Smiley and Sunshine

67.

I just set my alarm for 4am. Excuse me while I cry.

Buckle up! It's a long one!! I worked hard on it and still don't ever believe I do it justice so take it easy on me. Love all your comments even though I don't have time to respond to 99% of them. Keep 'em coming!

ITS ALMOST CHRISTMAS, BABY!!!

OH SHOOT! It's Christmas!!!!

Double shoot. Merry day after Christmas! Crazy day, all my siblings and I brought our dogs home for the day. Absolute chaos. It was awesome. Parents were thrilled, of course.

Dang.

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The worn blue plaid fabric of the bus seat scratched at her bare legs. It was so itchy and scratchy, and she disliked it very much. It also smelled really very badly like when there is peepee in the bathroom because her dumb dumb brothers peed on the floor.

Sunshine knew how to go pee pee in the potty.

Kinda.

Sorta.

Mostly.

She tried her best.

But that was beside the point.

Because right now the back of her legs were forming red welts from the scratchy seat she was squished into. The bottom of the dirty metal window frame was pressing against her right shoulder and Glen was squashing her from the left side. She really didn't take up that much space and so the two tots occupied the same seat, their mother sitting rigid in the aisle seat.

Scratchy, scratchy.

Hayes squirmed in her seat.

The wheels on the bus go
round and round
round and round
round and round

Glen glanced at her through his glistening eyes as he was coming to the realization that they might not be going back home. He was too smart for his age. He knew something was wrong.

Scritch.

Scratch.

Itchy, itchy.

The bus hit a rough gravel patch in the road, jostling the seats. Hayes' shoulders curled in on herself even tighter. She really, really didn't like the car or the bus or anything with wheels that went vroom.

The wheels on the bus go
round and round
all through the town

Mama had not cared to spend an extra second to make sure she was dressed appropriately and comfortably for the long road trip ahead of them. Her tiny sleep shorts that weren't even of girl's fashion, only "tiny" because of being washed so many times from her brothers, didn't even match her brothers' shirt that hung loosely over her petite frame.

One would think, being the only girl of the motley bunch that she would have her own girly wardrobe. Guess again.

Not that Little Miss Sunshine even understood that difference.

Bat man was Bat man. And if GiGi and Franny and Sonny liked Bat man, then so did Sunshine.

But she wasn't even wearing Bat man tonight.

The night prior when Colton had helped her take a bath and get dressed felt like a lifetime ago. When all she had to decide was between Pokémon and monster trucks, so why not both. Trucks on top, and pikachu on the bottom.

Easy peasy lemon squeezy, best choice ever.

Until now when it was 5 in the morning and her legs were covered in goosebumps and the very itchy seat was giving the back of her legs red bumps.