One and Only

Chapter 46

Khalil POV

You make me happy...this you can beeettttt...you stood right beside me

The opening lines for "Before I Let Go" by Frankie Beverly and Maze played through the house and I knew what that meant...its Saturday. In our house Saturdays meant cleaning day and with this big ass house, we always had a lot to do. Throughout the week, we do daily light cleaning like making sure all the kids toys are where they belong, wiping down surfaces, and making sure bedrooms and bathrooms were presentable, but on Saturday we do our deep cleaning. So every bed is stripped for new sheets, all floors and baseboards are scrubbed and vacuumed, all laundry from the week is handled, the kitchen is cleaned from top to bottom, and well...you get the picture.

I figured Avaa was the one playing the music while cleaning, but my suspicions were proven incorrect when I rolled over and she was laying beside me. We gave each other the same look and got out of bed. The kids never get up this early on their own to clean up on Saturdays, we usually have to wake them up with the music over the loud speaker.

I threw on a pair of shorts and neglected to put on a t-shirt. Avaa and I rarely walk around the house completely clothed. I'm usually in just some shorts or sweats and Avaa is in a sports bra and bottoms majority of the time. But we always have on a pair of shoes, which may seem a little odd, but hey it works for us. Avaa slipped her feet into her house crocs and I did the same with mine and opened the door and the music only got louder. I looked down the hall and Kheris was struggling to drag her laundry basket to the laundry shoot we had installed a while back.

"You need some help Kher bear?" I asked, walking in her direction.

"No Daddy! I got it" she replied quickly brushing off my offer before going back to dragging her hamper to the shoot.

"Rd you got it then, just make sure you don't overstuff the laundry shoot this time, put one in at a time ok?" As we've done with all of the kids, the older they get, they more responsibility they're given and Kheris knows how to get her laundry down to the laundry room to be washed, which gets done in shifts through the day so the kids' clothes wont get mixed up. But last week she decided that one piece at a time was too slow, so she dumped as large of a handful that she could manage in at once and her clothes got jammed at the top. Realistically, you can throw down multiple pieces at once, but we tell the littles one at a time because if not, they take it overboard like she did last week.

"Ok Daddy" she said and I followed Avaa into the room she and Kior shared. They had gotten all their toys put away from yesterday and put all their books back on the shelf.

"Morning Babyboy" Avaa said to Kior, who was sitting in the middle of the floor watching something on TV and bent down and he came running to hug her.

"Mownin Mama! You see?" he asked excitedly turning around to gesture toward his clean room.

"Yeah, you did so good" she hi-fived him, "did you and Kher did all this baby?" Avaa asked.

"Mhm, KyKy and Bear help" he replied with a smile and Avaa gave him a kiss on the cheek.

"Well good job, you ready to eat some breakfast?" I asked, now bending down to his level and he nodded his head aggressively, "rd, let's go then! You wanna fly or you wanna ride?" I asked in reference to if he wanted me to fly him like an airplane or carry him piggyback style down the stairs and he stood there in deep thought for a second.

"Hmmmm wide pwease" he said, mispronouncing his words a bit- we've been working on his Ls and Rs and sometimes he's got it, sometimes he doesn't.

"Hop on" I instructed, turning around for him to climb on my back and from the second he was on my back he was laughing up a storm. We walked into the hallway with Avaa following behind and Kheris was finishing up with her laundry.