You've been cerved.

Claire

"Benny, we've talked about this," Claire scraped the stickers carefully with her fingernails, mentally wondering why she had come into the living room in the first place. The stickers on the wallpaper had distracted her when she'd bent to pick up a piece of buttered toast from this morning (she hoped.)

Benny, who was eating the toast now, gave her a confused look.

Either that or the toast was giving him gas.

"Benny, you can't put stickers on wallpaper - they don't come off easy. Did Grandma, er, did Dadi jee give you these? Probably her." Claire twisted what was left of the stickers into a ball and inspected her broken nails, before trying to suck excess sticker out from under her thumbnail.

"No, no!" Ben threw himself on the floor sending what remained of the toast flying into an old plaid armchair. "Give me stickers!" He rolled back and forth shrieking, "Stickers, stickers!"

"This is the play dough incident all over again." Claire sat back on her heels, still sucking her thumb. "I need to fold the laundry. That's why I came here, I think. Ouch! That laundromat line was long wasn't it, Benny? Stop kicking. But it really cleared out after you - well, that's not important. OW! No one can prove anything. Those CCTV cameras are probably fake. Please stop kicking! Thank you. Anyways, we get our plumbing fixed today. When is the plumber coming? I need to...Listen, Benny - no, don't spit. We've talked about this. No spitting or you go sit on the stairs. I mean it this time. I need to get dressed because I don't want to pick up Grace and Charlie in my pajamas, okay? It was embarrassing enough when I dropped off their lunches..."

Claire wrestled with Ben to keep him from whipping his head into the wall. He had a nasty habit of tossing his whole body backwards whenever a tantrum hit, and this habit had led to more than a few bruises and at least one emergency room visit (with the corresponding bill, which had killed family plans for a beach weekend.)

As Ben thrashed himself back and forth in her arms, Claire used her elbow to wipe his saliva from her face. With an air of resignation she suggested, "Let's go to my room and you can jump on the bed while I put on actual clothes."

Ben stopped crying immediately and sat up. "I jump? Can I jump wif my sword?"

"Your cardboard sword. Not your ouchie sword," Claire said sternly. Ben toddled out of the room in search of his toys.

"Babe?" Vikram called from his office. "Where are you?"

"Living room. Your mother gave Ben stickers again," Claire grumbled.

Vikram appeared in the doorway, pulling his thick headphones off his ears. "What'd you say? Listen, I need to meet with my client, that Stone guy. He's not happy with the updates for some reason." Vikram wandered over to Claire and squatted beside her on the carpet. "Quick cuddle?" He stuck his face in front of hers and deliberately widened his big brown eyes.

Claire harrumphed but sat 'criss cross' and patted her thighs.

Vikram started to lay his head down in her lap and paused. "You've changed since this morning, right? No more pee?" He reached down to check her PJ bottoms.

Claire put her hands on her hips. "Of course."

Vikram lay his head in her lap and made himself comfortable before he peered up at the ceiling. "He's never happy, my client Stone. Sometimes I really wonder why he keeps hiring me. Sure, his profits are up, but it's like he doesn't value my services no matter what. Sometimes I think I should just fire him as a client. See if it makes him want me more." Vikram drummed his fingertips against his mouth.