The Pointe Of The Game

Chapter 2

Olivia Beckham-Christmas Day

"Ollie! Ollie! Ollie! Ollie! Wake up! Wake up! It's Christmas!!"

"ooof, Emma off" groaning I open my eyes and glance at the clock "4:56"

"ughhhh, Emma it's not even 5 o'clock yet" I tell her  "but Santa came! Santa came! He brought presents!" Emma, my 4 year old sister, was up till almost 11 last night ready for Santa to come. even when I told her Santa would only come if she was asleep. She just said she would send him a letter telling him she was asleep. Right.

"why don't you go wake up mom and dad instead?" I asked

"I already did, they told me to wake you up too" Emma said

My parents had very different views on how children should be raised. Because they work all the time we usually have nannies at our house pretty much 24/7. But the nannies tend to be very rude and overbearing and my younger siblings don't like being with them so eventually they stopped hiring them.

They didn't mean to hand it all over to me, they just ran out of nannies and had no other options. It all works though they have a sitter come over when I need to go to dance and it's good practice for when I become a mom anyway.

"c'mon let's see who else is up Em" I told my little sister as I got out of bed
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2 hours later

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I walk into my room with Sofia on my hip munching softly on a teething biscuit. She has been cranky and attached to my hip all morning because she has another tooth coming in so she's extra grumpy. She barely paid any attention to her gifts which was just as well because she probably would've never even played with them in the first place. I'm getting my shoes on so that i can go outside with my younger siblings to play outside, the crazy goons it's only 15 degrees outside but let's go play!

As I make my way back downstairs and outside I hear my mom calling my name.

Entering the kitchen where my mom is, I ask, "What's up, Mom?"

"I need you to help me prepare some things for dinner tonight. All of dad's and my family are coming over so I need all hands on deck today."

"The kids wanted me to watch them outside too. Or maybe you could have Tabitha come over and help you?" Tabitha was our cook and I know for a fact she was planning on staying at our house and cooking over the holidays but mom had her go home when she insisted that we could cook as a "family".

"Leo's out there, isn't he?" my mom asks. Leo is my brother who's next to me in our lineup of children. He's 14 and while he does help out, he also likes to do his own thing and I wanted to give him a break today since it's Christmas.

"Yes, but he likes to do his own thing sometimes. Is it ok if I just check up on them every once and a while?" I ask

"I guess that's fine, go check on them now and I'll get started with the cranberry sauce."

I go to leave then pause, "Hey mom? I love you."

She was already busy preparing the cranberries. Looking down busily she murmured, "love you too"

I walked out of the kitchen and to the coat room where I grabbed my coat and Sofia's baby carrier. I've learned over these cold months the best way to keep little Sofia warm is to put her in her baby carrier that I strap to my chest and get my coat and wrap it around both of us zipping it up to her ears. And hopefully she'll fall asleep and not be so grumpy because this carrier strapped to my chest is also her safe place.

As I walk outside I'm hit with a gust of cold air and try to bundle Sofia up a little bit more. I can't believe these kids want to play out here. Crazies. As I stand on the driveway watching my siblings play, I slowly take in my surroundings. We just had someone move into the house right next to us so there's a moving  van in the driveway. There's also another car there this morning, a shiny Black Mercedes-Benz G-Class SUV. That must mean that the owners are finally here. That house is one of the most expensive on the block. Ours being the other one. I would rather have present parents than a huge expensive house anyways. But I guess that's what you get when your dad's a surgeon and your mom's a nurse. I hope the new family has someone my age. I could really use a friend right next door to me when my parents are busy with work for 48 hours straight.

"Ollie, Ollie, Look!" Aurora comes running up to me with her brand new hula hoop. Aurora is 2 years older than Emma or the third youngest in our family. Somehow she never runs out of energy.
"What? Show me."
She goes on to do some fancy trick with her hula hoop then gives a big bow.
"Good job! You're so good at that! If you keep practicing, you can do that in the talent show this spring!"
"Yay!" Then she runs off to keep playing.
As I watch Aurora run back, Sofia starts to whine again and I realize she should probably go back inside to warm up a little bit.

walking back inside, I took off my jacket and started to take Sofia out of her carrier when she started to whine so I decided to keep her with me.

"Olivia, come in here and help me with the ice cream cake." my mom called from the kitchen

As I walked in, I saw a slew of ingredients everywhere and my mother in the middle. She came over and took Sofia from her carrier on my chest and snuggled her to her face. I took the carrier off my shoulders and brought it back to the coat room.

Mom had Sofia balancing on her hip while she was looking at the recipe when I came back. It's moments like these that I can forget that she's never here and learn and grow closer to her while she is. I just wish I would be able to see her more often, Dad too. They need to take more vacation time off so we can actually get to know them. Not really for me though, for their children to actually know their parents personally and not like they're looking at their parents lives through a window. But I don't know how to get that through to them. But they like spending time with my other siblings so maybe it's just me. They always say the oldest is always the ugliest right?

It's ok I've accepted that my parents made a mistake having me as their first child. So instead of whining and nagging them I just use dance as a distraction and I just so happen to love it at the same time so it's really a win-win situation.