Roomies - The Baby Years

Chapter 1

It wasn't difficult. To be around him, to talk to him, to laugh with him; it didn't take all of my energy and he actually seemed interested in what I had to say. We had done the whole "leave the kids at preschool then go to get coffee" thing a couple of days now and I had learned that his name was Elias, but he went by Eli. He was 29 years old and had one child, Sophie. He lived here in Watford together with Sophie and her mum, but her mum was often traveling so that left him and Sophie alone a lot.

He enjoyed good food, and better music; he was apparently a Sinatra fan which I had found out after they started playing a Sinatra song at the coffee house and he had freaked out, telling me he didn't think people listened to good music anymore. He had made me laugh, on more than one occasion, and he made me see things differentely. As for an example, I had bought a donut one morning and I didn't finish it, I was on my way of throwing it in the bin when he told me that the people who made those actually put a lot of time in making them taste nice, and I just threw them in the bin. It wasn't a big, life changing thing but it was small things like that, like him walking 100 meters to a trash can just because he didn't want to throw some paper on the floor. He made me think.

It was saturday today, which meant that Benjamin wasn't going to preschool and I wasn't going for coffee with Eli, but he was coming home to our house for a play date. Well not a play date with me, but Sophie and Benjamin had a play date, and it was such nice weather so I put up the pool before they arrived. The pool wasn't very big, it was one of those smaller ones for children but my urge to throw Benji out of it and use it for myself was growing bigger with every passing minute, since it was incredible warm outside on this particulary day.

As I was putting water in the pool, I heard my son yelling for me to come open the door. I had taught him that he was not allowed to open it if I wasn't behind him, so even if he knew who the person on the other side of the door was, he waited for me.

I went inside to him and saw him standing with his mouth on the mailbox on the door, telling Sophie that I was moving to slow. I laughed as I unlocked the door and he grabbed the handle and threw the door open.

Sophie look at me quickly, then down at Ben and then they ran off together as she yelled a pleasant "Hello Miss Molins." I looked after them and saw that they run out to the garden where Ben had put out some toys for them to play with when they weren't in the pool. I looked back at Eli and motioned for him to come inside,

"Well come on in then, don't want you standing out there all day." I said with a smile and he went inside, took his shoes off and followed me to the kitchen.

"I wanted to make them something to drink, does Sophie like lemonade?"I asked and he nodded as he took out a small flower from his chest pocket and handed to me,

"This is for you." He said and I looked up at him with a confused look,
"From Soph, of course..." he continued. I looked down at the flower and back up at him again and smiled,

"Of course. It's beautiful, i'll be sure to thank her."
"She got one for Benji and one for you, but she wanted me to give it to you because she wanted to go play as soon as she could."
"I understand, well she is very thoughtful. I'm sure Benji liked his flower too." We both smiled and then he helped me carry a tray with cookies and lemonade out to the garden, where our children sat on the grass, playing with some legos. Myself and Eli sat down on the sunchairs and watched them .

"It was very nice of you to invite us here today, Soph needs to leave her comfort zone a bit more." He said and I thought that something had happened,
"What do you mean? She seems quite comfortable with Benji." I took a sip from my drink,
"She is comfortable with him, it's just been hard on her with her mother not being home a lot and having to move around a bit to much for a three year old. She is three years old and has attended four different preschools."