What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?

~Dec. 29~

A/N: I've had this story mostly written and over on AO3 but I finally decided that I should try to finish it and go ahead and post it here as well.

Also the fic's first chapter starts on my birthday so yay :P

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It was only a few days after Christmas, but rather than feeling disappointed that the merriment was over like most children, young Cindy Lou could not have been more pleased.

True, her mother was returning to work after taking the holiday off, and the three days in between would normally have been spent tidying up the house, taking down the decorations, and caring for Cindy Lou and her two brothers. But not this year.

This year, her mother Donna Lou Who was able to play in the snow with her, catch up on some reading while sitting before a warm fire sipping hot cider, and mostly just relaxing and unwinding from all the Christmas rushing about. It was all Cindy Lou could have ever dreamt of. She had made a special Christmas wish that her mother would get a break from all she did for them, that she might have some help with the load.

Now instead of stressing about work and money and children and her other adult problems, Cindy Lou had seen her take a nap. A NAP. In the middle of the day.

Cindy Lou was happy to help out where she could, but being still young herself, she knew she couldn't manage it all on her own. No, the real saving grace - the embodiment of her Christmas wish - had come in a much greener package.
After being invited to dinner at their house, the Grinch had sought a way of paying back the family's kind gesture.

This was what he told her as he had returned the next day, and the day after that, and the following day as well. Each time taking it upon himself to take over doing whatever it was Donna Lou had to do that day.

On the twenty-sixth, he took down all the decorations and did all of the dishes from the night before. On the twenty-seventh, he took the tree and all the extra Christmas trash to the dump and shoveled the walkway outside.

Then on the twenty-eighth, he watched the twins so that Cindy Lou and Donna Lou could go have a girls' day. Each time coming all the way down from Mt. Crumpit and staying nearly all day before making the journey back up again.

Today he was watching the three of them as their mother returned to the world from their happy holiday bubble. Leaving Cindy Lou and the Grinch, plus two.

There wasn't much to do while the twins were napping, so the two of them spent the day playing Whoopoly, fixing the broken washing machine, and tinkering with a new surprise for her mom to be unveiled that night.

It wasn't as easy when the boys were awake, though. The Grinch not having had much experience with infants was sufficiently awkward at changing and feeding them. He got the hang of it slowly, as Cindy Lou walked him through it. Finally, they were able to get Buster and Bean fed, bathed, and changed before tucking them in for the night.

Right around nine forty-five, the two could hear the jingling of keys that was the tell-tale sign of her mother's return. It woke Max from his comfy spot before the fire and he rushed to greet her as Donna Lou came in the door.
 
Cindy Lou had been curled up next to the Grinch on the couch pretending to be asleep, but she shot straight up as swiftly as Max had when she heard Donna Lou enter and clamored down to greet her mother as well.

"Mommy!" Cindy Lou started to shout, her volume lowering several notches as she remembered her sleeping brothers upstairs.

"Well, this certainly is a greeting," her mother said as she returned the hug from her daughter and gently fended off Max's affections.