Never Grow Up (A Sequel)

Four Years Later

August 2028

'Madison! You're going to be late on your first day!', Taylor calls upstairs for the third time to her eldest daughter, who hasn't appeared at all this morning yet, before deciding to send her sister in search of her.

'Melly, will you help me and go and see if Maddie is up yet? She needs to have breakfast and then we have to leave', Taylor kneels down and asks her 5-year-old, who excitedly nods her head, happy to do anything if it involved Maddie.

Today was a big day in the Kelce-Swift household: Maddie's first day of middle school. The 11-year-old had been looking forward to it, but she was slap bang in the middle of that awkward pre-teen phase, and loved to make Taylor and Travis' lives difficult, her attitude taking a particularly (un)pleasant turn these days.

Adding to Taylor's woes, it was the second week of August, meaning that Travis was off at training camp and she had the children to get ready all by herself: Maddie to her new school; Gracie to her first day of 3rd grade; Melody to kindergarten; and Theodore, who turns 2 at the end of the month, to Donna's for the day. She was exhausted just thinking about it, and that was before she managed to get to her 32- week antenatal appointment for the baby currently kicking a storm against her bladder.

'She's up, mommy, she said she doesn't want breakfast', Melody skips back into the kitchen to inform her mother, as Taylor wrangles a grumpy toddler into his high chair. 'Thanks Melly baby, your breakfast is on the table', she responds, smiling at her as she sits down and tucks in.

Gracie wonders in next, dressed and bag ready to go, sitting wordlessly at her spot at the table, eating the breakfast Taylor had left for her too. Taylor can't help but smile at her second daughter: she was never a morning person, much like her father, and tended to be quiet and moody until she'd had food and the clock ticked past 9am. Melody, on the other hand, was all go go go, all the time, until it reached bedtime when the crash would result in almighty tantrums until she was tucked up in bed, snoozing away.

Theodore was an interesting mix of the two - some mornings full of the joys of spring, and others ready to cry at everything that came his way. His arrival hadn't been a surprise - after their wedding, Taylor and Travis had decided to try for just one more baby - but they still laugh to this day at the fact that the doctor had told them they were having another girl, had packed pink clothes in the hospital bag, and then Travis' fainted when they held him up and told them he was, in fact, a boy. Much to Travis' dismay, though, he was a mommy's boy through and through, practically attached to Taylor's hip, and that made the impending arrival of baby number five a touchy subject for the toddler.

They hadn't exactly planned to have any more children after Theo, but at the time, they weren't preventing it either, so when Taylor had whispered in Travis' ear on the field at the Super Bowl in February the happy news, he'd spun her around and kissed her like he had with all the others. The baby would be arriving in October, smack bang in the middle of football season, but by now Taylor was confident she could handle the chaos that a newborn would bring.

That is, if she could figure out her eldest's mood swings and adjust her parenting accordingly. She liked to think she was a pretty good mom, but this phase and age was all brand new to her - and giving her a run for her money. Maddie, true to herself, remained a daddy's girl, and it was normally Travis who could talk her down from an emotional ledge, encourage her to apologise to her mom, and persuade her to do what she'd been asked in the first place. But with Travis gone until the end of the week, Taylor handed Theo his toast - his first breakfast had been much earlier in the morning - and set off upstairs to see if Maddie was really ready to go.

'Maddie, darling, you have to have something to eat...'

Taylor trails off as she opens the door to see Maddie still in bed, not dressed, tears streaming down her cheeks as she clutched on to her old bunny rabbit, the raggedy toy now threadbare and falling apart.