Baby on Board

9 Weeks

"How do you do it?" Sophie asked the second she walked into my house, screaming baby in tow. She looked like a typical new mother; her hair was disgusting, her shirt was greying and she wore two completely different shoes, not to mention that she had massive bags under her eyes. Motherhood had hit my sister hard. "I can't do it anymore. I want to send her back, get a refund or a replacement."

She parked the buggy that held her week old daughter in my hallway and then continued to walk through the house and down the stairs that led to the kitchen. I think she got halfway down when I heard one of Sophie's familiar, 'fuck sakes.' Trudging back into the hallway, she held a hand up to me, as if sot say, "Don't you dare," and then proceeded to tackle the intricates of the fancy pram she insisted on buying and freeing her daughter. It took a few minutes of watching her pathetically attempting to juggle baby, diaper bag and her own handbag before I stepped in and took the baby from her. 

"Seriously, Charlotte, how do you do this?" I heard Sophie shout as I take Léa down to the kitchen. Walking in, Sera looks over at me with those big, bright eyes of hers and smiles while she giggles. Nearing her, I hear footsteps following behind me and then, "See, your baby is normal. Why can't my baby be like yours? I don't suppose you fancy swapping babies, do you?"

Lucas, our brother who had stopped by unexpectedly this morning, scoffed at Sophie's suggestion, making his presence here known to her. It wasn't often than Lucas ever came by my house; he and Emma had always been the closest while Sophie and I were simply on the periphery but recently, he's been coming over more and more, wanting to integrate himself as the world's coolest uncle to Sera. However, I think now that Léa's here, Sera and I might be seeing less and less of him. Isaac will hit the roof if that happens. He's already annoyed that my mother seems to have forgotten our daughter's existence. 

"Sophie, you can't swap babies," Lucas tells her. He thinks it's a matter of fact of but someone like Sophie, that's just a minor glitch in a bigger plan. "Why do you look so harassed?"

Sophie grunted, shoulders dropping and bags falling to the floor with a loud thud. "Because that little she-devil kept me awake all night, crying into the early morning and then crying against after just twenty minutes of sleep. My husband, that complete and utter fucking wanker, slept through it all so it was up to me to get out of bed and sort her out. I swear, that baby has it in for me already."

"Have you thought that it's due to your aggressive nature and compulsory cussing?" Our brother offers as reasoning to Léa's constant upset. As always, Luc doesn't hold back when it comes to Sophie, a trait that we all find hilarious because he's one of the few that can put her in her rightful place. The only other people that can do that are Daniel and Isaac. When Sophie glares at Luc, he blows her a kiss. "We don't all find it as endearing as Daniel, you know."

Stepping in so that my brother and sister don't turn my kitchen into a bloodbath, I hand Léa to Lucas and hope that he doesn't make her cry. Her screams earlier were excruciating and I can't fathom why Léa was like that; Sera had never sounded so pained when she cried, not even when Isaac sang to her. Let me tell you, Isaac's singing voice is enough to make anyone cry.