Lotto

11

October 1, 1975

Stevie was 24 weeks pregnant and fully back into SLP mode. Lindsey was still occasionally painting, but today he was painting his own house.  With his records playing softly. He was painting the Nursery to be exact. There was no way to find out what Stevie was having so Lindsey had gone to the store and picked out some Gray paint. He chose gray because it could go for either a boy or a girl and he already had that grey and white plaid blanket. 

The doorbell rang so he sat his brush down and ventured downstairs to answer it and beamed when he saw his mother on the other side.

"What are you doing here?" He asks hugging his mother.

"Well it's your birthday weekend and I thought i'd surprise you. Stevie's dad is the president of grey hound and he got me a bus ticket.  I didn't even tell Stevie that I was coming." Ruth explains as he lets her enter the house. 

"She's at work, she'll be home around five. She only has to stay at work until 3:30 but she never leaves at 3:30." He shrugs.

"Well she's probably got a lot to do preparing for the baby and when she goes on Maternity Leave." Ruth shrugs.

"She's not. She told me she was going to work up until she went into labor and she was going back as soon as the doctor gave her the okay." Lindsey shrugs.

"Well um, did you have anything in mind for me to get you for your birthday present this year?" Ruth questions changing the subject. 

"It's a lot of money though." He sighs.

"Money isn't an object Lindsey." Ruth glares at her son. And that was the truth he grew up rich and everything was left to Ruth when his father passed. 

"Could we go buy stuff for the nursery then?" He asks.

"Of course we can but shouldn't you be planning the nursery with Stevie?" Ruth inquires.

"She doesn't want anything to do with the baby. She said she was only having them for the tax and then that was it. I was in charge on every decision regarding the child from here on out. If it's a boy I'm going to name him Oliver and if it's a little girl I'm going to name her Freya. They're both norse Freya means Lady and Oliver means descendant. I found the name in a book that I got from the used bookstore." Lindsey again looks down sadly.

"Well they're pretty names. Alright, come on go get changed and we'll go shopping for the baby." Ruth kisses her son's cheek rubbing his back. 

The Buckingham's went all out shopping for the baby spending upwards of about six hundred dollars. The chose a white crib and the crib set that they got was a yellow quilt with a gray border around the edge and in the middle there were white and gray elephants. It came with three extra sets of sheets. One that was white with gray circles on it, one that matched the blanket to a T, and one that was plain gray. He chose a white rocking chair and a white changing table with a yellow changing pad and a white dresser. They had bought several little plush blankets. His favorite was a charcoal gray blanket with a light grey elephant on it, but he also got a white muslin blanket with black jungle animals on it, and a white fuzzy plush blanket with grey foxes on it. He also bought one that was gray with silk light gray edges it was almost a stretchy velvet fabric that he put with the little baby carrier. He got a black quilted diaper bag that he thought Stevie would be fine carrying around. And a little stroller. And not to mention he got several onesies, about a million plain white onesies long and short sleeve because you can never have to many plain white onesies according to Ruth, a couple gray ones and a couple of black ones. He got a four pack which included a plain tan onesie, a tan and white striped onesie, a whit onesie with tan hedgehogs on it, and a white onesie with tan and gray elephants on it. His favorite one by far though was a cream long sleeve onesie the collar and the cuffs were Navy blue, and right in the center was a daddy-or mommy-but a daddy elephant outlined in navy blue holding a baby elephant in his trunk. That was the one he wanted to bring the baby home from the hospital in because the baby was coming in January or February so he put it in the little diaper bag with a pair of navy blue stretchy pants and a little navy blue hat and socks. Deep down he was hoping it was going to be a little boy but he was going to be happy either way. 

When Stevie got home she saw Ruth's shoes by the door and she silently hoped that she would've made dinner because Stevie did not feel like cooking. She was cramping which the doctor said was normal because her uterus was stretching, and her feet and ankles were swollen from being on them all day in her platform boots. She was sick of being pregnant and was kind of hoping that she'd go into preterm labor so she didn't have to deal with this anymore. 

But when she walked into the house she didn't hear them in the kitchen so she ventured upstairs where they were all congregating in one of the guest rooms and when she walked in her eyes went wide and her mouth opened. She was honestly a little hurt because she thought she'd get to pick the nursery furniture out with him but she did tell him that he was making all of the decisions-except when she was in labor she put her foot down on that one-so though it did hurt she let it go.

"Did you do this all in one day?" She asks.

"I did. My mom surprised me for my birthday and we went and we picked all this stuff out for Freya or Oliver." Lindsey nods.

"Freya or Oliver?" She inquires that also hurt her because she wanted to name the baby with him but it went back to the statement that she made about him making all the decisions and she was honestly starting to regret it at that point.

"Yeah that's what I picked out for their names, Do you like them?" He nods.

"They're cute I like them and they sound good with Buckingham." She nods again, and while she did love the names and she thought Freya was absolutely gorgeous she had always wanted to name a little girl Sara Rhiannon. But maybe she could talk Lindsey into letting her pick the middle names.