Sisu

**Nov. 10th, 2015 Tuukka’s POV**

Getting home after practice, I hear laughing in the living room. Coming further in I found Tatiana and Taika laughing over something. I put my bag on the floor by the garage door and came further in. “Afternoon!” I called as I stepped away from the doorway.

“Hey!” Tai said happily. “Good practice?”

I shrugged. “Mostly. With everything that’s been going on, you know.” I sat down on the couch next to her and she snuggled close. “What’s going on here?”

Tatiana looked semi-innocent. “I’ve been telling her stories about Elliz as a baby. We were laughing over how close she’s come to smacking her head on so many things when she was little. Thankfully she’s grown out of that.” Something clicked in my head, our baby could hurt herself in so many ways in this house. I must have gone pale cause Tatiana got a concerned look. “Tuukka, is everything ok?”

I shook my head no. “I don’t think so.” I look around at the main room.

This worried both of the girls. Tatiana put two and two together faster than Tai did. “Ah, you’re worried about the house.” She moved closer. “Tuukka, you have less to worry about than you think.”

I barked out a laugh. “Are you serious? Look at this place?! It’s really open!”

Taika sighed, got up and went into the office. She brought out a pad of paper and laid it in my lap. “Here. Take a look at this.” I looked and saw a list of recommended safety things for young children. “While you guys were gone I had a company come in and make this. It’s what they say we should have, but we can always decide to use fewer of these.”

I started reading the list and saw so many things that we wouldn’t need, like carbon monoxide detectors, because we already had them. Tatiana pulled out her phone and looked up something on it. “There’s her list from that company and then there’s a more common sense list that goes room by room or age by age so you don’t have to do it all at once.” She handed it to me and I compared the two.

I went through both lists carefully. Most of these were common sense things we had already been doing or had. Tai had insisted on having a fire extinguisher in the kitchen and putting cleaning products up high and not near food. We had already talked about gates for the garage door and the laundry. We would need some for the stairs but I was sure we could find one that fit with what we wanted.

The more I read, the more sure I felt that we could do this in stages, but I needed to double check. “Can we do this in stages? Like get things ready for some now and more as we go along?” I looked over at the girls who were both nodding.

“Of course we can. Break it into chunks so it’s more manageable and easier to deal with. I looked and a lot of the things they said we need to have right away, we already do. Carbon Monoxide Detectors, Smoke Detectors all over, the night lights we have around the house are all LED ones so they don’t get too hot.”. She smiled at me. “It's OK to be freaked out about how potentially dangerous our home is, we have time to make it safer.”

I grunted and moved into the kitchen. I was looking at ways we could secure our appliances and cabinets. I heard the girls discussing something but couldn't tell what until Tai gasped loudly and I whirled. “You, no way!”

Tatiana was grinning. “Tell me about it, it was a big surprise to us too. Right now we're only telling a few people so you can't tell anyone just yet. April will be a busy month.”

I was a bit confused until Taika laughed. “I guess we can do all of our shopping together. At least then we both will get an opinion instead of just a dazed look.”. Of course they both laughed at that and I put 2 and 2 together.

“You’re… you’re pregnant aren’t you?” I said slightly confused and not wanting to sound like an idiot.

Tatiana grinned. “Yes, we’re hoping for a boy this time. We find out in a few weeks, we know that there’s a chance of twins as well but only saw one on the first scan. It would certainly make things make sense if we were having twins.” As I took a closer look it was clear that she was pregnant, I hadn’t noticed before now though.

“Congratulations. I bet Zee was happy when you told him.” She nodded furiously as she laughed. “Lots of babies this year.” Then I thought about it for a second. “There were a lot of babies in 2011 too right?”

There were smiles on both of their faces, it told me I wasn’t wrong. I shook my head and went back to deciding what kind of locks we would be getting for our cabinets and such. I thought most of the kitchen could be strapped together but there were a few cabinets that we would need actual locks for, like the one where the mixer was and the sink just for safety sake. We already had extra security on our sliding doors, so we didn’t have to worry when we were gone.

