You're My Hero: A Karamel Family

The First Night is Always the Roughest

Kara's POV:

"MOMMY! DADDY!" Addison shrieks from her bedroom in a panic. "Where am I?! WHERE AM I?"

I shoot like an arrow into her room, throwing Mon-el's arm off of me, and waking him up too. Her room is a barren, blank slate that has yet to be furnished and colored, and not to mention she is sleeping on a floor mattress, so I guess I could see her not understanding where she is and what is happening.

"Honey, honey, shush. It's okay. Mommy's here. No one's going to hurt you." Almost immediately, she calms down and the tears stop flowing down her cheeks as she digs her face as far as it can go into my neck, just as I do with Mon-el. Perfect, I think. Just perfect.

As if on cue, Mon-el walks into the room with Dylan draped over his shoulder.

"He was crying, so I figured I should get him before coming in to check on Addy. Speaking of that, are you okay baby?" he says as he turns his upper body slightly to look around my shoulder and at her.

"Uh huh... I think so," she says as she runs around me and hugs him. I take Dylan out of his hands and rock him back and forth for a few seconds until I start to see his eyes close. My, he sure is a momma's boy.

Mon-el's POV:

As soon as Addy runs up to me, she squeezes hard on my legs. Kara takes Dylan from me and she only seems to squeeze me harder as I bend down and pick her up. Her tiny head lays on my left shoulder as I bring her in as close as possible to feel the warmth that radiates off her skin. As I sit down on the couch, she rests her legs on my lap and begins to nod off, but again does the thing where she pretends she's not. Quite adorable, I think, but I will say nothing.

After about a half hour of admiring by beautiful new daughter, she finally falls fast asleep once more, allowing me to lay her back in her bed. Addy briefly wakes up as I put the comforter over her shoulders and says only one thing:

"You're my hero, daddy."

Kara's POV:

I finally lay Dylan back in his crib on my third try. The other two attempts were when I didn't let him fall asleep enough to not realize he wasn't in my arms anymore. Either way, I walk into Mon-el and I's bedroom after a long hour of cradling Dylan to find him stretched out over the entire bed with the comforter thrown on the floor and sheets pushed down at the bottom of the bed at his feet.

Mon-el... I love you, but please. I'm tired.

Mon-el's POV:

"Good morning bedhead!" I say as I flip a blueberry pancake.

"Hey, you have bedhead too!!" Addison playfully yells back as she hugs my legs and I reach down to place a soft kiss on the top of her head.

"Well, I guess the whole party is up now," Kara slurs as she sleepily walks into the kitchen with Dylan in her arms.

As soon as Addison and Dylan see each other, their eyes immediately light up. Addy's cheek sparkles with the light of a thousand stars as the natural sunlight from the open windows shine on her. She yells boo in his face and he giggles uncontrollably, causing the rest of us to laugh too.

I hand each of the girls a plate of their own and another one to Kara for Dylan. Addison takes only one bite and then frowns.

"What's wrong baby?" I ask sympathetically as tears start to well up in her eyes.

"They don't taste right," she responds, looking up at me with those puppy dog eyes Kara is so good at. If I didn't know she was adopted, I probably would have thought she was our kid all along.

"Mon-el," Kara states while smiling and shaking her head.

"What?"

"Honey, what are you forgetting?"

"Nothing?!" Kara walks over to the cupboard and pulls out syrup.

"Oh come on!!" I yell as I cover my face with my hands. The entire room bursts out into laughter, Kara and I because we understand what that meant, and Addison because whenever Dylan giggles you just can't help but giggle with him.

"Here you go sweetie, I'm sorry," I say, but I still can't contain my smile.

"It's okay Daddy," she replies with a yet another little giggle.

As we eat, we talk about ourselves and joke and make Dylan laugh because it's just so cute. The conversations even continued until after we had cleared all our dishes, but would have kept going longer if Kara had not put an end to it so early.

"Okay, okay, okay. I love this, but you two are going to meet Auntie Alex and Grandma Eliza today, so we need to bathe and clean up the apartment."

Addison starts, "But mooom..."

"But nothing! We will get this done today, but we only have an hour and we still need to give both of you a bath and clean up this apartment!"

"Uggghhh..." we all yell and moan as Kara rolls her eyes simultaneously.

"That's the spirit!" Kara yells and throws her fist up in the air, "Tick-tock, time's a wasting!"

:)