Another Life

31

"Thank you guys for coming over, and for bringing Nate. I think Mae just needed a friend over." Jay says as he reappears in the living room, carrying in the drinks for Kelly and Stella.

Kelly shakes his head,,blowing it off, and takes the mug from Jay's hand. "No problem."

Stella grabs hold of her own mug and furrows her eyebrows toward me. "What's going on with Macie? Why'd she need company?"

Jay and I look to each other before we both shrug. I send a quick glance to Macie and Nate playing in the corner of the room, very much making a mess but she was grinning, laughing, and wasn't hitting anything, or anyone. I then look back to Stella and shrug. "I don't know, she's been acting up for days and it's not like her. I thought maybe it had something to do with bringing Alfie home but she was fine for two weeks and then Jay went back to work and she kicked off. It's like going through those terrible two's again," I reply, watching Kelly and Stella shoot an uncertain look toward each other, making me shake my head quickly. "Not to scare you or anything." I add with a subtle chuckle.

It was just a few days ago that Stella called me to say how she was pregnant again, something everyone we knew was ecstatic about. We were close with the two firefighters, and because of that our kids were close. Alfie and this new baby would be seven or eight months apart, a similar age difference between Nate and Macie - and those two had some kind of bond.

"We just wanted Macie to have someone to play with, distract her for a bit while we figure out what to do." Jay sighs, leaning into the couch.

Stella puts her mug on the coffee table and leans back into the chair. "You guys will figure it out, you always do. This phase will be over before you know it."

************

Trying to get Macie out of the door when she's not acting out all the time was already a struggle. Everything used to be a game for her, I'd tell her "put your shoes on" and she would, but on her head, or her hands or anywhere other than her feet, I'd tell her "put your coat on" and she would, but upside down or the wrong way around. But now, with her finding a way to argue with everything, I'd rather go back to how it was - at least that way I'd get a laugh out of it. It took us thirty minutes and four temper tantrums later just to get her coat and shoes on, and a further twenty-five minutes to get the hat on her head. Eventually I gave up the fighting with her, threw the hat back down on the ground and told her she would just get cold.

It was Sunday evening, almost a week into her new-found attitude, and I was starting to lose it. Jay told me yesterday to get out of the house, away from the kids but I decided maybe it might be best to take Macie with me, have a mother-daughter day with her, and leave Jay to take care of Alfie while I was gone.

All in all it took us basically an hour to get out of the door and she fussed about being cold all the way up to the park. It was nothing fancy, only the small park a few blocks away from the house and when we got there I let her off the leash, allowed her to run around and burn off some energy she had built up from being cooped up in the house for a few days.

I helped her down the slide a few times before we made a snowman, knowing it was probably one of the last chances we were going to get this side of the year. It was the end of March now and while last night we had a good chunk of snow fall, the weather was starting to warm up, spring beginning to make its presence and take over from the cold Chicago winter. We got half-way through making the snowman however and then she wandered off, complaining about how her hands were cold. I didn't bother finishing it off, I just left the half-built hump of snow day on the bench and followed after her as she climbed up the ladder for the slide again.

We do that for a while, me helping Mae down the slide and chasing her around the empty space until I tire myself out and by the severe shivers she was having, Macie was freezing. Now became the fun task, telling her we had to go home.