Leaping for Your Dreams

I reached over and turned off Mari’s alarm. I had gotten a phone call from Moka yesterday telling me to keep her at home and busy today. She’d be upset for a little bit but I could deal with that as long as she relaxed. It was a rainy day in Pittsburgh, I roused Anna and we went down stairs to make breakfast for Mama.

“How do we keep Mama from going in to work today Annushka?” I asked as I began breakfast.

Anna tilted her head and looked at the ceiling, it was her thinking face. She had changed so much since she had come into our lives. She was finally growing well and catching up with her peers. We would have to get her into school next year. “I think we will just do nothing.”

“How will that work Annushka? She will go in to work if we do nothing.” I was breaking eggs as we talked. I watched as she hopped down and padded to the fridge. She grabbed the juice and milk and moved them to the island I was working on.

She turned and looked at me, she looked older as she did. “Trust me Papa. Make breakfast, I will do the rest.” She went and found a bed tray and began setting it up for bringing breakfast up to Misa.

I kept watching her as I made omelets for us all. She fussed over every detail. Even had a cover to keep the plate warm while we took it upstairs. She hopped back up on her stool with a grin. “We eat and then we go wake Mama. Then we do nothing.”

I had to be missing something, but I wasn’t going to argue with Anna. She was so sure that Mari would not go in to work. I set her plate in front of her and she crossed herself then dove right in. I was proud of that; that she would think to thank God before eating.

I made another omelet for Mari and slid it onto the warm plate. Anna then skipped up the stairs in front of me as we went to wake Mama. Anna opened the bedroom door, ran lightly and jumped onto the bed. “Good Morning Mama!” She called out, making me smile.

I watched as my lovely bride rolled over seemingly sleepy and grabbed Anna. “I heard you open the door.” She tickled Anna until she squealed. Then she noticed me. “Breakfast in bed? To what do I owe this?”

I grinned. “Moka say you work too hard and need a day off. Anna say today we do nothing.” Anna wormed her way under the covers and smoothed a place for the tray. I set the tray in front of her and she delightedly took the cover off.

“This is great. Don’t get me wrong I’m gonna kill Moka for going behind my back, but even I can see the wisdom of doing nothing today.” She kissed Anna’s head. “Great idea Sunshine.”

I pulled up a chair and waited while Misa ate. Anna was grinning at me. “So how do we do nothing?” I knew that I was missing something but I wasn’t sure what.

Mari cleared her mouth and chuckled. “It means that we make no plans for the day and do things that we have been putting off. Cleaning the house, doing the laundry that’s doing nothing. If someone comes over then great if not it’s a family day where we get sick of each other by the end of it.” Anna was nodding. “My mom started the do nothing day as a way for _her_ to do nothing while the rest of us did what she normally would have. We did it once a month if we could so that more than just once a year she knew how much we cared.”

Now understanding what this day was going to contain I couldn’t agree with it more. Family day doing everything the house needed together. “We do family movie night tonight too?”

The ladies both nodded. Mari got up. “But first we clean and organize the house. Pick a room, that’s where we’ll start.” She grabbed some clothes and put them on.

If we were going to clean and organize we might as well start where the living happened. “Why not start in great room? Do that floor first, then move to basement?”

We moved to the main floor and began cleaning the entire house. We did have a cleaning crew who came in once a week but that wasn’t good enough for Mari right now. We moved furniture and cleaned the entire floor, we took cushions outside and beat them to get what dust we could out of them, we even hung a couple sturdy ropes in the garage so we could beat the rugs and keep them dry.

Next came the kitchen. We cleaned everything from the top of the cabinets down. Anna had fun crawling up and getting everything out of them so we could clean inside the cabinets as well. Once they were cleaned out we went through things by expiration date. As it turned out we had some stuff that was expired, I didn’t know that canned goods could expire.

We put things back into the cabinets and then did the same to the pantry. We had expired things in there too. We gathered all the expired food up and moved it to the side to be gotten rid of. We had it a mess and that’s when I noticed Mari taking measurements of the cabinets. “What are you doing?”

“Measuring to get things to help us organize this place. We keep losing pans and such in these, let’s find solutions so that we don’t.” I was sensing an outing I just wasn’t sure when or where.

After she got all of the measurements, sure enough I was right. I was wrong about one thing though, I thought she would go alone; we all ended up going. “If we’re spending today together we should do that. I’ve actually looked at getting this stuff but I wanted your opinions as well so this works.”

We pulled up at Bed, Bath and Beyond. I couldn’t believe I was about to do this. I’d never actually been in one of these stores but I was already dreading it. “You sure this is good place for me?” I was skeptical on this.

“We need storage and organization, we’re all guilty. This way we all have a say. It’s not like I’m looking for china patterns and such. Or worse I could say that we need to replace my car.” Like I hadn’t been planning that anyway.

