Seasons Of Love

Lovebug

A/N - I got motivated to write  just a minute during my vacation so here's another ramble-y little writers block chapter I wrote so I didn't waste that motivation. Please let me know if there are situations you want to see in this story, I love hearing ideas! As always, thanks for reading!!!

Originally Autumn planned to spend an entire year at home with Rose. She had the time off available and many of her duties as co-owner could be taken care of from home, so it wouldn't have been an issue. That was until they found out Marjorie was expecting. Her and Reece had been so understanding about Winter and Autumn taking their time off near the end of Autumn's pregnancy, that Autumn wanted to make sure they had that same option. After all four of them talked it over, they came to the decision that Autumn would start back at work part time once Marjoire went on her leave. That way, Reece was free to work half days (or not work at all) and there could still be an owner in the building at least some of the time. They trusted their staff completely to run the nursery in their absence, but they didn't want to leave them without the support of someone "higher up" if a parent decided to be difficult.

That meant, at six months old, Rose would be starting nursery. She would be attending three days a week in the afternoon to start; as those were the days that neither Winter, Autumn, or Winter's parents could keep Rose at home. Winter and Autumn did still want her to stay at home whenever possible, at least until she was a little bit older.

A couple months before Rose was born, Winter and Autumn put her on the nursery wait list. They knew it was a minimum six month wait before a child could start and they were not planning on any special treatment just because they worked there. Autumn refused to put any unnecessary stress on her staff by just enrolling Rose last minute. Marjoire insisted on giving the new parents a show around, even though they absolutely didn't need it, because she refused to let her friends miss out on any part of the experience of enrolling their first baby. As much as Autumn rolled her eyes and scoffed on the tour, she and Winter did talk endlessly about how much they appreciated the manager making sure they were well taken care of.

Winter and Autumn felt like they had gotten incredibly lucky with Rose; she was a very easy baby. Of course being first time parents was never "easy," but they had heard horror stories of babies not sleeping through the night for months or crying constantly with no way of soothing them. So far they hadn't had to deal with any of that. Yes there were sleepless nights and yes they were learning new quirks every day, but they knew it could have been worse. Now all they could do was hope that the people telling them "easy babies become nightmare toddlers" would also be wrong.Really, there were only two issues they thought could become a problem when she started nursery.

First, Rose was quite the talker. She loved the sound of her own voice and her parents loved it just as much. There was no way they were going to keep her from saying anything and everything she wanted to at this age. Now that she had started to master consonant sounds, Winter and Autumn were growing more and more excited about the day she would finally say her first word.

The other issue they foresaw was that Rose could be quite clingy, she always wanted Winter or Autumn to at least be in her line of sight. Really the only people aside from Winter and Autumn who never had an issue with her being fussy were Winter's parents. Other than that, if Rose wasn't handed back to one of her parents after about 20 minutes she would get upset. They were hoping as she got more used to the nursery staff that would stop happening, but they knew it was going to be an adjustment.

Rose's settling in sessions went about as they expected. The first one went off without a hitch. She was only there for an hour before Autumn came back for her; and since she came in for the room's music time, she barely even noticed she'd been left alone. The second, longer session she was a bit fussier. Once she realized her parent's hadn't come back yet, she started crying, she got louder and louder as each minute passed. It was nothing Charlotte and Carly hadn't dealt with before; but seeing as it was Rose, they felt more pressure to get her settled before Autumn's return. When they weren't able to they couldn't help but get a little worried as Carly held the still crying baby in her arms.