Teen Dad Series

Wants to Twirl (Luke & Ruby)

Luke had no idea how the TV channel had been switched to some twirling competition, but there he sat watching it with an odd fascination. He had to admit it was cool, even hypnotizing. These people were tumbling around and still able to keep these sticks spinning. The only hand-eye coordination talent Luke had was texting while driving and video games. (Both of which he'd stopped doing once Ruby was born.)

Ruby had crawled onto the couch and sat on Luke's legs, all of her attention on the competition. Luke had never seen her so fascinated in anything before. She sat with her thumb in her mouth and eyes glued to the TV, completely still.

"You gotta stop sucking on your thumb." Luke mumbled, trying to adjust his legs without making her fall off. They were beginning to fall asleep and that was not a comfortable feeling. Ruby ignored him. She was at the age where she was young enough to still have toddler habits, but old enough to understand they weren't good. Sucking her thumb was one of them. 

"I wanna do that." Ruby said, pointing to the TV.

"Do what?" Luke lifted her up and sat her down beside him, gently pulling her thumb out of her mouth.

"That." With a more persistent point, Ruby directed her dad's attention back to the TV.

"Well how are you going to do that if you don't even know what it's called?" Luke laughed, letting her curl into his side.

"Read what it says." Ruby said, giving him her best pout.

"You read it." Luke reached over and paused the show, just as the title came up. Ruby stared at it for a while with narrowed eyes. She'd been learning how to read over the past few months, but it took her a while. She frowned and tugged on a strand of hair for a moment. Luke could tell she was getting frustrated. She let ou a small whine and turned to look at him.

"Twirling." He said calmly, giving her an encouraging smile. At least she'd tried that time.

"Twirling." She repeated with a nod. "I want to do that."

Luke shrugged "I'll see if I can find a class or something for you to join, okay? For now, let's just watch this."

Ruby nodded, smiling brightly. "Then I can be on TV!" She bounced up and down and squealed. "I can say hi to you from the TV!"

Luke hugged her tightly. "Of course you can."