I let the girls talk and went further around the house looking for things we would have to make safer. We would need anti-tip straps for a lot of the furniture. Door knob covers for the rooms we didn’t want the baby into, like the room next to hers and the guest room. As I looked around upstairs I counted at least 2 gates we would need, for the laundry room and the top of the stairs.

I grabbed my laptop and began looking for things to help me make the house safe. Finding everything I wanted for now lead me to thinking about planning for other areas of our lives. I began looking into estate issues of having properties here in Boston and in Finland. There was much information on how best to go about it, but I thought that speaking to lawyers on both sides would be best.

Going back I found that there were local places that sold what I was looking for. I decided that being well versed in the new safety gear before we had an infant was a good thing. I wrote down where to get it all and went to make some more calculations on how many of each we would need. I also took some pictures so I could show what our home looked like for a more accurate list. Once all of that was done, I left a note for Tai on where I was going and left.

**Taika’s POV**

A few hours after Tatiana came over and Tuukka came home we noticed that he was gone. Then I found the note. ‘Gone to store for safety stuff, might as well start now. -Tuukka’ I laughed and showed it to Tatiana. “Well, I guess that solves that problem, at least partially.”

I smiled. “Yeah, I thought it would be a bigger fight to get him to think about this. Wanna help me install the Retract-A-Gate?” Just then there was a knock at the door. I got up and found Zee and a couple other guys there. “Hi! Tuukka is out getting some safety stuff for the house, but you can come in.”

Zee hoisted and toted in a wooden box. “Good, then we can install this and help him when he gets back.” He came in and then went into the coat room. The guys followed and then I heard a bunch of banging briefly. Soon they came out and were grinning. “Torey made you a place to put your bags and such for when you got home, safe from the baby when it’s here. This gives you time to get used to using it.”

I blew them kisses. “Thank you, that helps a lot. He kind of freaked out when he got to thinking about everything, but he settled down after I gave him the list the company gave me while you were gone.” I got up and hugged them.

Torey laughed. “Baby proofing is a lot like dog proofing. You have to look high and low to find what might be problem areas. We found if we didn’t put stuff up out of Fenway’s reach he would destroy it fast.” He blushed a bit. “And well, we asked our families what would make things easier for you guys. My sister send me the plans and told me how useful hers was for not only organizing the closet she uses it in, but also in keeping things out of little hands.”

I sighed happily. “Thank you all so much. I’ve got a few things I need to put up. Baby gates for the stairs, top and bottom, and for the door into the house and the laundry room. Would you guys like to help with those?”

Pasta suppressed a groan. “Do we have to?”

I snorted and got an affronted look on my face. “Pasta? Are you telling me that you wouldn’t help someone who fed you whenever you were here last year, sometimes more than anyone else had too?” He flushed, looking guilty. I held that stern look for a moment and then I laughed. “Pasta, if you don’t want to be here it’s fine by me. I was going to invite those who helped over for dinner, if they were smart and brought their ladies. Now, if you want to give up a free meal…”

His guilt broke. “AUGH! Fine! I will stay and help!” I went over and kissed his cheek. I saw Torey and Loui making phone calls. I went into the spare room, the one that Joonas usually used when he was in town. I brought out the gates I had chosen.

When I had them where I wanted them to be placed I called Tuukka. After he answered I spoke directly. “Come home. We are having help to put the gates I chose up and the safety gear you’ve found. We’re then having a dinner party to celebrate so picking up some dessert and sparkling juice.”

Pasta, Loui and Torey all balked at that but Zee had a knowing smirk on his face. I scoffed. “Please, no drunk driving for anyone. Besides this way the littles can have some too.” That pacified Loui who texted his wife quickly.

I showed the guys where our tools were and before long they were reading instructions for the gates. Tuukka got home with a bunch of things and was speechless for a long while. “You found gates?” He looked at them carefully and apparently found nothing lacking. “These are amazing! I thought for sure we wouldn’t found anything that was perfect and you already had.”

The evening went a lot better than any of us thought once we got going. The guys even all pitched in and put together the furniture together, including the glider rocker and ottoman I found to be comfortable during night time feedings. Zee even changed out the light cover for one with stars all over it, he then pronounced the rocker really nice.

At the end we had friends over to help us make our home safer for our first child and had a blast doing so. 17 weeks to go...