Remember When ↠ l.p.

Pre-dinner

By the time mother returns with the girls I've managed to take an hour long nap and get halfway through a new romance novel I had bought. I'd just begun to think about what I would be making for supper when I heard the front door being opened. "Did you have fun?" I ask, peaking out of my bedroom and down the hallway. "You certainly were gone for a long time."

"I'm sure you didn't mind it though," she waves her hand at me "did you manage to rest some?" Mother smiles back, not looking the slightest bit worn out. She pauses the girls before they can run down to me and makes them take their shoes off at the door, a habit she always brings from her own home. Each night that she visits I make several trips putting away shoes in their proper homes from the pile that's grown on the floor. I wait until after she's gone to bed though, I've not commented about it when she makes us take them off and she hasn't commented on how the pile is suddenly reduced to only her shoes in the morning. 

"Yeah, I took a nap and read some. I was just about to get up and start cooking. Are you hungry?" I direct the last bit to the two girls who are pulling me back onto my bed. Once there they snuggle into my sides, breathing heavily. They smell a little sweaty, but I ignore it...and the slight dampness on their arms and the top of the foreheads. "Might need to shower before we eat though..." I mutter under my breath.

Apparently not quietly enough to escape Cailyn ears though. "Awwh mummy!" she protests "I'm too hungry to eat before I take a bath." I sigh and rub her back, her shirt sticking to her a little. Despite being perfectly capable of taking a shower the past few months, Cailyn has now decided she only wants to take baths. Preferably with Tessie so they can play with their toys together. While I wouldn't have had a problem with this, really, our bathtub can't hold the two of them together anymore. They've both been growing and now have become too big to fit comfortably. Cailyn doesn't seem to understand this and keeps insisting I'm being mean, wanting her to shower. 

"Either way, it's going to be a while before we can eat silly," I remind her "I have to actually fix the food first, unless we have something easy like sandwiches." I glance over at Tessie who is looking far more tired than Cailyn. I'll have to ask mother exactly what they were doing around town today. Tessie likes to think that she can keep up with Cailyn when the reality of things is that she's a little shorter and gets tired much easier. "You two might as well get clean while you're waiting huh?"

"Okay," yawns Tessie, starting to get off the bed. Cailyn sits up from being tucked into my side to send her a nasty look.

"Cailyn, be nice mi hija." I smile at Tessie and follow her out of the room as she hurries to get ready for her bath. "If you really, really, really, don't want to shower you can go after Tessie is finished in the bathtub okay?" 

I've just taken two steps into the hallway and out of the room when I hear Cailyn say something behind me. "Meanie...."

"Cailyn," I call behind me, not really wanting to deal with her "I don't want to deal with your stubbornness right now. I've explained the situation to you and I'm not being mean to you. I'm being sensible. Don't come out of my room until you're ready to take your bath or shower with a decent mood." I leave before I can hear any sort of retort, rubbing my temples. I find Tessie in her room with my mother, having enlisted her help in taking her bath.

"You go and start the dinner dear, I'll switch off with you when it's Cailyn's turn to shower." She turns to look at me, smiling a little.

"Oh you're sly aren't you? Acting like you're doing me a favor, but you're really just making sure you don't get stuck with the splasher." I shake my head and laugh. "Smart of you." Cailyn has never been the best at taking a calm bath, the entire floor of the bathroom usually gets soaked. This diminished for a bit, because Tessie hated stepping out onto the wet floor and hated being splashed very much. So I put my foot down and made Cailyn stop as much as I could manage. After a while she seemed to realize that she would make Tessie happy by calming things down and started cooperating. Now that she's bathing separately from Tessie though, she's gone back to her old ways. I start to leave the room to get started on the dinner as my mother has instructed when I remember something else. "Speaking of sly, don't think I've forgotten that you evaded my questions earlier. I will find out why you were talking to Louis sooner or later." I smirk at her and hurry out of the room before she can say anything. I giggle a little at having gotten her, if even just a little. The score is beginning to balance.