Just us- SBI adoption story (Just me and him book 2)

Chapter 36: just like that

Phil's POV:

My wife's car pulled up outside and I popped outside to check everything was alright and bring them in. I could hear Tommy wailing before I'd even opened the door.

"He was fine, well, there was a lot of cereal everywhere but he was fine!"

"It's fine," I comforted my wife, "we can work this out." I opened the back door and looked in. Tommy was pulling at his seat belt. I undid his seatbelt and helped him take some deep breaths.

"Oh, I've just realised." Kristin said.

"Yea, he didn't have his seatbelt cover in, we took it in the other car." Poor kid was probably already stressed about seeing my mum again after what happened last time, and just as he starts to regulate himself he's met with a scratchy seatbelt digging into his neck. Of course it was way too much for him.

She nodded and sighed. "You head in, get yourself a drink. But please don't let my mum give you wine, she offered it to Wilbur and Techno when I said no. Luckily Tubbo found it funny."

"Thanks," she said, fixing her hair and taking a deep breath before going inside.

"Right mate, would you like to go inside and take a break? Or stay out here and take a break?" I held out a hand for each option.

"Toilet," he signed.

"Okay mate," I picked up his backpack in one hand and held his hand in my other, "let's go inside and go to the toilet."

Once he'd been to the toilet, we went in to sit down with everyone at the dinner table. Mum had held off serving the food so it was mostly still hot and where it wasn't, the microwave did its job.

It had been going well so far. Tommy was sat by me and Techno and my mum was at the other end of the table to us: all of which helped to keep him calm. I was worried that things might be awkward but once we'd started eaten it was like we'd all know each other for years and been talking consistently that whole time. The boys made tidy work of all the food, but they're 'growing lads' as my mum put it.

"More carrots Tommy?" Kristin asked.

Tommy picked up his iPad and paused. Techno looked at me nervously. I felt the need to say something supportive, "what did you want to say mate?" Tommy stimmed nervously and put the iPad back down. "More," he signed.

"Well done bud," Kristin praised, "here you go." She spooned some more carrots onto his plate and only put the rest of them on it when everyone had said they didn't want any more.

Tommy reached a hand forward to pick one up but stopped and looked at me. He knew I was going to tell him not to but he just wanted to make sure. I smiled and waited until he picked up his fork to look away. 

"Tubbo did you want any more?"

He pointed at the potatoes, "they-they-they-they're really-re-re-really g-g-g-g-g-g," he took a deep breath and forced it out, "good."

"Glad you think so!" My mum exclaimed, piling a few more onto his plate. "More chicken too?" He shook his head politely and began tucking into the potatoes, which to be fair to him are very good. Mum has always made the best potatoes. Duncan refused to eat them any other way. I make them the same way she does and somehow they're never exactly the same. She's got some kind of magic and I'm jealous of it.

We moved on swiftly to dessert. We had a choice of chocolate brownie or some jelly which we had brought along for Tommy but there was probably enough for others to have some. Mum had two huge tubs of vanilla ice cream for the brownie, but Tommy and Wilbur ended up having some of it with their bowls of jelly too. Apparently (according to Wilbur who had practically no tastebuds) it tasted quite nice. He also had almost no voice after yesterday so it was difficult to understand quite what he was saying.