Alone This Holiday

Groaning I lay my head back down in the pillow, Aedan laughed then started to climb up on the bed. I felt him sit down on my upper back, and the feeling of him playing with my hair. Then I knew I’d have to now wash my curtesy of candy cane sticky hair as he ran his sticky fingers through it.

“Mummy says to get up,” He laughs, as I get up on all fours, him just balancing on my back. He adjusted his body so when I stood up I’d be giving him a piggy back. We went to the living room where Riley, Daniel and Connah were sitting up in front of Anna playing with some tinsel, enjoying the feeling of it. Occasionally one of them would giggle, and turn around to face Anna, then continue to play with the tinsel. Zach was sitting on Scotty’s lap as my eldest sat cross legged on the floor near the tree. Zach and Scotty seemed to be really close, you’d quite often see Scotty reading to Zach.

Leaning over I kissed Anna’s lips, “Merry Christmas, honey,”

“You too,” Anna smiled, standing up to take Aedan off my back then set him down on the soft carpet. Nearly an hour later, the kids all had new presents to start the day with. The quads were playing with the boxes that their presents came in, they didn’t care for what was originally inside. Scotty had gotten a new guitar, a white wood acoustic that I’d organised to be signed by his hero Billie Joe Armstrong. Billie was more then willing to sign it for Scotty, they’d met a few times at various events and Billie found that Scotty was an awesome kid. He was sitting on the couch reading through the book it came with to learn the new songs.

Aedan was playing Ben 10 on the play station, even though he wasn’t amazing at it, he was having fun. Seeing as the kids were entertained, I took this chance to help Anna get some things ready for when her family arrived. The backroom table was set for everyone; the kids would be sitting inside at a table in the living room.

Anna’s oldest sibling, Zina was the first to arrive with her husband and two kids, Gianna and Gavin. Zina lived a few hours away, so we didn’t get to see her very much; so a few tears were shed from the two girls when they saw each other. Gianna and Gavin went straight to the backyard with Scotty, and Aedan; they started to play with Max and Pinkly while occasionally playing on the trampoline.

Later on Zacky arrived with Gena, who was a little queasy from the morning sickness, followed by Matty Baker who was late because his ‘one night stand wouldn’t fuck off’. Maria scolded her son for sleeping with a girl, then getting rid of her, while Mr Baker couldn’t help but high five his son for managing to score a girl.

The kids all started to eat their breakfast, which consisted of pancakes, fruit salad, toast, bacon and eggs. The quads were sitting in their high chairs at the table with us, we had to make sure all their food was small; they were still not chewing their food much before attempting to swallow it.

“So when are you due, Anna?” Maria asked putting some more milk in her coffee. The two of us exchanged glances; we hadn’t planned on telling people. “I mean, you’re not drinking coffee and rubbing your belly a lot,”

Wiping her mouth with the napkin, she stalled her answer before saying, “I don’t know what you’re talking about,”

“Anna there’s no use in lying-”

“Mum, stop talking about babies. You’re a Grandma how many times? And you’re still bugging Anna about being pregnant?” Matty laughed. He always knew when Anna was pregnant, she didn’t want everyone going on an on about it.

“Sorry, Dear. But are you?” Maria questioned, Matty and Zacky groaned. Anna and I looked into each others eyes, almost as though we were trying to decide what to say.

Sighing Anna said, “I don’t know how far along I am, a few weeks tops, though. That’s why I didn’t want to tell you, Mother,” I winced, Anna only ever said ‘mother’ when she was pissed, and Maria knew that. Everyone knew that Anna didn’t always get along with her mother. “I’m gonna go check on the kids,” Anna left the table, leaving me to face the sharks, also known as the male side of the Baker family.

“So you guys aren’t going to do the ‘are you going to look after our sister’ speech?” I asked, after a few minutes of silence. Zacky shrugged and Matty said something like, ‘Doesn’t the speech loose effect after doing it three times?’

“I’m sorry I pried, Brian,” Maria said, “I should go check on her,” The rest of the breakfast went well, Anna came back, but I knew she was pissed off at Maria still, but wasn’t going to let her anger bring down the rest of the day. More gifts were exchanged between everyone before Zacky and Gena departed; Gena had spent a fair bit of the morning feeling sick so they decided to get her to bed for a while before her parents went to their house.

Slowly everyone left, until it was just Anna, the kids, and I along with one very messy kitchen. The quads were put down for a sleep, while the other two kept themselves entertained which gave us a change to get the kitchen clean before it started to smell like rotten food and the ants invaded.

“I can’t believe she would do that. Obviously if I hadn’t told people I wasn’t ready for people to know,” Anna said, rinsing off various things in the sink then putting them on the counter for me to load into the dishwasher. “I mean, it’s only a test that’s confirmed it. And I’m still only a few weeks so I could still mis-”

“Anna, you need to calm down,” I chuckled, kissing her lips. “She’s just doing what Mums do best, they’re nosy,”

“I’m not a nosy Mum am I?”

“No, you’re an amazing Mum,”