Everything Has Changed

Little Miss Sunshine

May 11th 2025
New York City, New York

Those people who had warned them and said that parenthood was hard. They were not fucking joking.

Travis rolled over, peering down at his phone to check what the time was... 5:43am. God he was tired. And as if like clockwork, he heard the familiar still high pitched screams of his daughter from her crib. he heard Taylor awaken from her side of the bed, immediately sitting up, still half asleep, to tend to the baby.

"It's ok Tay, I have got her." Travis sighed, pulling back the covers to make his way round to the still squealing baby. He knew that Taylor wasn't sleeping. Neither was he but he wasn't up at all hours of the night feeding a baby. The whole 'sleep when the baby sleeps, and eat when the baby eats' was a whole load of rubbish clearly thought up by somebody who has never had a baby. Babies, or at least their baby, did not seem to give a damn when or where she woke up or was hungry. Luckily for them Luna was an amazing eater and did not seem to ever have much trouble breast feeding after a few tries in the hospital. But Taylor swatted him away, grabbing the baby up from the bassinet, knowing exact what she was screaming for.

"Honey, you are exhausted. Please go back to sleep and let me deal with her." Travis pleaded with her, coming over to Taylor's side of the bed as she situated the baby against the pillow she used for breast feeding.

"No Trav. You were up late last night with work stuff and she is hungry so I need to feed her. Please, at least make sure one of us has some sleep." Taylor said wearily, pushing Travis away from her. Travis sighed. He knew when he first got together with Taylor that she was stubborn; once she put her mind to something, there was no stopping her. Career wise this had been great for her, but it also meant that anything negative she became fixated on and once the idea was in her head, it was staying there.

"Taylor, there are two parents in this room. Both of whom are very capable of dealing with her. Why won't you let me help you." Travis sighed, beginning to loose his will to live in this never ending battle with Taylor's stubbornness.

"Because I don't need your help, I'm fine. And don't start shouting, you know it will upset her."

"I'm not going to shout." Travis said softly, stroking her arm lovingly. "I just wish you would realise your own stubbornness sometimes." He gave her a small kiss on the top of her head before leaving the room to go to the study. It used to ordinarily be just Taylor's study but ever since they had decided to stay in New York long term for the off season, it very quickly became Travis and Taylor's office, not that it wasn't big enough to accommodate him before. There was just never the need. He still had emails and documents to fill in and send off and so he took a seat, deciding to use his early morning wake up to good use. It not take long for Travis to realise that the baby's cries had been going on for far longer than usual. He sat there and pondered whether he should go in and help. Previously he would have gone in a heartbeat to help Taylor but he had learnt his lesson the hard way that postpartum hormones, sleep deprivation and Taylor's all around ordinary stubbornness was a recipe for putting him a hospital bed himself if he was not careful. He decided he would make his way back to their bedroom, taking a listen outside of the door to be on hand if needed.

"Please Luna, just latch on. You are usually so good at this." He could hear Taylor pleading with the still screaming baby who he could see still in the darkness was rigid in her arms and becoming hysterical. "You are hungry darling, I know but if you don't latch on, I can't feed you."

Travis decided in that moment to put his life on the line, and entered the bedroom once again.

"Baby, what's wrong?" Travis said softly, turning on one of the warm lights they had in the room beside the bed on top of the nightstand. He could see the marks of tearstained and rivers flowing down her cheeks, the purple bags of insomnia and lack of sleep creeping up under her eyes.