Queen Bee

June 2001 (1)

"Aight, you guys ready?" I asked as Hailie, Alaina, and Nate all sat at the wooden kitchen table that Angel had picked out last month with their eyes closed, anxiously anticipating our big surprise. 

"Yes daddy!" Hailie squealed excitedly. 

"Can we please just open our eyes? This is stupid." Nate muttered annoyed as he pushed the palms of his hands further into his eye sockets. 

Angel laughed from beside me, grabbing my hand and intertwining our fingers over her lap. "Okay! Open!" Immediately, all three pairs of eyes shot open and landed on the ultra sound pictures we had laid out in front of each of them on the table. 

"What's this?" Lainey asked as her extremely innocent and confused face looked up at us. 

"Angel's pregnant." Nate interjected, clearly uninterested. 

"There's a baby in your tummy?!" Lainey screeched, earning a copy cat scream from her little sister as she attempted to match her excitement, but was obviously still confused as to what was going on. 

Angel laughed again and squeezed my hand a little tighter. "Yeah!" 

"Dope. Can I go?" Nate asked as he started getting up from the table.

"Nah, sit your ass down and be excited." I quickly replied back, earning myself a teenage-angst-filled eye roll.

"Hai Hai! We're gonna be big sisters!" Lainey yelled to Hailie. They both continued squealing as loud as they could, causing Angel to laugh uncontrollably as she leaned her body against mine. My arm instinctually went around her neck while a big smile ran across my face and I planted a kiss on the top of her head. "Can I feel your tummy?!" Lainey quickly asked. 

Angel nodded. "'Course! Come here." She pulled herself away from me and turned around in her chair as she lifted up her giant hoodie that she had been wearing almost every day at this point to try and hide her slowly growing bump. She was four months now, and she had just started showing ever since she hit her 2nd trimester. It wasn't much considering how skinny Angel naturally is, but it was still a lot for her. 

I watched as Lainey barrelled off of her chair and Hailie quickly followed her lead. "Woww!" Lainey dragged out the 'w' sound and Angel giggled. She moved out of the way to let her little sister feel and her mouth dramatically fell open as if she was surprised. Me and Angel both bursted out laughing at their reactions. 

"That's your sibling in there, Hai." I said as Angel put her hoodie back down. 

"Really?!" She yelled. 

"Mhm, you gon' be a big sister." I said.

"I'm so excited!" She yelled again as her and Lainey linked hands and began doing a crazy, obviously thrilled dance together while they jumped up and down and both me and Angel continued laughing.

"You can go if ya want, Nate." Angel said sweetly with that same big smile on her face. 

"Thanks. Congrats." He said as he started getting up from the table once again. "Yo, are ya'll makin' dinner tonight?" 

"Uh, I think we're just gon' order pizza or somethin'." I said as he walked past me, back towards the stairs. 

He nodded. "Tight." 

Lainey and Hai both continued on with their screaming and dancing like crazy and we kept hypin' them up until they were both clearly so exhausted that they had to go take a nap. They both passed out on the couch for about an hour until we ordered pizza, and yet again their excitement ramped back up and they began asking a thousand questions each. We didn't mind though, that's why we had specifically set aside this day to tell them so we could give them 100% of our attention if they needed it. We figured they were gonna take it well, but you just never know with kids.