Give Them Hell

Baby Doll

By the time Nikki had to leave on tour the doctors could assure us that Lyric was stable and she was going to be okay for the most part. They couldn't promise how tall she'd get or if she'd have other disabilities when she grew up but for right now she was stable.

After a while, once she got stronger, everyone was allowed to go and see Lyric in the hospital. Everyone cried the first time they laid eyes on the tiny being but they thanked every God in heaven that she was alive and well. Dakota told me that she had that Old North State blood in her and that she was too strong to give up.

Everyday she grew bigger and stronger, right before my eyes my miracle baby was growing to a healthy size. By the time my birthday rolled around I was able to hold my baby for the first time and I bawled like a little bitch. Dakota took a million pictures and Mack videotaped it because everything had to be documented for Nikki.

At Thanksgiving Lyric was two and a half months old and weighed three and a half pounds. She nearly doubled what she weighed when she was born. Lyric's hair started to grow in, dark like Nikki's (the nurses put a little white bow in her dark locks), but her eyes stayed grey like mine. She was still on the feeding tube but she was officially off oxygen. I tell you, that little girl rarely stopped smiling.

By Nikki's birthday we were able to feed her with a bottle for the first time and Nikki was able to hold her for the first time (he bawled too, if you were wondering). Lyric was weighing almost five pounds and the doctor said when she weighs six pounds we could bring her home.

Now it's the first week of January, the week Lyric was actually due, our baby weight six pounds and three ounces. Nikki and I are finally able to take our baby girl home for the very first time.  Lyric is about the size of a newborn right now but that doesn't change the fact that she's swimming in the snowsuit we bought her. At least she's going to be warm.

I'm sitting on the floor of the hospital room with the baby carrier between my legs, I look up at Nikki who is bouncing our baby girl in her pink snowsuit.

"You ready for her?" He wonders and I nod. "Okay songbird, time to go see mommy."

Nikki gently hands me down Lyric and I support her head with one hand and support her body with my other. I gently place her in the carrier car seat thingie and buckle her in. Lyric's bright smile crosses her face and I kiss her nose.

"I love you, baby girl." I whisper as I make sure the belts are tight around her. "Are you ready to go home?" Lyric makes a gurgling noise in response and I smile. "Okay, let's go home."

Nikki pulls me to my feet and kisses my forehead before taking hold of the baby carrier. He squeezes my hand and smiles at me.

"We made it, Dallas." He whispers and I smile. "She made it."

"Was there ever a doubt?" I ask with a laugh and he kisses my lips. "I love you."

"I love you." Nikki responds. "Let's go home, as a family this time."

"Sounds good to me." I admit.

I ride home in the backseat with Lyric and Nikki drives. I'm scared that something is going to go wrong and that she's going to need to go back to the hospital. Mack was telling me that I was just worrying too much but I think after what I've been through I can worry if I want to.

"Hey baby?" Nikki asks and I look up from our sleeping daughter. "Remember when you had to take care of that baby doll in high school that would cry and wail all hours of the night?" He asks and I smile.

We had no more than gotten back from Christmas holidays and my health teacher assigned a new assignment.

"This is what you're going to have to deal with if you have unprotected sex." He had stated as he was handing out the baby dolls. I couldn't help feel like this was being targeted at me because at this point Frank and I were a known couple. "This doll will cry, like a baby until you tend to it. This will teach you the responsibility of being a parent."

My baby doll was particularly disturbed because that little bastard would cry from about eleven o'clock at night to about three in the morning. I sat up and bounced it, changed its fake diaper, fed it it's plastic bottle and the thing just wouldn't shut up. At one point Frank said we should just throw it in the Pacific Ocean.

"Yeah, you wanted to through it in the Pacific." I recall and he laughs.

"That I did." Nikki agrees. "But I was thinking more along the lines of that night that I was over at your house helping you make dinner and it started crying."

It was like the fourth day I had the baby doll and I was making dinner for dad, Mackenzie, Frank, and I. The baby doll was in its little high chair thing and everything was going well....until the doll started screaming bloody murder.

"So this is what happens if we have unprotected sex, huh?" Frank asked with a laugh.

"Shut up, my old man is going to hear you." I hissed and he laughed. "Can you just bounce it or something?"

Frank went over a bounced the little baby until it stopped crying. Then he walked over to the stove where I was cooking with the baby in his arms.

"Maybe we should have one, we'd make a cute little family." He said.

"I was right. The three of us do make a cute little family." Nikki states and I smile.

"You definitely were." I agree.