Period of Adjustment

Chapter 5

For the passed couple hours, Brenton and I have been sitting on the couch, talking about Clementine. She woke up about a half hour ago, and was now currently running around the house with her stuffed puppy. Brenton ended up falling on the floor, and possibly almost having an asthma attack, from laughing so hard.

"Clementine Braelynn Daniels, calm yourself down." I walked over to the bottom of the stairs and picked her up. "I know you're two, but I'm beginning to think you have ADHD."

"Mommy, can I have yogurt?"

"When you calm down. I know you're excited, but damn." I set her in her chair. "Two and a half minutes in the chair then you can have yogurt."

"Okay, Mama."

"Wow. You parents her by giving her the amount of minutes for year she's been here in a chair?"

"Yeah. Punishments get worse as she gets older. Take away her toys then her phone and don't let her go out. You should remember what that was like."

"Sadly. Two phones later, my parents said we weren't allowed to talk to each other anymore."

"Clearly that didn't work out," I looked at Clementine. "Otherwise she wouldn't be here."

I walked into the kitchen, and got two packs of strawberry yogurt. Clementine and I both loved strawberry yogurt and fruit more than anything. Hard to believe she's Brenton's daughter because he practically lived off pizza, burgers, tacos, chips, popcorn and soda. I could too, but I love fruit and salad, yogurt and energy drinks more. For someone who ate a lot of junk food, he sure was skinny.

"Here." I handed a pack of yogurt to my daughter. "Your two and a half minutes are up."

"Thank you, Mama." She opened her pack and practically started drinking it.

"And she's my daughter?" He joked.

"Hey, she's more like me than you. So far, the only physical thing y'all have in common is your eye color. But she's just as charming and loves her video games. She plays with Connor all the time."

"Guess we'll have to change that." She grinned.

"Oy vey." I shook my head.

As if on cue, the front door came flying open, and a woman, not much taller than me, in camouflage, came walking in. She set her rucksack next to the door, and started unlacing her boots. Clementine came running out of the kitchen.

"Rian!" She jumped on her.

"Hey, little orange." Clementine took off her hat, and placed it on my head. "You and my hat."

"It's cool." Rian set her down.

"Were you good for your mother while I was away?"

"Yeah! We made you cake! Come look!" She started pulling Rian towards the door.

"Clementine, can you give her a minute? She just walked in the door. Let her take off her boots and shirt and say hello to Mommy."

"Exactly. Listen to your mother." She paused for a second. "Hey, wait a minute!"

Both Clementine and I burst out laughing. After we finally contained herself, I walked over to my girlfriend to give her a hug and kiss. She just spent the last nine months overseas, and we haven't heard from her much except through letters. Clementine and I each write separate letters, so she doesn't occasionally get confused about who I'm talking about. And Clementine can work on her writing.