Happily Ever After

28: Parenthood?

"Oh- is that broccoli?" Maya asked, looking at her youngest, who shrunk down in her chair.
"Okay, we're chairing this for now," Carina insisted, putting her fork down to clean the floor.
"Tabling. We're tabling this for now," Maya said with a laugh, looking at her wife, who's olive cheeks flushed a gentle red.

———

While Maya sat Lucia down to give her a talk about how she had to actually eat her vegetables and not feed them to the cat, Carina made sure Moose was okay. She had Sarah scoop him up and cradle him as the Italian brushed his teeth. Because Moose disliked this process so much, it ended up being a multi-person task.

"Bambino-" Carina began as the black cat began to wriggle around in an attempt to escape.

Moose protested at every move, meowing angrily in complaint as Carina took special care in brushing his fang. Just when they were in position, Moose would throw his head in a different direction. After much cooing and sweet talking, they managed to clean his teeth, and he was rewarded with lots of pets and snuggles, soothing his anger.

Sarah retreated to her room, still feeling embarrassed about how her moms found out about what had happened this afternoon. She absentmindedly touched her cheek, in which Alex had stroked before they kissed. The redhead cringed how often she thought about him and how whenever he smiled at her, it felt like a large flock of butterflies panicking inside of her. Putting that much trust in someone was scary.

Carina popped back in to Lucia's room, where Maya was just finishing up their chat. Moose had perched himself around her neck, flexing his paws contentedly on her shoulders. "I'm sorry Moo-Moo," the bambina whispered guiltily. Maya gave her shoulder a squeeze.

"Moose is a rascal. As much as he begs, we can't give him people food, it's not good for him. That's why we have special food, just for him," the blonde explained, and Carina nodded. "Moosey's a raccoon," Lucia giggled.

"You are very right, dolcezza. He's a trash panda. Now pick a book for us to read to you," Carina prompted, ruffling Lucia's blonde hair.

As predicted, Lucia selected 'Pickles the Fire Cat', and Maya read the book while the bambina leaned against Carina, hugging Chief and Brown Bear tightly. With the Italian played with the little blonde's hair and rubbed her back, it took Lucia no time at all to drift off, sprawled on top of the Italian, her breaths small and gentle.

It took a lot of coaxing from Maya, who pointed out that they still needed to chat with Sarah, for Carina to gently roll Lucia off of her and to gently detach her grip on her mamma's shirt. The Italian nearly burst into tears when the bambina whimpered at the loss of contact, but when Maya rubbed her back, each of them pressing a soft kiss to Lucia's head, she settled.

"You're okay, babe," Maya soothed, squeezing Carina's hand as she attempted to control her emotions. With all of the fertility drugs in her system, it felt like she was slowly losing her grip on sanity, constantly flipping between emotions faster than Moose ate that piece of broccoli.

The two moms made their way to their teen's room and knocked on the door. Sarah opened it, and her face flushed once again as she looked at them and remembered that they knew that she was making out with people.

"I think we need to have a chat, sunshine," Maya began, and Sarah groaned, her cheeks still a scarlet red. "I'm sorry-" the redhead insisted, and Carina sat down on the bed next to her eldest daughter, leaning against the headboard.

"You don't need to be sorry. Just listen to us, tesoro," she insisted, motioning for Maya to begin.

"So, while we think you're still too young... way too young to be dating anyone, or having sex, for that matter-" Maya started protectively, and the Italian was quick to interrupt her wife, prompting to get back on track. "Bambina..." Carina murmured, reminding Maya to be open minded.