DISCONTINUED//For A Family

Chapter 22

Kate's POV

I hate accepting the fact that my summer is half way over and I need to start getting my lesson plans organized for my first quarter of the new school year. And that is exactly how I was spending this gorgeous day outside, inside building my curriculum. Basically when it comes to lesson planning, the criminology standards for high school are rather vague, so more often than not I'm just winging it.

I chuckled to myself as I heard the music from upstairs loop yet again. Maddie recently finished learning her solo for the competition next week and ever since then, she has not stopped trying to perfect it. There are a few parts she had difficulty with and she seemingly promised herself that she would not stop until it was perfect.

I was jumped out of my trance of school work when my phone started vibrating across the table in front of me. I reached to grab it and saw Ally's contact name on the screen. I accepted the call and answered with, "Hey A."

All had called to ask if Maddie and I were interested in going to the waterpark with her and her kids.  "Jenna and Jake have been dying to go, and they want Maddie to come with." She said with a chuckle.  "Oh that sounds awesome!  I'll tell her and we'll meet you there around what...Twelve okay?" I asked her. "Yeah sounds good. See ya there! And I'm paying!" She yelled before hanging up. She always did that if she wanted to pay for something because I would argue with her.

"Damn you Ally." I muttered as I chuckled. I started putting my stuff away from work and went upstairs to get Maddie. As I reached the top of the stairs I could hear her music ever better, and by the time I got to her door I could hear when her feet would hit the floor. "Maddie? Can I come in?" I asked as I opened her door slowly. "Yeah." She said as she turned off her music. "So Jenna and Jake invited us to go to the waterpark with them. You wanna go?" I asked her.

"Yes! I wanna go!" She squealed. "Alright, then we have to get ready to go. Swimsuit, towel, sunglasses, probably flip flops, and then whatever else you wanna have with you." I told her before going to get myself ready. I grabbed a blue and white striped bikini top with solid blue board shorts. I pulled my hair up into a top knot and put my necessities into my bag.

I met Maddie downstairs going to get into my car. She had changed from her dance leotard into a pair of pink shorts and a light blue tank top. "Which swimsuit did you pick?" I asked as we both got into my car. "This one. And my red and black towel with the diamonds on it." She said as she showed me the Aztec print swimsuit and towel. I chuckled when she pulled out the towel. That was my doing, as I had been a huge comic book geek growing up and loved Harley Quinn's character. It didn't hurt to turn your kid into you a little right?

After thirty minutes we pulled up to the surprisingly almost empty parking lot. I recognized Alison's car from the lot and parked next to it. I helped Maddie out of the car and then put sunscreen on her. I wasn't gonna let her burn! We went up to the gate and I found them there waiting for us. "Aunt Katie!" Jenna yelled as she ran up to me. "Hey sweetheart!" I said as I hugged her. She seemed just as happy to see Maddie aswell.

"I already paid for everyone so you ain't gotta do nothin." Ally grinned. "You suck!" I mouthed since 'suck' was a bad word to Jenna. We went in the changing room and we all went behind the curtains to change. Jake finding it 'humiliating' that he still had to change in the girls locker room. We all came out at relatively the same time and I had to hold back from squealing seeing how cute Maddie looked. The pink and blue really made her hair and eyes stand out.

And then we were off to the water. As mentioned, the park was surprisingly almost empty, very few people were there. All the kids wanted to hit the lazy river first and I was perfectly fine with that. It's a two mile stretch where I get to kick back. We got our tubes and then went into the water, which was not too cold but not too hot at the same time. I positioned myself next to Ally with the kids in front of us so we could watch them.

"Are we bad moms if we want to stay here all day?" Ally joked as we watched Jenna and Maddie tag team Jake by bumping his tube under the water fall. "Don't think so, but they won't let us." I chuckled as we approached the exit. Which put us right next to a ton of the slides. "Let's do that one! Can we momma?!" Jenna asked in her adorable lispy stutter. "I call solo!" Jake said as he started up the ladder. Maddie seemed a little intimidated by the large slide and Jake's fearless attitude. "They have doubles, you can go down with me." I told her and she seemed a little better after that reassurance.

When reaching the top of the staircase, I had Maddie positioned in the front of the tube and myself in the back holding onto the edge of the slide. When the guard gave us the okay I let go and pushed off. Maddie's joyful screams and laughter rang through the tubes as we twisted and turned down to the bottom. This happened on almost every slide we went down, until Maddie started getting brave and wanted to go down by herself, or sometimes she would go down with Jenna.

That was my day, as opposed to sitting inside and lesson planning, I got to watch my little girl let loose and not worry about her solo for awhile. I had four beautiful hours of watching her in her element and getting to play with Jake and Jenna. And in those four beautiful hours I also developed a decent tan so bonus for me.

After a long day at the waterpark we all agreed to go out for dinner at Red Robin, one of the favorite places of mine and all my friends to hang out when we were in high school. I was pleasantly surprised to see Maddie eating a decent amount. I wondered if maybe there were times she really just wasn't hungry and other times where she was. Well she has a doctor appointment coming up, I'll ask about it then.

After dinner, we left to head in the direction of our own homes. Ally didn't live far from me, but far enough that we didn't drive in the same direction. Maddie almost immediately passed out in the back seat. I could only imagine how tired she was, besides dance every other day, she didn't ever have a really jam packed day. When I pulled into the driveway, I thought that it would wake her up, but she was still asleep with the Harley Quinn towel wrapped around her as a blanket.

I smiled as I went to the back seat to pick her up and carry her in. As I made my way up the driveway with her held tight, she slowly started to wake up. "It's okay, it's just me. Go back to sleep sweetheart." I cooked softly as I tucked her head back down onto my shoulder. I decided by myself to let her sleep with me since she likely wouldn't be waking up. I carefully changed her into one of my shirts and laid her down on my bed and I laid down across from her.

And in those moments I knew that that after all these years my prayers were answered by God and I had my angel. Sun kissed and sweet hearted, my beautiful little Madison. And I couldn't help but like to think that my mom and dad were watching over us from heaven.