All Grown Up: The Story of Jacob and Renesmee Part I

Firsts

Renesmee

I'd spent the past few months, leading a comfortable, happy life watching my kids grow. We'd shared in a lot of firsts. Many of them belonged to Mollie and Xandra. We were relieved when Mollie started talking, we didn't think she'd be as far being Xandra as she was. Nobody was a bit surprised at what her first word was. She screamed it, they probably heard her in La Push.

As her beloved Seth closed the door behind him as he left one day, she must have decided that today, she just would not put up with him going home after lunch.

"SEF!" she screamed as she cried and wiggled in my arms. As I knew he would, he did an about face, and came back through the door.

"Did she just say my name?"

She seemed unable to stop the flow of tears, even though she was smiling now.

"Sef!" she said again.

Seth and I both looked at Jacob, thinking he might be a little hurt. He was on the couch watching ESPN with Xandra in his lap. He just looked at us and shrugged. "You mighta been first on her lips, but Daddy's first in her heart," he said confidently.

Seth had lunch with us every day. That day, he stayed for dinner too.

Mollie and Xandra had taken their first steps, and were not only walking, but running, jumping, and wrestling. Yes, my pretty, delicate looking little girls were not as fragile as they seemed. They were very, very active six month olds. They were still small, but they looked a couple months older then they really were. There had been a few bruises, a few scrapes and bumps on the head. More then Anthony had ever gotten, certainly more then Swan. When they fell, it rarely bothered them, they just got right up and kept on going. They would spend an entire afternoon wrestling each other, pinning each other to the floor and laughing. The day I found Mollie dragging Xandra across the room by her leg, even though Xandra was smiling I had to remind them not to be so rough. Anthony would wrestle with them sometimes, Seth would let them pin him all the time, Swan though, was not a fan. The first time she went at it with Xandra, she'd been wearing a dress with decorative little buttons on it. As they rolled around on the floor, she ended up loosing two of them. She carried them around in her opened palm and whined, "my buttons, Mommy!" until I stopped what I was doing and sewed them back on.

I know I shouldn't lump Mollie and Xandra together, but they are so much alike. Both very happy go lucky, like Anthony, it was hard to ruffle their feathers. Quil said they were "two rough and tumble chicks." I smiled but reminded him they were not chicks, they were little ladies. Even if they didn't always act like it. When I asked what they wanted to wear, they would always respond at the same time, "Jeans." At least they would wear dresses if I suggested it. I'd have been a little sad if I had three beautiful daughters, and only one would wear a dress. Tights, they did not like though. Anytime I put them on, they always ended up wiggling out of them. Swan obviously thought her sisters were making a poor fashion choice in excluding tights from their wardrobe. She explained the wonders of them to her sisters, when they had stopped playing dolls with her to take of their tights. "But dey pretty! You can have hearts on dem, or kitties, or stars!" But their views remained the same.

Seth got his first apartment. We had assumed that other than a some tension at home, things were fine with Seth. Because that was what he'd let us think. As far as we knew, he had told Sue about Mollie, and it hadn't gone well but, "She'll have to get over it," Seth had said. Then on a day where my parents were over, as well as Seth, he started acting a little weird.

Once he'd left my dad said, "I'm assuming you two were unaware that Seth has been living in the woods?"

We both just stared at him, slack-jawed. "What?" Jacob finally said.