Generation 4: Part 9. Astronaut

With two kids in the house, there wasn’t much free time anymore. Whenever I had a break from my new job in sports – where I had transferred to after I had become head of my apartment in my old company -, I tried to fulfill my basic needs, like eating or sleeping. Apart from that it was just taking care of Grace and Henner. Grace already did a lot of things on her own, but I’m not sure if this was because of her need to manage her life alone or because we were so busy with Henner that there was simply no time left for her. What came first, the hen or the egg? Her independence or our focus on Henner?

Either way, she did great on her own. After coming home from school she straight went to doing her homework and only allowed herself to play after she had finished. Mostly she would dive into other worlds, explore the space as an astronaut and stuff like that. Maybe she felt like one – being in her own universe, separated from all of us. Of course this wasn’t true; we loved her so much and tried to pay as much attention as possible. But her little brother was so demanding that we literally couldn’t do more. Whenever I tried to talk to her about her position in her family, she blocked me off and went to play something on her own. This saddened and also scared me a little. It felt like our baby was growing up too fast.

Which was true for the other one as well. Henner grew bigger every day, I swear. But his little face with his cute smile always remained the same. It was amazing that it had been us who had created him! Hopefully he would look a little like me, this way I could live on in the next generation.

Although there were some small problems with Grace, we were a well-working family, including Flip. He was happy to be surrounded by so many people, because this meant that there was somebody to play with him all the time. Grace had fallen for him the minute he licked her face for the first time.

We were relieved to see that Grace did not shut herself out from the entire family, but at least was friends with Flip. Regularly she took him for a walk to the pool or the park, where they played together the entire afternoon.

We didn’t fully realize that every day that passed by was one step closer to Henner actually growing into a toddler until it was time. Of course he didn’t really understand what was going on, but we threw him a little birthday party, inviting Freya and her two kids Anna and Chris over to join us.

And then our little baby grew up.

Wasn’t he just adorable? I loved that he had my hair color and looked like me a lot. He had his mother’s nose as well, just like Grace. Another true mixture of our families.

See what I mean? When I looked at Henner, I saw myself, like looking into a mirror that made you younger. 

Speaking of being young – my birthday into a senior approached quickly and Cassie and I felt that we were not quite done yet with our family. Two kids were great, that’s for sure, but we still thought there was more. So we spent a lot of time with each other.

Well, of course we didn’t forget about our kids in that time! The mornings before work I did my best to teach Henner the basic skills for life. It wasn’t that hard to teach him how to talk, because he seemed really eager for that. Something I really loved about him that he would not say single words, but rather sing them. His voice was really melodious and that was just so adorable.

While I prepared our youngest for life, Cassie had discovered something wonderful – our tries to create something new had worked, she was pregnant with our third child! We still wanted to have another girl, so she went down to the grocery store and got some more watermelons, hoping that it would work out this time. I still don’t know why she thinks this helps, but she assured me she had read about it. Well, I didn’t want to argue with her…

It was the same evening that I surprisingly turned into a senior. We knew that I almost was there, but we had no idea it would happen THIS fast! All of a sudden I felt so old and fragile and also wondered about our kid’s future. Would I still see them grow up or would I die before they turned into teenagers? 

Cassie sure thought about this, too. Although she didn’t always tell me, I could see the look in her eyes, that grew sadder every day. She was worried that I would leave her alone with the entire responsibility and a house full of children. And what was even sadder – I couldn’t tell her she was completely wrong, because I didn’t know what was going to happen or when it was going to happen. For all we knew, I could go to bed one evening and not wake up again.

I tried not to think about it too hard and focus on my wonderful family instead. Working in sports had worked out great and I had recently begun working as a journalist. Since I knew a lot of people there, it wasn’t too hard to fit in. Soon I was almost ready to change over to my last career which I wanted to be politics. But before that I had to teach my son how to walk. This was much harder than the whole talking thing, because he often just refused to stand up and stayed where he was. Apparently, he wasn’t really into athletics or anything, but language and music instead…

And into being with his bigger sister. Just like we had imagined it, Grace and Henner got along just great and formed a little play group more than one time. A huge relief for us! 

A relief that was perfectly on time, because shortly after we noticed this, Cassie went into labor and we had to leave them on their own. We hoped that the two of them would get along with their little sibling as well. Little did we know that everything would turn out unexpectedly.

Because we had twins! There are no words to describe how I felt when we carried those two little babies inside our house. Ivy and Isabella (please don’t ask me which is which) made our family perfect and complete.

Author's notes: What can I say... Finn and Cassie wanted another child. It wasn't my fault that they had twins, I swear! So now there are four children in the house. Grace being a kid, Henner a toddler and Ivy and Isabella being babies.

Chapter title is actually a German Song, although the title does not automatically lead to that conclusion. It is a song about a man who does not feel like belonging to this world and therefore perfectly matched Grace and her behaviour. Again it's a song by my favourite singer/songwriter. ;)