Little Things | An Original

37

Maeve

Watching my brother find out that his first child is going to be a girl makes me cry all over again. He's so excited. He'll be the perfect girl dad, because he's the perfect brother.

Their diaper party is a blast. It's always fun to catch up with Sabrina's family. They're a very fun group of people to be around.

Dalton and I get home kind of late, but have to be up early to go to the airport. Reese is driving us there, and then she's gonna dog-sit for us.

Once we're at the airport in the morning, I'm basically falling asleep on Dalton's shoulder while we sit in the terminal.

Since his cousins' wedding is closer to the coast, we're staying in a huge air b&b with Dalton's family. It's big enough that all of us can stay there, along with his niece and nephew as well. I'm excited to spend time with Dalton's entire family. I always enjoy being in Georgia when we go.

The rental has a covered pool, so it's warm enough to swim. After we all recuperated from the early flight, we went to a brunch restaurant, and now we're hanging out at the rental's pool.

-

A little while later, Dalton's mom Amanda and I are putting together some homemade snacks in the kitchen. We did a grocery run, and now we're making plates to take out to the pool.

"You guys have a pretty busy travel schedule coming up, don't you?" she asks.

"Yeah," I say. "After this trip, we're going to Minnesota to see my sister compete, and then we're going down to Florida for swim week. Then hopefully the Olympic trials, and then the Olympics."

Amanda smiles. "Your family has so much to be proud of."

"Thank you," I say. "That's very kind."

"We're really happy to have you in our family, Maeve. I couldn't have imagined up a better person for Dalton. He loves you so much."

I smile. "That means a lot to me. He has truly taught me what real love feels like. I'm so lucky to have found him in this lifetime."

Amanda smiles. "I'm just so happy to have you as a bonus daughter. By the way, how do you like being married?"

I giggle this time. "I love it. Dalton and I have a lot of fun, and we're happy to have more days working from home together now. We're traveling a lot this year, but that's because we wanna start having kids sometime next year. So, we're enjoying our 'just us' time for now."

"Doug and I did the same thing before we started having kids. Then we took a trip every two years without them. Every other year in between, we did a full family trip. It really was nice for us to have time together, both separate from and with the kids."

"Yeah. That sounds like a good plan. I'm excited to be a mother someday. Right now, some of my cousins have kids, and I love getting to babysit them. And my brother is going to have a baby girl soon with his fiancé, so I'm super excited for that too. There's going to be three new baby girls in the family by the end of July."

"Oh, wow."

"Yep. Big coincidence that two of my cousins are also having girls."

"Is your family girl-heavy?"

"We have a lot of girls, yes," I say. "Out of my cousins, including my siblings and I, there's five girls and only two boys. And with my cousins' kids, so far there are three girls, two boys. But it's about to be six girls, so the girls are definitely giving the boys a run for their money."

"And you're very close to your cousins, so it's like having extra sisters."

I laugh. "Yes, it is," I say. "They lived two streets down from us, so us kids were always going back and forth. As long as we were accounted for at one of the houses, our parents didn't mind if we stayed over."

"That's really sweet. I grew up close to cousins too. It's a blessing. We used to take a family trip down to Georgia every summer, just so the kids could spend more time with this side of the family. Then Dalton ended up coming here for college. He loved it, but he's way happier in Chicago. I can tell."

I smile. "I love Chicago too. It's simply home. But I do enjoy seeing how excited Dalton gets when we come down here. It's cute. We even talked about having another wedding reception here when we were planning, but decided we wanted everyone at the same wedding."

"Your wedding was such a gorgeous day," Amanda says. "I'm just so happy my kids all found partners who fit perfectly into our family. It means so much to me that they all found great love."

We take all of the snack boards that we make outside, rejoining the rest of the family. I sit down on a chaise next to Dalton, and he throws his arm around me before kissing my cheek. "Doing okay?" he asks.

"Mmhmm," I say. "There's some snacks if you want some."

"Thanks," he says, pulling me until we're laying on the chaise lounge together. "Nap time?"

I giggle, resting my head on his chest. "Sure, love."

Later, we all go out to dinner. I wear one of my sundresses that Dalton claims is his favorite (he says that about most dresses I wear), and Paisley tempts me into an impromptu photo shoot on the walk back during sunset. Which turns into Dalton and I taking some cute pictures together.

This entire week is filled with family fun and wedding festivities for Dalton's cousin. I like watching Dalton stand as a groomsman for his cousin, and the two of us have fun dancing together at the reception.

It's always nice to see Dalton's extended family in Georgia. They're so nice, and know how to have a great time. I'm always smiling and laughing with them, and they've welcomed me with such open arms that my life wouldn't be the same without them.

We spend an additional week there after the wedding, and I sleep the entire plane ride back to Chicago. Dalton gently wakes me up, a smile on his face.

"Peach," he says, gently shaking me. "We're home, baby."

"Mmhmm," I say. "Can I sleep in the car on the way home?"

He chuckles. "Sure, baby. But you gotta wake up now, so we can get off the plane."

I giggle too, finally waking up for us to leave. Reese picks us up, Poppy in tow, and she's so happy to see us. As soon as Dalton and I get home, we take the dog on a walk to the park. Now that's it's slowly getting warmer outside, we've been trying to go to the park with Poppy more often.

I'm grateful for the few days we have at home before another weekend trip. This time, to Minnesota.