A Room With A View

Chapter Thirty-Nine - Elena

October 28, Saturday Morning

It seemed that every decoration Elena put up, the twins pulled right back down. She grumbled under her breath, prying orange streamers from sticky fingers.

"These are not toys, okay?" Elena said, knowing that the words were falling on deaf ears. Jeremiah just giggled, grabbing the next nearest thing and putting his face in it. It was a wad of fake spider webs. The gauzy silk stuck to his runny nose.

"You're disgusting, you know that?" Elena said. She pulled the web free from Jeremiah's nose and wadded it up. The webs hadn't been working correctly anyways, she would just throw them out. Especially now since they were soaked in rhinovirus.

"Disgusting!" Jeremiah screeched, pronouncing the word perfectly.

Elena was caught between pride and horror. She was quite pleased at her baby's growing vocabulary, but she was also worried Jeremiah would say it around Joshua. Joshua would then ask Elena how Jeremiah had learned the word, and Elena would be forced to admit that she'd called her own son disgusting.

It was an ever-twisting thread of guilt. Elena was just glad she hadn't yet sworn in front of the boys. Yes, she adored them more than life itself, but twin two-year-olds could really be a pain in the—

"Ah. I see we're having witch for breakfast," Joshua said, striding into the living room in his blue plaid pajama suit.

Elena had gotten it for him when Joshua had been promoted to Senior Vice President of Capital Markets. She told him it made him look more distinguished in the bedroom. He told her it itched like mad.

"Well, that's at least better than what their pre-breakfast was," Elena said. She pulled the cackling witch figurine from Isaac's mouth. Someday, hopefully, they would outgrow the chewing phase. Someday. Hopefully.

"Can you whip us up some Halloween pancakes, my dear?" Elena asked.

Joshua yawned, stretched, and shook his head. "Nope. No Halloween pancakes until actual Halloween."

Elena sighed. She moved the witch a few inches away from the edge of the table, out of Isaac's tiptoe reach.

"Can we please just do pancakes? It's easy. And we have so much to do before the party."

Joshua surveyed the living room. It was nearly done. Elena had been so excited for the Halloween party that she'd woken up at 5:00am, too jazzed to go back to sleep. She'd spent the next three hours stringing orange and black streamers, hanging ghostly faces from the book shelf, and carefully arranging her collection of witches and jack-o-lanterns on every possible surface. All that had been left were the spider webs.

But there was still food to prepare and cocktails to make. Not to mention assembling everyone's costumes.

Joshua was a huge Star Wars fan, so Elena had secretly sewn little R2-D2 and BB-8 costumes for the boys. She was planning on dressing as Leia and asking Joshua to wear his Han Solo costume. It was still hanging up in the closet from two Halloween's ago.

"Do you need any help?" Joshua asked, at the same time as he took a seat at the dining room table.

Elena stood and folded her arms. "Yes. I need you to help me by making pancakes."