“Tell your Grandma all about Disney World!” Mom encouraged Zoë as we finished up our dinner.
All four of the children started speaking at once, Isaac’s kids and Zoë. I laughed as I watched Mom gracefully follow each and every one of their conversations. It definitely showed that she had practice in that area.
While Mom kept the older kids busy I paid attention to Isaac and Andy across the table from me. “So, trying for any more children?” I asked.
Ike looked at Andy and shook his head. “Actually...” He cleared his throat. “We’re thinking about it.”
“What’s wrong?” I asked him. It was obvious that he wasn’t tell me the whole truth.
“It’s OK, Hon, you tell, I can’t bear to say it,” Andy instructed my brother.
“Last month Andy was pregnant,” he said with a pained look on his face. There was no need to say any more, we could tell what had happened.
“Oh honey!” Clare said. She stood up and hugged Andy over the table. “You poor thing!”
“Aw, man! I’m so sorry!” I told my brother and his wife.
Isaac nodded. “We are going to try again in a few months and if this one ends up in a miscarriage we’re going to try other methods. How about you two?”
I rubbed my wife’s back. “Well... We’re definitely going to try.”
“Animal,” Clare joked softly. She kissed my temple which was my most sensitive spot.
“Her name is Nicole,” Zac blurted out of nowhere from the end of the table. We all looked at him. “The girl I’m seeing, her name is Nicole. We’ve been together for awhile now. She works at a Hooters Restaurant in downtown Tulsa.”
“You’re dating a Hooters chick?” Mackie said, his mouth dropping.
“Exclusively?” Isaac questioned.
“I’m proposing to her on our six month anniversary.”
“Six months!?!” Isaac and I blurted out at the same time.
Zac nodded. “I thought you should know, especially since it’s next week.”
“Whoa,” I exclaimed. “Six months and you didn’t tell us?”
Zac shook his head. “I didn’t know what your reaction would be when you found out she is... what she is.”
“Does she have a big-” Mackie put his cupped palms up in front of his chest.
Zac laughed but shook his head. “Yes, Mack, she does.”
“That’s very awesome, Zachary,” I told my brother.
At that moment Anya decided it was time to cry. Clare reached over and gently pulled her from the baby high chair that had been kept at Uncle Zac’s house since the twins were born. My wife patted Anya’s behind, “does she seem wet to you?” Clare whispered. I took the baby and did the same thing. I nodded. Clare started to get up.
“Stay,” I requested. I stood up. “I’ll get it.” Anya put her head on my shoulder and squirmed. I glanced across the yard. “In fact, I’ll put her in her swim suit while I’m at it.” Zoë looked up from her deep conversation with my mother at the word “swim suit.” I nodded at her. “Yeah honey I said ‘swim.’” Her and her cousins cheered and instantly ran to their remaining parents to find out where their bathing suits were stashed.
I pulled open the glass door that lead into the living room and grabbed the baby bag off one of Zac’s arm chairs. I threw it over my other shoulder and went up the stairs.
I found the guest bedroom where Clare, Anya, and I would be sleeping that night and placed the bag on the bed. Anya was still crying on my shoulder. “Yo babe, shush, I’m finding you a diaper.” I reached one handed into the bag and found and clean one. I laid it out on the bed and then placed my squirming daughter gently next to it. I carefully pulled away the dirty diaper and she became quiet in the midst of the changing. “I’m glad I don’t have little boys yet,” I said as I placed the adhesives on the new diaper to keep it in place. I patted her stomach and she giggled.
“You like that, eh?” I asked her. She coo-ed and laughed harder. I was still holding her legs up the air so I took advantage of it and kissed the bottom of her tiny feet. I pressed my lips up against them and blew gently causing her to laugh even harder.
I reached deep into the baby bag to find the pink bathing suit. I slipped my baby’s legs into it and then her arms. I picked her up off the bed and went back out to the patio to find that the rest of the children were already in the wading pool.
“Couldn’t wait for us, could ya?” I joked to the kids.
“Sorry Uncle Taylor!” My nephew Jason said.
“I was kidding you, Jase, don’t worry about it,” I assured him.
I knelt down on the hard concrete sidewalk that was bordering where the pool was set up and placed Anya down gently in front of me, her bare feet against the soft grass. I held her around the waist with one arm so I could roll up my sleeves. She squirmed to break free but I wouldn’t let her. “Anya! Hold up a second!” She was trying to bend down and grab the water but she was still attached to my chest. I managed to pull up both sleeves and I held her out at the edge of the wading pool with both hands so she could touch the water. She giggled and splashed her hands up and down in the pool. I flinched as she splashed me by accident. “Easy kid,” I warned. She turned her body towards me, a look of delight on her face that was irreplaceable, and she grabbed my face in-between her two wet hands. There was a huge burst of laughter from the picnic table where the rest of the family was watching the spectacle.
