Here We Go Again

Part 4

The week leading up to Christmas was a little bit rough in the Bishop-Deluca household because the twins brought home a nasty stomach virus that they kindly shared with Carina as well, Maya somehow dodging it even though she spent four days taking care of her family while they were sick.

It was never easy being sick, but it was even harder this time because for Carina, the feeling of nausea brought her back to her radiation treatments and the emotions of that time which made being sick even harder. She had had a bit of a mental breakdown because of it, and it reminded Maya of how helpless she felt during that time as well as she tried to help her through it.

Luckily, by Christmas Eve, everyone was feeling much better. Carina had really scored this year and had both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day off, while Maya had to work on Christmas Eve until about 5.

However, Carina planned to bring the twins to the station for a few hours in the morning because the station had some activities for the community like cookie decorating, some winter themed games, a hot chocolate bar, a Santa for kids to take photos with, and toys to hand out to any kids that came through.

They had planned to take the twins to meet Santa, or Babbo Natale as they almost always referred to him as, but with the stomach virus, their plans didn't happen so both Maya and Carina were excited that the girls would get a chance to meet the person they talked about almost non-stop at this point.

Maya had to be at the station early that morning to help set up for the event so she was out the door just as her girls were waking up, everyone sleeping in a little bit as they shook off the last of their illness. She kissed and hugged them all before going to the station, leaving Carina alone with the twins.

"Mamma, when is it Natale?" Rowan asked as they cuddled in bed along with Nora.

"Tomorrow," Carina said, smiling as Rowan and Nora's eye's both got wide.

"Tomowow?" Rowan squealed, "Rweally?"

"Si," Carina laughed, "Tomorrow. But today, we get to go to the station and see Mommy and Babbo Natale."

"And Unca T?" Nora asked, looking at Carina.

"Si," Carina nodded, brushing a piece of brown hair off Nora's face.

"And Auntie Bic?" Rowan asked, "And Unca Dean and Tia Dandy and Ronnie and Yuca and Pwu and everybody?"

"Si," Carina laughed, "They will all be there. Now, are you two ready to get up for the day and go have some breakfast?"

"Si," Rowan said as Nora nodded, the little brunette always taking longer than her sister to really be awake and ready for the morning.

In some ways, it reminded Carina so much of Maya because while the blonde was up early every day, it took her a while to be ready to actually talk to anyone. Usually by the time she was back from her run, she had been awake long enough to be ready for social interactions. Carina got up, carrying Nora while Rowan walked down the stairs on her own.

Once breakfast was made and eaten, Carina took the twins upstairs to get dressed to go to the station.

Carina and Maya didn't really care about special occasion dresses for the girls, but they did like to give them options and Nora had been enjoying dresses a lot lately so Carina had picked up a few nicer dresses for her to wear if and when she wanted to. Rowan was very against dresses at the moment and only wanted pants or jumpsuits.

They also really only bought neutral colors for the girls in muted tones, though they were slowly starting to have opinions about what they wore in terms of colors as well.