Book 2:
My Life, My Love, My Kids
Preview
My life had been totally different to most girls my age. They all wanted to party wildly, run a muck, throw massive ragers at their parents' houses, drink until they passed out, sleep with randoms, make out with losers they wouldn't even dream of kissing in their sober states.
It was true that I was mature for my age, but I always had been. And I was a mother to five kids, so I couldn't exactly go wild even if I wanted to. But here was the funny thing... I never really wanted to.
Sure, there were days where my life would get so hectic that all I wanted to do was let my hair down and show people my unseen side, but then I'd snap back to reality and realise that what I had was so much better.
I was twenty-three, just months off of my twenty-fourth birthday. I was in my freshman year of college, but I only attended part time, so it would probably take me a long time to graduate. Though, despite my demanding lifestyle, I still managed to find time to actually be ahead in all of my school work. I'm not even sure how I managed it! Especially with my five kids constantly running around at my feet.
"Mom!" I heard my eldest daughter Becca shout from upstairs.
"Oh, jeez," I groaned, and heard distinct footsteps coming down the stairs.
"Mom!" Becca called again, now standing in the doorway to the room that was our den.
"What is it, Becca?" I asked, trying to smile at her.
"Zane and Ethan are in the bathroom again," she informed me. "They poured shampoo all through the bathtub again!"
"Oh, are you kidding me?!" I snapped, standing up and running from the room.
"No, mom, I'm not," Becca said softly.
"I told you to keep the door closed!" I sighed. "They always seem to destroy the bathroom, those two! God!"
"It wasn't me, mom," Becca gasped, running beside me. "It was Addy. She went in there to wash her hands, and she didn't shut the door behind her."
"Great!" I sighed.
I walked in the bathroom to find my two sons, Zane and Ethan, playing in the shampoo in the bathtub. All of their bath toys were also in the shampoo. The room smelt strongly of the mixed berry scent of the shampoo.
"Uh-oh," Zane said with a sigh.
"Busted," Ethan muttered.
"What are you two doing?!" I frowned upon them.
"It was Zane!" Ethan said quickly.
"Nuh-uh!" Zane replied. "It was Ethan."
My two boys were mischevious. They had gotten into everything from the day they learnt how to crawl. Identical in every way, they did everything together. And they constantly blamed each other, or their sister Lily. The three of them were triplets, but Lily could easily pass for a younger sibling. She had blonde hair and brown eyes, whilst the boys had brown hair and blue eyes... Just like their father...
My triplets had just turned three, and it amazed me how quickly life could pass. Once they were three innocent little babies who could do no wrong, except awaken at ridiculously different times of the night. Now the boys were troublesome, and Lily tended to stick with her sisters. The three girls were all similar in their features, and nobody ever doubted they were siblings.
My eldest, Rebecca, was seven and a half. Rarely did we use her full name, for she'd always been known as Becca to us. Addison was four and a half, and had taken the same path of intelligence as her older sister. I still remembered the days when it was just the two girls, before the triplets changed all of our lives forever.
And my husband Cameron wanted another one?!
At this present point in time, having another child was pretty much at the bottom of my priorities list. Instead, I wanted to graduate college like all Americans. Cameron had already graduated college, and was now co-managing a successful business. I was so proud of him...
The only downside to Cameron managing a business was that I hardly ever saw him. We rarely had time together, especially now that I was a student.
I managed to chase Zane and Ethan from the bathroom, and cleaned up the mess. Becca helped by keeping an eye on the boys for me, not that they needed it. They could be well-behaved when they wanted to be...
"Mommy?" Addy's tiny voice said from the doorway. "Can we go play outside?"
"I'll take you all outside soon," I promised her.
"We can go out by ourselves," Addy said sharply.
"Last time I let you five outside by yourselves, I almost lost one of you," I said, shuddering at the memory.
"Fine," Addy groaned, turning around and walking away.
About a year ago, the five kids were playing outside. I had gone inside to find Cameron, and I came back outside to find Lily face-down in the pool, and Becca in the pool, trying to pull her out. It was a scary minute where Cameron performed CPR on our youngest daughter, but Lily was revived. The pool gate was child-proof, but Lily somehow crawled underneath a part of the fence that was broken. We've since had the fence fixed, and Lily's finally learnt how to swim. The kids were all in swimming lessons at the time, but they had all only just started them.
I returned to the den, but couldn't concentrate on the work I had to do. I stood up, walking upstairs to where I found all five kids playing in their living room.
"Let's go for a walk, guys," I smiled.
"Can we go to the park?" Lily asked excitedly.
"Sure," I grinned.
All of them cheered and ran downstairs. It was much easier now that I didn't have to have a stroller everywhere I went, although sometimes I'd considered using a leash on my troublesome boys. But they were pretty good when we went somewhere, especially the park.
We walked out the front door, and I took Lily and Zane's hands.
"Hold hands, guys," I told them, and Becca took Lily's hand, Ethan took Zane's and Addy took Ethan's hand.
And we walked through our happy, friendly street and to the park in the neighbourhood.