Christmas Time Is Here: Academy Exclusives

Are You Crazy?

"Let me get this straight." Erica pinned a stern glance on Ben. "You want to register Luke and the boys to play hockey."

"Sure, it's good for them." He said. "They'll learn commitment and dedication, balance... ice skating is useful."

"We're in South Carolina. It rarely snows, I'm not sure why you think ice skating will be beneficial for our group of six year olds." Erica frowned.

"It'll be good." He tried again.

"You want to send my babies out on ICE with murder blades attached to their feet!"

"Well, when you put it that way..." he ran a nervous hand over the back of his head. "I was just trying to think of something that they could do and allow you some time off."

"Are you saying I can't handle them?"

"No." He shook his head. "I'm saying that you are the only one who seems to watch them." He said, pointedly. "Jasmine certainly isn't around, Penny is somehow off, Jenny's got her hands full with her husband and goodness knows, you watch Luke for me all the time. You're Kota's mother and what about Jessica? Are you getting enough time with your two year old?"

"So it's not just me that thinks Penny's off?" she honed in on the one thing she'd been hoping to hear.

He winced. "Yeah, I've noticed she's not sending Nathan as prepared as she used to when he comes over for a sleep over."

Erica nodded. "I don't know what's going on. I wish Natasha had stayed around. I really liked her." They usually didn't spend much time discussing Luke's mama. Ben knew that she missed her friend and they both felt badly that Natasha was missing out on seeing what a wonderful boy Luke was.

"I know."

"Did you hear though? Victor has a new nanny so we'll have to see what she says about hockey as well." Erica said, rubbing her chin thoughtfully. "Maybe we should start with the ice skating part of hockey first. I just don't want to think about them armed with sticks and murder blades, it's a little easier to imagine that they'll behave and keep the murder blades firmly on the ice."

He grinned. "You can't call them murder blades." He chided her. "They'll definitely get the wrong idea."

"Yeah, well..."

"They often start figure skating lessons at two..." he hinted. "You should take Jessica skating to see if it's something she'd do well at."

"We'll see. I'd settle for that one to learn how to stop without running into walls." Erica sighed. "I should probably go get her eyes checked. There's got to be a reason that she doesn't seem to see the wall until she hits it, right?"

"Or she's just trying to see if she can climb the walls like Luke." Ben smiled.

"That could also be a possibility. She adores Luke." Erica smiled. "Okay, so we'll take them all ice skating and see how it goes. And I'll talk about extra stuff with Fiona. She's going to be bringing Victor over tomorrow so we'll have time to talk. I'd hate for him to all the sudden not get to do anything that we normally do over Christmas break."

"I know the boys always enjoy spending time here around Christmas. I sure am looking forward to that Santa picture." Ben grinned.

"Oh, hopefully this is the year Jessica's okay with it. I'm ready to have nice Santa pictures." Erica rolled her eyes.

"I'll get more information on hockey but let me know when we want to do the skating session, I'd like to go along, you know, especially if you're busy with Jessica and trying out her ice legs."

"Okay, sounds great. Thanks for asking about it. I'm sure the boys will get excited about it and enjoy it, I've just got to face the fact that they'll be equipped with murder weapons."

"It's going to be fine." He said as he checked his watch one more time before taking his leave.

Erica watched him leave, tilting her head slightly to listen to Kota and Luke playing in the playroom. "Fine, he says. It's always fun and games until someone figures out the murder blades on the feet thing..." she muttered.

~Fade~