I respect the mentality of toddlers. They take full advantage of what minimum resources they’ve been allotted (mostly ear-killing crying) and they push on until they have what they want. Toddlers don’t back down. If they’re hungry, they’re going to get a bottle and they know it. It’s admirable.
That didn’t make them any more fun to be around. Teaching them skills was tedious and actually made me appreciate the arguments raging inside my head. At least it gave me something partially interesting to listen in on while trying to get Narissa to learn to walk.
Eventually Mom let it slip that I could set my daughter into a chair and have her teach herself to walk. If she were still alive, I would have hugged her tight enough to make her eyes bulge! Why put in the work when a hunk of plastic did just as good of a job?
Trish was less than pleased by my decision to stop involvement in the toddlers’ lessons. If she wanted it done differently, then she was more than welcomed to take care of it herself. To display my annoyance about her complaints, I made sure to bring the always crying Narissa around whenever she was practicing at the piano.
Between the walker and the playpen, my kids were mostly set.
James and Hans spent a lot of time in the playpen, even after they stumbled upon a limited vocabulary. They seemed to enjoy being together. The two of them having a close bond would work well with the idea Trish had about calling them triplets. My three youngest offspring were all born on the same day. How would they know that they came out of two different women?
Sure, Narissa had skin the color of my favorite flavor of snow cone, but she had the same blonde hair as Hans. People would probably ask questions. People are stupid though. Everyone took Lois and Milton to be my full siblings while questioning the validity of Freddie and I being twins.
When Trish wasn’t looking, I still occasionally gave her a hand. When it was convenient for me.
Especially if it involved Narissa. Something about that little girl was special.
I was allowed to have a favorite. Trish certainly did in Hans.
I could see a smidge of appeal in the blonde boy. He did more than the other ones, always stumbling around the house whenever he wasn’t trapped in the playpen.
He even managed to get downstairs one day. We watched TV together for a few hours. It was alright. It would have been even better without his childish garbling distracting me from strategic plays.
I think Trish just liked Hans because he came out of her though. That was faulty reasoning on her part. Claude was cut out of my middle and I couldn’t stand him.
And before anyone starts blowing up balloons for James' pity party, remember that I was also no one's favorite. Look how far I've come. I suppose the only person who my offspring really needed to impress was dear old Granny.
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