Dark Days

Milestones

©JRF2016

I wake to the twin's soft babbling and cooing. They haven't actually said any words yet, just that strung out chain of consonant sounds. I want them to start speaking so bad and I want the first thing they say to be 'Mama' just so I can rub it in Reid's face. He is being so smug and he is rubbing it in my face almost daily that they are going to say Dada first. I sit up in the bed and swing my legs over the side just listening to them. "Dadadadadadadada," Braylon squeals at his sister and she garbles it back. They throw their toys around the crib. "Definitely getting ready to say Dada," Reid's husky voice says softly as he sits up and places a soft kiss on my shoulder. "They could still say mama first." I argue back. Reid pulls me backward on top of himself as I turn around to face him. I lie on top of Reid and stare into his eyes as he just smugly smiles at me. The longer he smiles at me like that the more my eyes narrow. "What time did you boys get back last night?"

"Late," Reid says pausing as he thinks about what he wants to tell her, "Tommy didn't make it back with us." I just nod as I rest my head on his chest.

"So what happened?"

"We got to Deanna's to talk to him," Reid sighs, "He was already gone. We tracked two sets of footprints to the fence, when we realized that Charlie was missing too." My head pops back up as I look down at Reid surprised. He just nods back up to me. "Did Charlie," I start to ask when Reid shakes his head. "Not for lack of trying, Charlie put a beating on him, but it was the corpses that did him in."

"Did you talk to Rose? What did she say?"

"Haven't talked to her yet," Reid says, "It was so late when we got back that we just came straight home."

"Reid, she must be worried out of her mind! You guys need to tell her something!" Reid puts his hand up to the back of my head and presses his lips to mine and moving his hands down to my hips. "I was going to go over there first thing this morning." I lean in and kiss him one more time.

"Well then, we need to get up and get started." I sit up on the edge of the bed and reach for my notebook. I flip to the page I left off on and made another mark. "You still keep track of the days?" I glance back at him as he was sitting himself up and sliding up closer to me on the bed. I smile at him and nod. "It's important."

"So where are we now? How old are our youngest?"

"Three hundred and thirteen," I say, "That puts him just a little over ten months." I close that notebook and walk over picking up Sophia. Braylon turns his little head around and looks up at me smiling as he crawls over to the rail and stands up. Reid walks over now and leans down picking him up before wrapping his free arm around my waist. Braylon lets out a shrill squeal and starts bouncing up and down in Reid's arms. "Dadadadadadada." Reid's hand squeezes my hip and he kisses me softly on the neck, "I'm telling you," he smiles as his eyes move to the side to catch the look on my face and he chuckles a little, "He's gonna say Dada soon." I swat his arm.

"Are you hungry little man?" I asks our boy as I glare at Reid. The four of us walk downstairs to the kitchen to fix the babies some oatmeal.

Braylon sits there impatiently waiting on his breakfast and banging his spoon on the table while Sophia copies him. I finally sit down next to Reid and we start feeding the kids but every time we lift the spoons to their mouths they push it away and then try to take it from us. Reid is laughing at the battle between the four of us when I look over at him. "What is so funny?"

"I think they want to do it themselves."

"They'll just make a mess." I reply as I try to give Sophia another bite. Reid gives his spoon to Braylon and takes the spoon from me, "They're kids. That's what they're supposed to do. C'mon, what's it gonna hurt?" I take the spoon back and stare between it and our daughter as she reaches out for it and I finally give in, and hand it to her. "I'll help you clean up afterward," Reid offers with a wink.