Of course my other daughter couldn’t be left out of getting me wet. Zoë jumped out of the pool, ran over to me, and attached herself to my back. “Zo!” I scolded through squeezed lips. “Stop that!” She let go of me and got back in the pool.
“And you,” I said to Anya, taking her hands off my face. “You are going IN.” I picked her up and placed her in the pool on her bum. She squealed in delight and splashed her arms up and down in the water. “Didn’t you get enough of that?” I asked her attempting to keep my face out of the way of the sprays, which was hard considering I was had to hold her up so that she could sit up in the pool. She splashed even harder. “Guess not!”
“Daddy! Daddy! Look at me!” Zoë shouted, grasping for my attention.
“Don’t yell,” I chided her but I looked up anyway. She splashed a handful of water into my face. I closed my eyes as the water dripped down my hair and cheeks. I was annoyed but I had to laugh. It was pretty clever. “Thanks, Hun,” I told her. Anya squealed as the water from my face dripped down onto the top of her head.
“Uncle Taylor!” Jason’s brother Jordan said. “Jason peed in the pool!”
“I did not!” Jason shot back, turning red at what his brother had accused.
“Isaac!” I called over my shoulder. He looked up attentively from the conversation he was having with my wife. “Come get your kid!”
He raced over towards us. “What’s up?” He asked leaning one hand on my shoulder.
“We had an accident,” I explained. I nodded my head towards Jason.
“Come here, son,” Ike said holding out his hand to his boy. Jason took his father’s hand and was hoisted out of the pool and whisked inside to get his trunks changed. Jason and Jordan’s sister, Amanda was laughing at her brother’s accident.
“Everybody out,” I instructed picking up Anya. She was still giggling even as I held her wet body to my chest.
“Why Daddy?” Zoë asked innocently.
“Your cousin had an accident so your uncle has to refill the pool with better water.”
“Can we go in the sprinkler?” Amanda asked.
I nodded. The kids cheered and jumped out of the pool so Zac could refill it. I turned on the sprinkler system and the kids took turns running through it while I held the wet Anya and watched them to make sure they didn’t get hurt.
I held my daughter’s hand and kissed her small fingers while she squealed at the kids going through the water. Every time Zoë was about to go through she’d yell “Daddy! Daddy watch me!” and I’d watch her run through the water.
I glanced over at the picnic table every once in awhile, Clare would wave at me and I’d make Anya’s hand wave back to her and blow kisses. I kind of wondered what they were talking about because they kept starring at me and Anya. A few minutes later Jason and Isaac re-emerged from the house, Jason in clean swimming trunks and Isaac looking exasperated and embarrassed.
The kids were having a great time running through the sprinkler and soon forgot about the wadding pool. They started to beg me to go through with them so I gave in and ran through it with the baby.
“That one right there was at least seven months before he’d take a bottle,” I heard my mother say from the table. She was pointing at me over her shoulder. Clare was laughing and starring at me. I made a face and walked over to the table, the water from my clothes dripping into a trail as I walked towards them on the patio.
“What was that Ma?” I asked my mom. I grabbed a towel off of an empty chair and dried my hair and then Anya’s tiny face and ears. I used to get ear infections all the time as a child and I refused for my kids to get them as frequently so I always took the precaution to dry them thoroughly after a bath or swimming.
“We’re talking about babies,” Andy informed me. “And your mother was just saying about how you always loved children, even as a baby.”
“Well with babies in the house all the time you had to love kids,” I informed her, wrapping Anya in a small towel to keep her from getting chilled. I kissed my baby’s fingers as I spoke. “There was always a baby that had to be taken care of. I remember the day Zoë was born I started thinking about how she might be the last new Hanson sibling and I was very depressed about that. Zoë was an awful cute baby! Whatever happened?” I joked with my sister.
“It’s Gen!” She said shooting a death-glare at me.
“Jeeze, Zo, I was trying to joke with you!”
She sighed. “Taylor, just be quiet.”
“Mom, make her stop,” I complained.
“Both of you!” My mother snapped. “You are 27 years old Taylor for the love of Pete stop tormenting your sister!”
“She started it!” I accused.
“Did not!” She shot back.
“See!” I pointed out to my Mom. “She hates me!”
“Taylor, she doesn’t hate you!” Mack put in.
“Stay out of it!” Gen and I snapped at him. He raised up his hands in defeat, shook his head, and leaned back a little as if to say “I give up.”
“He’s right though, you know,” Gen said. “I don’t hate you...” she stood up and walked towards the door. “I just don’t like you very much.” She opened it and slammed it behind her.
“What’s eating her?” I asked my father and mother. I slid down on the bench next to my Mom. I looked up at my wife. “My little sister hates me!”
“Come here, baby!” Clare said sympathetically. She held open her arms to me even though I was still dripping with water. I got up and slid into them with my baby in my own arms. She rocked back and forth on the bench slowly and gently as if she was rocking a child to sleep. “She doesn’t know you very well, Tay.”
“That’s the problem,” I said softly. I looked up into her eyes. “She doesn’t know me at all.”