pretty girl (Lauren/You- first person)

chapter sixteen.

Those final two weeks of summer disappeared in an instant, and before I knew it we were getting Delilah ready for her first day of pre-K. She had spent the week with Anthony and Ally and came home Sunday evening, but they were going to meet up with us at her school so all four of us could be there for Delilah's first day. Lauren had a new teaching schedule for the fall semester so she actually didn't have to be at campus on Mondays, but I had taken the whole day off.

"Wake up bug, you get to go to school today." I gently rubbed Delilah's back as I spoke, trying to make the transition from her sleep as easy as possible. One of the funny things about Delilah was that most of the time, she woke up on her own. And if she was waking up on her own, she would be full of energy no matter how little or how much sleep she had gotten. But if she had to be woken up for something, nine times out of ten she was a clingy, groggy mess. I was internally hoping that today she would wake up easily and happy. I had Lauren downstairs making breakfast, planning to use that as a selling point to get Delilah out of bed if I needed to.

After a few minutes of cooing and back rubs, our little pre-Kindergartener finally stirred. She rolled over to face me, blinking her eyes slowly as she tried to cuddle up to me. "You gotta wake up baby bug. Mami's making you a special yummy breakfast for your first day of school." She mumbled in response as she tried to pull herself up. She rubbed her eyes and then looked at me blankly for a moment.

"School?" Her tiny morning voice came out as a hoarse whisper, making me internally say awww.

"Yeah, you start school today remember?" I rubbed her cheek with my thumb. Once she realized what I said, her face lit up in a lazy, but still cheesy smile. She slowly got out of her bed, took my hand and led me down the stairs to the kitchen. I was a little emotional at the fact that she didn't want me to carry her down, it was just going to be one of those days for me, I could already tell.

When we walked in the kitchen, you would've thought the entire family was coming by the amount of food on the counter. French toast, regular toast, sausage, bacon, fruit bowls, eggs, chocolate milk and juice were set up buffet style in our kitchen. I was amazed, hungry, and slightly concerned with the physical amount of food Lauren had prepared.

"Wow! This is a lot of breakfast!" Delilah exclaimed, hurrying over and grabbing a strawberry from one of the bowls. Lauren spun around and gave her a squinty eyed look before wrapping her up in a hug.

"Good morning my pre-Kindergarten bug!" She said before kissing her cheek and letting her free.

"I am impressed, and maybe a little turned on, at the amount of food you have here pretty girl," Lauren wiggled her eyebrows at me as I spoke, "But, why is there so much of it?" I grabbed a piece of already buttered toast and took an unnecessarily large bite as I awaited her answer.

"Don't tell Lilah," she whispered in my ear, "But Anthony, Ally, Jake, Madison and Ethan are coming over for a special first day of school breakfast." After hearing her surprise, I smiled in awe at my fiancé.

"Did you set this whole thing up?" She shrugged sheepishly as she turned back to the bacon still on the stove.

"Lauren!" I wrapped my arms tightly around her waist and kissed her neck a few times. "You are so thoughtful. She's going to love it."

"Well, she had last week she was feeling a little nervous, and even though she hadn't said anything else about it since then I thought a little support couldn't hurt. And even though it's pre-K this is really her first ever day of school so, why not make it big." Just as I leaned in to kiss the wonderful woman in front of me, the doorbell rang.

"Delilah, can you get the door please!? Mami is busy!" Lauren yelled to the other room. We listened to the little patter of feet as she ran towards the door, then the jiggling of the handle as she struggled to open it, and then all of the voices of surprise and greeting as our family came into our home, ready for breakfast. Delilah excitedly ran into the kitchen to show us her surprise, with everyone else following behind. I blatantly ignored every person who had just walked in to my house and went straight to Madison's arms, because in them was a car seat where my nephew was sleeping.