Lasting Love

All That I Need

Justin's POV:

I lay in bed; my sleeping wife next to me, and our children sprawled out all around us. Now that it's summer, this happens quite often. They wake up early and drag Lexie out of her crib and into our room to fall asleep around us. In a few minutes, they'll wake up, chaos will break loose and Jen and I will wonder why we ever wanted children in the first place. They'll run around like crazy, fall and cry, dump the cereal box all over our kitchen, but then they'll give us random hugs and kisses and tell us they love us making up for everything.

Jen turns over aside of me letting me know that she is awake. She looks around the bed and moves Ben's leg away from where it was digging into her ribcage.

"Good morning," I lean over children and blankets kissing her.

"Morning," She replies kissing back, before looking around the bed and laughing at our situation.

As if on cue, Lexie wakes up seconds later, clutching onto her teddy bear harder than ever, crying for her momma. Jen sits up and tries to soothe her, but fails and the other two wake up as well.

"Daddy, I want cereral!" Ben demands in his sleepy voice, trying, but failing to pronounce words right.

"Me too!!" Kay adds. Jen manages to pry Lexie off her hip and hands her to me so that she can get their food ready.

"Here, guys!" Jen yells out to the kids who have disappeared into the living room to play.

Ben runs up and starts to eat his cereal, but Kay sits down and pushes hers to the middle.

"What's wrong, honey?" Jen asks, already not happy with this situation.

"I didn't want milk!" Kayleigh complains. She hands Jen the bowl of cheerios.

"Well you should have told me that." Jen sighs and take the bowl to the counter where she sits it to eat later. She pours another bowl without any milk in it and hands it to Kayleigh who eats it right away.

"What do you want, baby?" I ask Lexie once she's finally awake and civil. She points to he bowl of Kay's cereal, and tells me something along the lines of wanting it. I put her in her highchair and set the bowl in front of her along with a spoon incase she might actually want to use it today, and walk away from them to get my coffee from Jen.

She pulls out the bar stool from under the counter, and sits where we can see the kids while she eats her breakfast. We try and act like we're alone, and 6 little eyes aren't focused on our every move, but it ends up failing when we start to talk and look comfortable to them.

"Mommy!" Ben yells "Kay taked my fowk!" Spoon, really.

"Kayleigh Rachel!" I yell causing her to drop the spoon on the table "Give it back to your brother." She does so, and then gets up walking to the steps where she forgets about the gate, and stands sulking.

"Don't," Jen stops me as I'm about to get up "She knows better than to do that."

I think back to the times when it was just Jen and I sitting in our kitchen watching the sunrise. We'd be up and ready to go film whatever movie or show we were working on at the time. I'd make our breakfast while she would sit with a coffee cup resting in her hand watching me. We'd talk about what we imagined our family would be, but somehow we always left out the crazy moments like these.

"What are you thinking about?" Jen asks as she cleans up the kids mess "You're quiet."

I walk up behind her "Us, our life before we had them. Before we were married, when we only thought of the cute moments."

"I miss those days," She admits faintly as she turns around to face me "When all we were worried about was our work. I can't even remember what my last day on set was like, it seems like so long ago."

"I know," I pull her closer "But you can go back whenever you want. I'm off for a while now, I can take care of them." She laughs a little at my last statement, but looks up at me with hopeful eyes "You sure?"

"Positive," I kiss her "We'll be fine." I pull her away from the dishes and into the living room where we sit on the couch watching everything.

"You know, you still look the same as you did when we met," I look her in the eyes "If I didn't know you, I would never believe it if I found out you were this old and had 3 kids."

"Did you just call me old?" She laughs ignoring the compliment.

"Well, you kinda are... right kids?" They look up at me confused "Mommy's old?"

"Daddy too!" Kay adds making us laugh.

"That's right, honey, he is!" Jen agrees with her.

We spend the rest of the day hanging around each other with the kids going from loving to hating each other about a million times. They fight, nap, eat and cry, but at the end of the day we end up all curled up on the couch watching a movie together.

"They asleep?" Jen asks me from where she's laying on our bed.

"Yeah, all in Kay's room, but they're sleeping." I lay down with my head on her stomach: something I used to do to feel the kids moving around that has now become a habbit.

She runs her fingers through my hair as she thinks silently about what to say. I start to notice her chest rising and falling at a slower rate and look up to see that she, too, is now asleep.