Wanting Them - Wanting You/Us Sequel

1 - Math Questions

Friday 19th April 2013
I brought Dougy and Kayla home from soccer and immediately Kayla ran to the living room, still in her coat and had her school bag on her back. Douglas put his coat on the rack and his bag in his cubby hole and then went in to the living room. I saw that Kayla was already sat on the couch with her baby brother in her arms. She was holding him properly and kissed his forehead lightly. I smiled at the sight and cleared her coat and bag. Douglas sat beside her and Chris passed Ryeli to him. I headed out the room and put Kayla's things away before sitting with my family on the couch. Ryeli started crying first and I knew she needed feeding. Doug passed her to me and I went and fed her in the kitchen as I began making dinner for everyone. Ryeli then fell asleep so I put her in her rocker that was downstairs in the living room. Chris then took a sleeping Benny from Kayla's hands and put him down.

"Any homework you two?" I asked my kids.

"Yes." They responded in unison.

"Okay, dinner will be done in one hour so you can start on your homework now." They both ran off to get their homework and I continued with dinner. Chris read through his script, watched the twins and helped the older ones with their work. Seeing him multitask three things was incredible. I pondered over how on Earth I'd be able to do that. How was I meant to put four children to bed when two required breast milk, two required warmed milk. Two required diaper changes, and the other two required to have a story read to them or for them read to me. I didn't know how to do it all. Once dinner was cooking, I headed out and joined the others at the kitchen table.

"Mama, can you help me?"

"Of course Kayla, what's the problem?" I pulled up a chair and sat beside her and looked at the math she had in front of her.

"I can't do this question." I looked at it and saw she was doing multiplication and divisions.

"Okay, let me go get the math blocks to help." I ran upstairs and to Kayla's bedroom and found the blocks. I took them down and laid them out. "So let's read the question."

"9 divided by 3."

"So we take 9 of the blocks, can you do that for me sweetie?"

"One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine!" She made a pile of nine blocks and then smiled.

"Good girl, so now take three of those and put them into separate piles." She did that. "And now keep splitting the remainders into those piles."

"Three."

"Perfect. So nine blocks, divided into three piles, gives you three in each pile."

"Yay." She wrote three on the sheet and smiled. I gave her a high five and she looked at the next question which was twenty divided by four. She used the blocks again to do the math and got the answer of five. "Is that right?"

"Yes it is honey." She sat and did the rest of her questions with the help of the blocks. I went and finished dinner and dished out the pasta and chicken with tomato sauce. "Dinners ready my loves. Go clear your work away and wash your hands." They both put their things on the side table and went to the bathroom. I put the bowls along with forks on everyone's plates. I cut Kayla's chicken a little smaller and kissed my husband on the lips. He quickly turned back to the script on the table rubbing his head trying to understand the show. "Babe, put the script down now. It's dinner time. I doubt we will get much time like this once rehearsals start, so don't take that family time away now."

"Sorry love." He stood up and put the script on the side. He gave me a short kiss and then Doug and Kay returned. They sat in their seats and began eating their food. They had a nice family dinner and conversation ended by both twins screaming. I rushed to them and had to change both their diapers. I took them upstairs to their changing tables and sorted both children out. I checked the time and saw it was ready for them to be put to bed. I quickly fed them both and put them into their cribs, singing a soft lullaby to help them sleep. "Goodnight my angels. Please try to sleep through the night." I turned off their light except the little mobile lamp and left the room and headed out to the door and back to dinner. Douglas cleared the plates and he then watched TV with Chris while I continued to help my daughter with her math work. After what felt like days I was back in bed with my husband and crashed asleep immediately, I was not ready to do this alone.