We went through the aisles finding all kinds of little things that in the next week or so I would never know how I lived without before now. She even got pop up hampers so that laundry was easier. That was a failing of mine, I was _not_ good at laundry.

We also looked at things that could organize everything you could imagine. From the bathroom for Anna, the office I had and the craft room Mari had taken over. Every room had to be organized in some way, or so she felt. I was glad we had brought my car.

Oddly enough I wasn’t stopped by a lot of fans. Of course we had published our marriage and adoption so that might have something to do with it. The handful of kids that came up were in awe until Anna noticed them. She didn’t chase them away, but she did make sure they knew that I was her Papa.

Several hours later we loaded my vehicle and got in. That’s when I made the snap decision that she did need a new car. Hers was old, by nearly 10 years. I went down “car row” and began asking some questions. “So now that we have all this, we do something else for family right?”

Seeing where we were headed she was wary. “Yeah, we’ve got all day. Why?”

“Just thinking your car need to be replaced.” I heard her gasp. “How often you have to get a ride from Moka or me cause car does not work right?”

“Can I help?” Anna asked from the backseat.

I smiled. “Is family day and you are family, yes?” She nodded and grinned. “Good, we need good place.” I spotted the Range Rover dealership and turned in.

We walked in and the girls began looking at the vehicles. I was trying to hang back as this was for Mari and Anna more than myself. Unfortunately that didn’t work. “Mr. Malkin, welcome back. How can we help you today?” I shook the salesmen’s hand and tried to smile.

“We are here for new car for my wife.” I pointed towards Mari and Anna. “Need something safe and family friendly.” They were looking at the price tags and did not look happy. This would be a problem.

“I had heard you got married. I hate to ask this, but,” He leaned in. “Does your wife speak English?” I chance a glance at Mari, she had heard. In fact she was coming over.

“Not only do I speak English but I have good hearing as well. As for if we have any questions do you have any High Fuel Efficiency vehicles?” Anna was climbing in and out of the vehicles, or at least trying to. She was having difficulty getting into them.

“The closest we have is the Range Rover Evoque, over here. It comes in two models and three styles.” He grabbed a brochure and started going over all the options with me.

“Before we get too far into this, can I check and make sure our daughter can get _in without needing a big boost?” He just about smacked himself. “Anna. Let’s try this one, might be easier.” She just about ran over and looked up at me. “Go ahead. If you can’t get in it without help we’re not staying.” She opened the door easily and scrambled into the vehicle with ease.

Mari turned to the salesman and smiled. “_Now_ we can talk options, price and colors.” Anna clamored out again and couldn’t stop grinning. I waved Mari over to talk with him, signaling that I would stay with Anna.

The salesman laid out all the color samples and Mari grabbed the red tile and began moving it around in the light. “Definitely the red. I prefer a lighter interior, I know it shows dirt faster but it also makes the inside feel bigger.” The salesman called up the website and began building her chosen vehicle.

This went on for a little bit before Anna got tired and got out of the car once and for all. We walked over to join Mari and saw that she had taken the red off of the car, making it a dark grey instead. “Thought you would go for the red.”

She giggled. “I did, and then I remembered who I married. An eye-catching car might _not_ be a good thing if we’re trying to go unnoticed.” I nodded, she was right that would be better.

“We’ve got it at about $58,000 with all the options I’ve chosen.” The price didn’t bother me, what I wanted was her happy.

“If you like it, get it. I want you happy, that all.” Anna was swinging on my arm so I started flexing, singing her up and down as well as back and forth.

She went back to negotiating with the salesman. She drove a hard bargain. I learned not to negotiate with her when she wanted something. In the end she got _exactly_ what she wanted, in the color and with the options she wanted for less that I could have.

We were told that we would be called when her car was ready to be picked up and that it would be about a week. We got in the car and went home. When we got there we piled out and took our other purchases in.

We spent the afternoon installing the drawers and getting the kitchen back in order. Once that was all done and the rest of this floor had been cleaned Mari decided that she had enough.

She ordered pizza for us all while Anna and I chose a movie for us all to watch. We were all snuggled on the couch when the doorbell rang. I got up and answered it. It was Flower and Vero. “Hey Flower, Vero! Come in!”

Anna was quickly approaching; she loved Flower and Vero. They came in and got comfy. “We t’ought t’at you guys could use having some friends come by.” Flower said as he padded into the kitchen.

Vero laughed. “No, you wanted to know if I ‘ad to be in the wedding as it is so close to ours. It’s Aleks and Sid, I’m doing it!” That got us all talking about the wedding and Mari showing off her handy work so far.

The _next doorbell was the pizza guy. We all had dinner together foregoing the movie for friends. Anna had friend knock at the door and she went outside to play. It was a great day, everyone was happy and much more stress free.