bigger so that we would have more room, but unfortunately the garden was way smaller than the old one. This meant we couldn’t keep all of our family members and so, with a heavy heart, we called the adoption center. A few hours later a truck arrived and took our beloved Dominica to another family, but not without saying goodbye to all of us. It almost broke my heart to see her go, but there was just not enough space for her and I didn’t want her to suffer.
All of us felt straight at home from day one. We had a big dining room and a table with chairs outside on the porch also. Both tables were covered in plates and trash within a few hours – nobody bothered to put their stuff away anymore, because you could still use the other table if one was full.
See what I mean? Somehow this wasn’t right and after I talked to Felipe about it, we decided that we would buy a dishwasher so that cleaning wouldn’t be much of a problem.
We really enjoyed the new house. It was great for hiding from our kids and just having some time for ourselves. It was time that we really needed, because we weren’t seeing each other at work any longer. And instead of going out and meeting new people, we would stay at home in our free time and enjoy the togetherness.
Our kids weren’t at home much anyway – usually they would stay out after school had finished, meeting with friends and playing throughout the afternoon. Freya especially bonded with this one kid called Jim Miller, he was really fun and within a few days they were best friends.
She also was getting on well with other boys, which partly was a cause for concern for me. She never talked about any girls, there were just boys in her life. I didn’t want her to be a heartbreaker later! But maybe the girls in her class were just not as nice as the boys.
All those thoughts about our kids were in my mind all the time and I really needed to relax a bit. So one evening we hired a babysitter, in case one of the twins wasn’t feeling well, and went out to the local bar. It felt so good to let go of all the problems and sorrows, even if it was for a few hours only. There had been something big in my mind again and again, a decision I had to make on my own, but couldn’t really. Our family, our entire existence was supposed to be carried on by one of the children, but who? Finn, our lazy ambitious boy who had a heart for the weaker people around him? Or Freya, our smart girl who bonded with every guy around? This was so hard. And as the drinks were slowly getting to my brain, I decided to postpone the decision and give them –and me- some more time.
One of the next days, when I had a day off, I decided to invite Kim over. I hadn’t been seeing her for weeks, because I always had been working and every time I called she seemed to be busy, too. Fortunately she was free and so she came over. Again, not living at the edge of the town came in handy. What a surprise to see her pregnant with her third child! She hadn’t told me before that her kids Tamera and Salvatore were about to have another sibling.
Living in the center of the town really was nice. Not only was it easier to invite old friends over, but also did many people just walk by our house and stopped for a little talk. This way I met Maisy Miller, Jim’s mother (remember Jim? Freya’s best friend) who is a really nice person. She had just stopped to see who had moved into this house now and we ended up in pillow fights.
Still there was enough time for self-studies. Our kids did their homework every single day, as this was very important to me. And sometimes I would even watch them do it, to make sure they did it on their own. I know this may seem a little controlling, but it was so important!
I kept explaining it to them and most of the time they told me that they would understand. But sometimes they would just roll their eyes and walk off. Being a mother wasn’t always easy, I swear.
While I was working on the relationship with my kids, and partly ruining it, Felipe laid back and let me do most of the parental duties. There was so much he wanted to accomplish in his life and counting the wrinkles every morning, he realized that he wasn’t getting any younger. He had always wanted to paint, but hadn’t found any time for that at the beginning of his career. Now that we had a regular income, he spent his free time painting pictures for the children’s room instead of working towards his next promotion. Whenever his creativity stopped flowing, he would turn to working out, playing chess or cooking. It seemed like he wanted to be perfect in some skills, but didn’t quite know which ones. There seemed to be at least three.
The good thing was that we all benefitted from that. The paintings made our house feel prettier, him working out meant I didn’t have to carry the bags after shopping and the meals he cooked were getting better and better. Maybe these were the three things he wanted to be really good at. In that case I wanted to support him in any way I could, seeing that I had already reached all of my goals in life.
Author's notes: I guess this will have been the last chapter before Christmas.... ;) The last week was absolutely crazy, I had two presentations and was the pianist for the Christmas concert at the elementary school I'm working at (and had to practise a lot). So there was absolutely no time for writing a next chapter. I didn't play much further, just am catching up on pictures now. Not much happened in this chapter, I know - except they moved maybe. Still, that's life in Appaloosa Plains like, I guess.
I wish all of you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, if I don't get to writing in between the holidays!
And thank you for reading :)
(Chapter title: a great song by (The?) Turtles. It sounds like an oldie, I have no idea when it was written and published first. But it's in an TV advertisement I really love, so I looked for it on Youtube)
