Remember When ↠ l.p.

Cailyn's question

I yawn and greet Liam and Tessie with a wave as I open the door for them the next morning. Liam passes me her bag and gives her a gentle nudge towards the kitchen. "Go eat Tess, I'll see you tonight. Have a fun day playing with Cailyn."

"You've explained everything to her?" I ask. 

"Yes, she understands that mum has gone away for a few days and while she is away you're going to keep her until after dinner. If she gives you any trouble then do whatever you need. But I doubt you'll have any trouble, she's independent." He rubs his eyes and rolls his shoulders. "I'm so tired..."

"Don't worry about anything," I tell him "just make sure that you have dinner tonight and get to bed at a decent time. We'll be fine here."

"Thank you," he says and gives me a very grateful look. It's then that I realize that this is weighing pretty heavily on him. I don't know if it's stress building up or lack of sleep, but he looks abnormally tired. I give him a reassuring smile and send him on his way. I hope he'll be re-energized tonight. 

The day passes normally and quickly, without much trouble. We have a nice lunch, a nice nap time (I may or may not have joined in), and prepared an equally nice dinner. The girls were a little less talkative, but it was probably due to still being a bit drowsy from their naps. 

"Mommy," Cailyn says thoughtfully, about midway through the meal "why doesn't Tessie live here if her mommy and daddy are too busy." I nearly drop my fork and choke on the mouthful of food I just ate. 

"Ah, ah," I look up to find both the girls staring up at me. Cailyn's expression is curious and Tessie just looks a bit confused. "that's not why Tessie is here Cailyn. I mean, yes she's here because her parents are busy with their jobs, but that's just for right now. They will be back to normal soon and then she'll be going back over there for dinner. Because they're her family." I finish sputtering out a rambling answer and shove another bite of dinner into my mouth.

"Oh okay. We were wondering about it." Cailyn turns back to her food again but now I'm the one who is curious.

"Both of you were wondering?" I glance between the two of them. Tessie is rather intently focused on chewing. 

Cailyn shrugs and replies for her. "Tessie thought of it but then I wanted to know too. She said she didn't wanna be a lot of work because they already have loads of work."

I frown and watch Tessie face scrunch up for a minute before she rubs at her face and tries to turn away from me a little. This, this makes me worried. "Tessie, your mommy and daddy love you. They don't think that you're work, you're...you're like playtime to them. They have to work because they're grown-ups but what they really want to do is play with you all day every day. Don't ever worry that you're becoming like work to them sweetheart!" I scoot over to pull her into a hug, practically trapping her in my arms. I squeeze her and I feel her arms wrap around my back to hold me too. I wait a minute and then begin to poke her side a little and blow on her ear. She starts giggling and I set her back in her chair. "Don't worry about it, Tessie. And if you start feeling like you miss home too much we can talk to your daddy about it."

"Kay, thank you Izzy." she says, smiling now. "I didn't wanna be work. I'm glad, Lynnie said I might be but I didn't trust her."

"Why not?" Cailyn asks, becoming interested in the conversation now that her name has been mentioned. "I'm a big girl. You can trust me with anything."

"Well, not folding your clothes if your clothes chest is anything to go by." I mutter to myself. I discovered that the clothes I thought had been neatly folded and put away after a load of laundry yesterday were actually squashed into drawers and balled up to fit. Tessie got to start watching the movie while Cailyn had to fold them properly, with my supervision. Needless to say, neither of us were very happy about it. Cailyn overhears my comment and gives me a frown before returning her attention to Tessie. 

"Why didn't you trust me when I said that you were maybe work Tessie?" her head is tilted and her eyes are wide. I need to stop letting her watch so many animated films if she's going to start trying to give everyone the wounded puppy look.

"I didn't 'cause there was that time." Tessie folds her arms and fixes Cailyn with a look. "n you said that mommy and daddy would not fight again. But they did."

DUN DUN DUN

I like this. It's not crap (I hope) but if you wanna tell me exactly what it was leave a comment or a like ;)