The Sentinels' Mother

Twelve: Anira & Zanthos

Every day for me now consisted of staying up at night to feed the babies every couple of hours, changing diapers, and rocking nine babies to sleep. And I didn't really know if I liked this change or not, especially because the lack of sleep was making me cranky.

But as for Eros, he was okay with not sleeping for days and nights. Though I knew this, I didn't want him to be the only one taking care of the baby. Parenting was supposed to be a combined effort.

So, instead of letting him do everything, I chose to stay up with him to take care of the babies, who seemed to be quite rambunctious during the middle of the night and asleep during the day.

Not that I could really sleep through all the yipping they do now. Ever since that first day, they started to become a lot more active verbally in my head and physically in real life.

"Your sister's here with Zanthos," Eros said, handing me a wet rag to wipe off the droplet of milk dripping down the side of the baby's mouth.

"Anira and Zanthos? What a surprise," I said, turning my head to the door. Just as my eyes caught sight of Anira's bright green ones, a small smile formed on my lips.

She was wearing light blue skinny jeans, a nice pink turtleneck that matched the pink beanie on her head, a warm wooly coat, and black heeled boots. But not one bit of curly blonde hair was in sight. Sadly.

"I'm here to see those babies, Emira. Where is my little niece or nephew?" Anira greeted and asked as Zanthos and Eros stayed by the front of the cave to talk.

"It's nieces and nephews," I corrected.

"Nieces and nephews? What do you m—?" she asked, slightly confused. Then, she saw the nine cribs to the side of the bed and completely came to a halt, almost causing Zanthos to bump into her.

"Holy shit!" she exclaimed. "Excuse my language. But how many are there?"

"Nine," I replied.

"Nine? You had nine freaking babies? How the hell is that possible?" Anira's eyes became the size of saucers and her mouth gaped open in extreme disbelief.

I myself would never have believed that nine babies all came out of me, but they had. So that was that.

"Yup. Just five days ago," I said nonchalantly.

"You say it like it was that easy to have nine freaking babies all at the same time. Did you have a C-section? Epidural?" she asked.

"No and no. I had the plain-o natural birth with no epidural," I said, quite proud of my accomplishments.

"Are you insane, Emi? Oh my God," she gasped, her eyes almost bulging from their sockets. "Your down there must be like mashed SpaghettiOs with a side of ketchup."

My face deadpanned for a second and a half, and I had to control my chortling in case I startled the kids. "My down there is completely fine. It's already healed back up."

"I sure hope so," she murmured, crossing her arms over her chest as we walked over to the cribs. "Anyway, what're their names? You've come up with the names, right?"

Anira only asked that because she knew how much of a procrastinator I usually was. Except this time, I'd procrastinated past the due date.

"Of course, we've come up with names. What kind of parents do you take us for?" I joked, sweating bullets while glad that Eros and I had come up with all the names yesterday.

We'd brainstormed whenever the babies were asleep for these last five days. That was how long it took us when we sat down to do it.

If Anira knew that it took us this long to name all the babies, she would never let me live it down, not even when she was eighty years old and in a wheelchair. And if it were her who had nine babies, she would have had the names picked before she'd even gotten pregnant.