10 years later [Tayvin AU]

Part 23

JUNE 2017

TAYLOR POV

"NO!" I heard Lottie scream, waking me up all of the sudden from my after breakfast cat nap on the sofa.

I got up to go see what the commotion was all about.

"Charlotte Wiles. You WILL come with us this afternoon." Adam said sternly to Lottie as she sat on her bed pouting and glaring at him.

"What's going on in here?" I asked, walking through the doorway and standing near Adam, who smiled at me and ran a hand up and down his face, obviously getting annoyed at Lottie.

From a young age Lottie had mastered the art of being sassy and disobedient towards us, although she always carefully chose her moments. Recently 'her moments' had become a lot more frequent.

"Daddy says I have to go with you to the stupid doctor's office and then to the stupid furniture store to get stuff for the stupid baby." Lottie said, grumbling at us both and still pouting.

So today was apparently one of the days when Lottie decided she hated her unborn sibling. It flip flopped back and forth. At first she was ecstatic, having always wanted a little sibling to play with, but as time went on and she realised the implications of a new baby the joy went away. She realised the new baby meant not everything would be about her, she would have to share us and her stuff, she might get woken up by a baby screaming, and someone else would be calling her daddy 'daddy'. Sometimes she was still excited, especially when she got a new sonogram photo to put in a special frame we had painted a few months earlier.

"Well, bug, if you don't want to see your baby sibling on the screen and you don't want to help us get stuff for the nursery, you could go down the hall to the Mitchell's, I'm sure they would let you stay there for the day.....but that would mean you wouldn't get a new photo for your frame and wouldn't be able to get a new toy at the store...." I told her, giving her options, but really just trying to bribe her into coming with us.

"I don't want to go to the Mitchells!" Lottie said, shocked that I had even suggested we leave here with our older neighbours.

"Well then I guess you're coming....can you get your coat and shoes ready?" I asked her.

She got off the bed and wandered down the hall, grumbling the entire time.

"Maybe we should talk to someone about her attitude?" Adam asked me, wrapping his arms around my expanding waistline and pulling me in.

"Maybe....or we need to give her a major responsibility related to the baby....like she gets to choose the theme of the room, with guidance of course." I suggest as we walk towards the front hall to head off to our appointment.

"That would make it easier for us...."Adam mused.

6 months into my pregnancy I had well and truly popped. It was very obvious to anyone around that I was pregnant, although the comments were always 'Aww you've got such a cute bump!", or something like that. I've always been very tall and lanky so any weight gain becomes obvious, especially if it is concentrated in a particular region. The last 5 months, since I found out and told Lottie and Adam, had been incredibly smooth, which I was beyond grateful for. I had barely had any morning sickness past the first months and hadn't had any complications. We decided to not find out the gender of the baby, preferring to be surprised, although that was making it very difficult to choose colour schemes or anything.

That was what our goal was today. It was a lovely sunny Saturday and we were set on getting all the nursery furniture and bits and bobs sorted by dinner time. First we had to go to the doctor's for a check-up. We always organised the check-ups for either the weekend or the evening so that Lottie could be there too. We wanted her to feel involved, sometimes whether she liked it or not.