PARENTHOOD // PERCICO

chapter four - six months, laughter, and aunt annabeth

Don't kill me for the time skip. This is how the pace of the book has to go. I'm sorry.

Zoella was now six months old. Well, 6 months and a few days.

Nico had started feeling a lot better a few weeks after addressing his postpartum depression. It did take a few days, but with a lot of help from Percy, and just figuring out what it was, he was finally able to overcome the feeling.

Zoella no longer fit her little bassinet by their bed and she had now moved to the nursery they prepared before she was born. She actually manages to sleep in there, even without her parents holding her. Their baby really was growing up. She went from thirty minutes on her own to sometimes four hours.

Nico didn't realize how much he had missed sleeping until he didn't have a baby crying in his arms every hour while doing it. She still wasn't the best sleeper, she wouldn't go to sleep if they just set her in her crib while awake, she had to already have been sleeping- plus once she woke up, she screamed bloody murder. But still.

They even tried that one thing for a few days where you place your baby in their crib and allow them to cry for a few minutes before rushing in, but after three days of that they decided it wasn't going to work for them. Zoella seemed to have a fear of sleeping, or maybe of just being alone in the dark. Nico figured it had something to do with their unique-demigod situation. Zoella wasn't a normal baby. Normal tactics wouldn't work.

Plus neither of them liked hearing their baby cry and not doing anything about it.

However, even if it wasn't close to six consecutive hours a night, the four they got were amazing. Also, when she'd sleep for four hours and usually continue it thirty minutes later for another hour or two before waking up again. This helped them a lot. Now they knew whoever got the baby wasn't going to be up for the next few hours alone with a crying baby, so there was a lot less guilt.

Now they just took turns and it worked pretty well. They were really getting into the swing of things now and it helped both of them get a normal amount of sleep.

However, learning to sleep properly wasn't the only thing Zoella had done. She now could sit up, granted, she needed a little bit of help getting up there, but she could hold it for quite some time before falling back down. She actually really enjoyed the whole thing - sitting up wobbling a bit, and falling back down against her parents.

She also had started making nonsensical noises as a form of communication. She was yet to say a single real word, but they were both waiting on it. They came to the agreement to start calling each other by either Papa or Dada when around her so maybe she'd pick up on that and say their names.

It was kind of a competition to see which one was said first. Okay, it was completely a competition to see which one she said first.

Another thing Zoella could do now was roll. Which they guessed was better than crawling, right? Like start small and then go to the scary crawling. Nico was actually more worried when she started crawling than when she started walking. It's easier to see a baby standing up than one that's crawling around.

Don't get them wrong - they were both so excited to see Zoella grow and learn new things, but her learning to move did scare them a bit. Okay, it actually scared them a lot.

~.o.0.o.~

Nico woke up to hearing Zoella screaming her head off. Percy also woke up to it, because well, it's hard not to. Their girl has quite the set of lungs.

"Go back to bed," Nico mumbled, rubbing his eyes. "'M getting her," He said, patting Percy's chest as he got out of bed.

Percy mumbled something like a 'thank you' and then went back to sleep. Nico looked over at him, watching as the tall male basically moved into a fetal position now since Nico wasn't there between his arms. The son of Hades couldn't help but smile. Percy Jackson is the cutest hot person he's ever met.