Finally Home

2. Jenna

I had to remind Tyler to stop pushing Sam's buttons. I wanted her to be a confident driver and Tyler joking that she was going to crash wasn't helping.

Tyler insisted he was joking and usually Samantha can take a joke.

"But I think you might have taken this one too far. She wants to learn to drive but you're making it unpleasant for her."

Tyler sighed.

"Fine. I'll go apologize," he said.

"Later. She's doing homework and talking to Jill. Leave her alone."

Tyler frowned. He hates it when Sam is mad at him.

"Poopoo Head," Rosie said, looking up at Tyler. I stifled a laugh. Of all things Sam could teach Rosie, she taught her 'Poopoo Head'.

"Aww. RosieRo. Don't call Dada a Poopoo head. Even if he is a Poopoo head," Tyler said. Rosie giggled and ran away shouting 'Poopoo head!'.

Tyler sighed.

"Great. Neither kid respects me."

"Sam respects and loves you. You just pushed too far with the crashing joke. And Rosie is two. She has no idea what Poopoo head means and just thinks it's funny because you're reacting to it."

He shrugged and picked up the platter of burgers and hot dogs I had out for dinner. I continued cutting up a salad.

"When you have all that on the barbecue, can you check Sam's blood sugar and then call her for dinner?" I asked. Tyler nodded.

Rosie sat in her high chair "cutting" her vegetables, toy vegetables that stick together with Velcro and could be "cut" with a plastic knife. It kept her busy and she thought she was helping.

Tyler came back in with the platter and pulled out his phone. He looked at it and ran out of the room and up the stairs. I followed him telling Rosie to keep cutting the veggies.

"Sam!" He said, opening her bedroom door.

"What?" She said, sitting on her bed, a tube of glucose tabs beside her.

"I saw your blood sugar dropped. I wanted to make sure you're okay," Tyler said.

"I'm fine, Dad," she said. "I caught it before I crashed."

I looked at her and she was smirking.

"And you call me a Poopoo head," Tyler smirked back at her. "Come help with dinner. Homework finished?"

"Yep," Sam said, getting up and closing the glucose tab tube.

"SaSa!" Rosie put her arms up to be taken out of her high chair.

"RosieRo!" Sam said, picking her up. "Did you cut all the veggies for Mama?"

Rosie grinned.

"Yummy!" Sam said, pretending to eat a carrot. I smiled watching Samantha and Rosie together. Whatever bond they had from the time Rosie was born just kept getting stronger. Sam was the only one who could comfort Rosie most of the time. Rosie could sometimes tell when Samantha's sugar was out of whack.  She was like Sam's own diabetes monitor.

Luckily, Samantha keeps her diabetes pretty well in check and she hasn't really had any major issues since last fall.

I frowned, recalling the two horrible weeks in October last year where her biological uncle decided to try to sue us for custody, only to stress Samantha out so much, she'd taken off her glucose monitor, bolused an extreme amount of insulin and crashed, literally, through her glass shower door which cut her so badly she'd had stitches, surgery to repair some vessels and blood transfusions. She'd spent a total of two weeks in the hospital. But in the end, we had our daughter back. She was healthy, we were working on getting her whole, and best of all, she was ours. Legally. The court had found in favour of us, and Mark Solman had flown back to England, out of our lives, leaving only a ratty stuffed dog that used to belong to Samantha's birth mom. He now lived on her dresser beside the picture of her mom. And yes. We checked it for cameras or recording devices. Call us paranoid.

I put samantha to work cutting up a few more veggies for the salad while I took care of the potatoes in the oven.

It was warm for October so we figured we'd take advantage and eat outside.

"The meat is done," Tyler said, poking his head in.

"Okay," I said putting the potatoes into a bowl. "Sam, grab the salad and dressings and help your sister outside."

Sam pulled out a few bottles of dressing from the fridge, put them on top of the salad, grabbed tongs and put them in the bowl, too, and then took Rosie's hand and walked her out into the back deck.

We sat down and tucked in. I helped Rosie with her hot dog and Samantha ate two burgers and a big plate of salad. Basketball season had started at the high school and Samantha had made the team. She was either working out or practicing all the time. We rarely saw her before four o'clock on days she didn't have a game. She'd also taken to running home from school in the afternoons so her laundry was constantly piling up.

We sat and enjoyed the cool, but not cold, evening air talking about Sam's upcoming basketball game, next week's party, which Samantha was very excited about, and Rosie's upcoming second birthday.

Tyler got up to turn off the barbecue and came back with a basketball.

"Hey, Stretch," he said, twirling the ball on his finger. "A little game of 21?"

He tossed the ball at Samantha, who caught it deftly. She scrutinized him.

"You sure you can keep up, old man?" She said.

"Old man?!" Tyler said in mock exasperation. "Old. Man!?"

Samantha smirked at him.

"You heard me. I wouldn't want you to break a hip and crash to the floor," she said, smugly.

"That's it. To the court. Now," Tyler pointed. Sam grinned.

"You're going down, old man."

"Enough with the old man stuff!" Tyler complained.

Rosie and I watched as Tyler and Samantha bobbed and weaved around the basketball court Tyler had built in the back yard. 

The game ended when Samantha made her final basket, making it to 21 first, but then landed funny and fell over. Tyler ran over. She was sitting up holding her ankle.

"You okay?" He asked.

"I think so. I think I just twisted it. I really hope it isn't sprained,"

Tyler picked Samantha up and brought her into the house and put her on the sofa. He got her an ice pack and started icing her ankle.

"Nice scrape on your elbow, too," he said, handing her some paper towels. She held the damp paper towels to her elbow and winced.

"You're sure you're okay?" Tyler said, looking carefully at Samantha.

"Yeah. I'm sure," she said. "I just rolled my ankle when I landed."

Rosie climbed up onto the couch and snuggled into Samantha while Tyler and I cleaned up from dinner.

"Figures," Tyler said to her as we put the last of the dishes away. "You did that just to get out of dish duty, didn't you?"

Samantha laughed.

"Of course, Dad. I always threaten my basketball career to get out of chores."

"SaSa boo-boo?" Rosie asked, looking at one of the scars on Samantha's arm from last year's accident.

"That boo-boo is better. SaSa hurt her ankle," Tyler said.

"Poor SaSa," Rosie said. Samantha smiled and hugged her sister.