Raising Laila

Chapter 11 - Home

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home is where the waves crash

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January 3, 2018: 11.43am. 

After spending two weeks in Newcastle living with Karl and Shireen and the four children, Jade was finally going home with Laila. They had explained the sudden change to Laila by explaining that she was going to stay with Jade for a little bit while Karl and Shireen could sort out their jobs and things. She didn't argue with the explanation, although really she guessed that it had something to do with the bathroom incident. 

She had been difficult the past couple of weeks fighting and similar things general difficult behaviour, but somehow they had struggled through although it was obvious that Karl was beginning to copy her behaviour he had already hit his parents and little sister twice, so as much as Karl and Shireen hated to say it they were looking forward to sometime without Laila's behaviour. 

"Laila, darling. We're going to leave soon alright?" Jade warned, they knew that she was going to struggle with the change so planned on warning her as much as possible about what was going to happen. 

"I need my bunny," she muttered, she had been hanging around the kitchen with Jade for pretty much the whole of the day. 

"Okay, go and find him then," Jade instructed, most of her other things were in the car, bags and piles of clothes and toys. 

Laila quickly ran off upstairs returning a couple of minutes later with her stuffed bunny rabbit that she had since she was a baby. He was tired, old and in desperate need of a turn in the washing machine. 

"Oh, he definitely needs a bath!" Jade said, laughing at the state of him. 

"NO! You can't have him!" Laila said raising her voice holding him tighter to her chest. 

"Okay, I'm not going to take him but maybe when we get home we can put him in the washing machine to get clean," Jade explained. 

"No, he's mine, no washing machine," Laila said defiantly turning away. One thing Jade had learnt during the last couple of weeks with Laila was to pick her battles, a bunny bath wasn't one she was going to voluntarily pick. Deciding to leave it there, Jade continued to pack the sandwiches for them to eat on the way home. 

"We're leaving in five minutes," Jade said as Laila continued to play with her baby doll on the floor. 

She continued to converse with Karl and Shireen for a few minutes before gathering her things and getting Laila's shoes from the front door. 

"Laila, come on. We're leaving now, say bye-bye to everybody," she said, watching as Laila half-heartedly went to hug Karl and Shireen, "Good girl, go and see Leonie, Karl and Amara now please," she said. 

Dragging her feet along the floor, she followed their noises in to the living room. 

"You're going to be fine," Shireen said pulling Jade in for a reassuring hug. 

"I do hope so," Jade laughed. 

"You will, just phone us if you need anything," 

"Yeah, we'll sort it out, we'll work things out," Jade said hugging Karl as Laila came back in to the room. "Did you say bye?" she asked as Laila nodded in response. Only Leonie really understood why Laila was going, Karl and Amara just knew that she was going to Jade for a while. 

"Yeah, I did," Laila responded, she knew that Jade liked to be answered. 

"Good girl, shall we go then?" she asked leading her to the front door.