Costuming the Band

Skating Away

My hands shook as I gave the flight attendant my boarding pass. Taking note of my nerves, Josh placed his hand on my lower back before repeating my action with his ticket. "Thank you, have a nice flight" she said before we made our way down the gate hallway. 

"Hey calm down" Josh cooed in my ear as he rubbed circles on my back. "Everything is going to be fine." I looked over to him as his eyes pleaded for me to relax, I was very much over thinking this but I could not help it. 

We found our seats and sat down sliding now two dog crates under the seats in front of us. I sighed before leaning into Josh's side. "At least I will get to see Bowen and Leah" I said out loud but mostly to myself. 

"Come on" Josh said sweetly wrapping his arms around me tightly. "It is three days with your family how bad could it be. I enjoyed them last time and not to brag but Megan and I are pretty good friends now." 

I laughed at his statement before thinking again. "You don't get it my family changes around Christmas. They always put so much pressure on it to be perfect and for us to be a perfect family but news flash WE ARE NOT a perfect family. As a kid I just remember my parents fighting over which church service to go to and it always ending up with broken ornaments and my mom getting a split lip." I felt Josh arms tighten around me. "Besides this is the first Christmas since my dad died so... who knows what it will be like."

Josh remained silent, I knew he was thinking over everything I had just said. "Well I am excited" he said after a moment, "I did not really get to see much of downtown so I want to do a whole bunch of fun things with you. Show me where you grew up."

"I can promise you, it is not that exciting but I will do anything to get out of my parent's house so we will do lots." I said closing my eyes and trying to forget about my worries. 

The flight did not feel that long though I never fell asleep like a I normally do. Josh had put on headphones to listen to music and I could hear him hum along as my head rested on his chest.  Once we had actually landed, my nerves started again in the pit of my stomach. "Look how amazing Barry did" Josh said patting the side of the carrier as we walked towards baggage claim. 

"A wonderful job, especially for his first time on a plane" I agreed. I was happy Josh was trying distract me from my nerves but knew talking about them would not help. 

As we made our way down an escalator I heard two high pitched voices call me name happily. Bowen and Leah jumped from their mother's side and ran to greet Josh and I. "Hello Aunt Molly" Leah said handing me a card, "it is for both of you." 

The front of the card had four stick figures drawn on it and the inside had the text 'Welcome home Josh and Molly' in children's writing. 

"Thank you guys, we love it" I said kneeling down to their height. 

"Mom helped us with the spelling" Leah said with a huge smile. 

"Aunt Molly" Bowen poked in, "did you bring Frankie?" 

I shook my head yes and slid the carrier next to me towards the little boy and unzipped it so Frankie could pop out his fuzzy head. Bowen's eye lit up as he placed small pats on the pup. "There is also someone else I would like you guys to meet" I said standing up and handing the card to Josh before taking the carrier from his shoulder. "This is Barry and he is new to the family." I knelt back down and did the same to Barry's case that I had done to Franks. 

"Two puppies" Bowen said astounded, "Mom would never let us have two puppies." 

I laughed as I tussled Bowen's hair. "Speaking of your mom, let's go say hi" I said zipping up the cages and getting up from my knelt position. The kids took off running back to their mom as I took a carrier on either of my my shoulders.