Slipping Through My Fingers

All that mattered

Janette ran the hoover over the living room carpet for the hundredth time in the last 15 minutes...hoovering up all the pine leaves that had fallen off the Christmas tree and the glitter that the twins had been playing with the previous afternoon. "Janette please put the hoover down...you're going to over exhaust yourself," Aljaz said, pulling the plug out of the socket. Janette sighed, "I can't baby...I don't want Amelia-Lily being a friend home to a house that looks as if a bomb has hit it...especially as her mother is picking her up later and I don't want her thinking that her daughter is friends with someone who's house looks like a pig sty?" Janette said, 1 hand on her hip, her baby bump beginning to show a bit to an onlooker. "Janette my love, the house looks fine, and we have 3 children, I don't think Sofia's parents will be judging the state of the house. And I don't want you getting too tired, remember you are pregnant," Aljaz said as he gently prised her hands away from the hoover to put it back in the cupboard under the stairs. Janette sighed, she knew that she wouldn't win this battle. Instead she collapsed onto 1 of the sofas, leaning her head back to relax....she was stressed enough with sorting out Christmas, let alone worrying about amber daughter's friend's parents coming round for possibly a maximum of 10 minutes. That year they had been invited by Aljaz's family to spend Christmas with them in Slovenia, it had got the kids in an excited frenzy....naturally...mainly because of the thought of snow which they hadn't had last Christmas in Miami.
The front door opened as a chatter children can waltzing through the door.  "Hi Mum!" Amelia-Lily called out. "Hi Mils!" Janette called back as she came downstairs to greet her daughter and her daughter's "best friend". Sofia. She was slightly taller than Amelia-Lily, with sandy white hair tied up in cute bunches and bright blue eyes and pale skin...the complete opposite to Amelia-Lily. "Hi Mils' Mum," Sofia said in a shy, quiet voice. Janette smiled, "please call me Janette," she said, they had briefly met before in the playground, but had never been round each other's houses. From downstairs in the kitchen Janette and Aljaz could hear their eldest daughter and her friend giggling. Sasa and Leonardo were sat up at the kitchen table doing drawing, or in Leonardo's words, "making a creation". "An' me an' me!" Sasa had piped up, she frequently copied her brother, he being 5 minutes older than her. "I'm making a creation for the baby," Sasa said as she spread colour across her work. "Are you sweetie?" Janette soda as she cooked the pasta, apparently it was Sofia's favourite. "I not...I'm making a creation for Auntie Lara....do you think she'll like it Daddy?" Leonardo asked as he held up his "creation" for inspection by Aljaz. "I think she'll love it Leo," Aljaz said...Leonardo had always favoured Aljaz's little sister, no one knew why he just did, whereas his sisters loved their mother's brother and sister, he had just clicked with his Aunt Lara. Janette walked to the bottom of the stairs, tilting her head back, "girls! Dinner is on the table!" Almost instantly the 2 girls came dashing down the stairs, chatting as they went. They reminded Janette of her and Karen and Joanne, always laughing and chattering away nonstop. At the table the girls recounted their day, talking over each other excitedly, with the occasional comment from 1 of the twins which was  normally irrelevant to the topic of discussion, but thought it was very important to share to the conversation. Janette could see why Amelia-Lily and Sofia were friends, they were so similar, always laughing, their little faces lighting up when they were talking about something that they were passionate about.

The doorbell rang once, it's shrill sounding through the house. Aljaz opened the door to 2 people, a man and a woman, the man was tall and skinny with vampire like skin, and the woman was also quite tall with bouncy curly hair. Aljaz recognised the woman from the school...Sofia's parents. "Hi, come in," Aljaz said, opening the door wider for Sofia's parents to come in. "She hasn't been too much trouble for you has she?" Sofia's mum, Cerise, said as they followed Aljaz through to the kitchen where Janette and the twins were sat at the table "making creations". "Of course not...the girls are upstairs in Amelia-Lily's bedroom...we only saw them at dinner," Aljaz said. Janette smiled at Sofia's parents, her baby bump had gradually started to show a bit as the baby began to grow. "Would you like a drink...tea? Coffee?" Janette asked as she slipped Leonardo off her lap and onto his own chair. "Um we'll both have a tea please....milk to sugars," Cerise said, she looked at the twins who were intently colouring on the paper, she glanced at Janette's stomach. How would they be able to manage 4 children? Her and her husband, Alan, sometimes struggles with just 1...let alone 4! Cerise thought to herself. "I'll go get the girls," Aljaz said as he walked out of the room to go upstairs. "Did you know...I'm going to be a big sister...that means that I'm not going to be the baby no more," Sasa piped up after a minute or so of silence. "Really?" Cerise said, she turned to Janette, "how far along are you?" Janette put the teas on the table in front of Sofia's parents, "14 weeks," Janette replied, sitting back next to her children. Sofia and Amelia-Lily came running in followed by Aljaz, "we're not going yet are we?" was the first thing that Sofia said to her parents. "After we've drunk our tea...have you been good?" Sofia nodded, her parents had such low expectations of their daughter. Amelia-Lily stood behind Janette and wrapped her arms around Janette's neck, "you okay Mils?" Janette asked, leaning her head back. "I'm hungry," Amelia-Lily whined. Janette sighed and rolled her eyes, "you're worse than your Dad and Uncle Kevin you are...you can't be hungry...if you're still hungry when Sofia has gone home you can have some cereal," Janette said. Amelia-Lily sighed, "c'mon Sofia," she said, untangling her arms from round her mother's neck and tugging at Sofia's cardigan sleeve as they returned to Amelia-Lily's bedroom.
There was an awkward silence between the parents. Leonardo broke the silence, "can I show Sofia's Mummy an' Daddy the baby picture?" He asked, looking up from his "creation". Janette nodded, "if you really want to babe," Janette said. Leonardo slid off his chair and ran into the living room to get the photo of his unborn baby sibling. He came running back in, climbing on his mother's lap and pushing the scan picture forward to Sofia's parents, Janette rested her chin on her son's head, kissing the top of his hair. Cerise and Alan cooed over the scan picture. Cerise shook her head, "I don't know how you could cope with 4 children...Sofia is enough for us," she said. Aljaz could see by the expression on Alan, Sofia's father's, face that he disagreed with his wife...Aljaz was glad that his Janette hadn't decided to stop after Amelia-Lily, he wouldn't want her to grow up without any siblings, without someone constantly to play with, someone to share every moment together, just like he and Janette had gone through with their siblings...

Since announcing the pregnancy they had been asked how they would cope with 4 children...and Aljaz and Janette's answer was simple...they would be just fine...after all...they had each other and that to them was all that mattered....