English Legacy: It's A Free World, Baby (Chapter 22)

I was hungry when I said
I never got to sleep
You go ahead
You can get whatever you want
There's a feeling in my belly
It's the new tomorrow scene
It's an interesting job
It's the fireworks

From the Diary of Shante English:

Dear Diary,
I'm sorry I haven't written in you for a while, but I think I've got a good excuse. Or rather, several of them.

As you know, I'm now a mom! Deanna and Elizabeth were born healthy and happy, and with them, the new house, and my job, it's been a very busy few months. It was just now that I have a few minutes to write in you.

Actually, it's been so crazy here, sometimes I have to remind myself which children are mine - My sister-in-law 'Trish is a new mom too, and little Danny is a beautiful little boy. He looks so much like Christopher, I think.

One thing we learned right off, with three babies combined with five adults with jobs is that, there's no such things as "my child" and "your child".... there's only "babies who need food/changing/whatnot", "Babies that are sleeping", and "free adults." I can't count how many times I went to change Danny's diaper and walked past Trish or Chris feeding Deanna or Elizabeth.
Trish and I have been getting along fine. We've even had the occasional spots of free time to play chess against each other, though I think the stress of caring for three babies causes her to be even more Absent-Minded at times. Times when she forgets to get dressed. Oh well, given my own Neurotic tendencies, I shouldn't talk. It does annoy me when she beats me at chess, though... considering I'm a Genius.
Still, like my dear Alex likes to say, "Even the craziest RPGs have end credits." Computer Whizzes say strange things. It didn't seem like long at all before it was time for a triple birthday!

Creator's Note: Note to self; no more triple babies at once, even with five adults. The peanut gallery can rest assured that I got what I deserved, even before they became toddlers...

Hey! Get out of here! This is MY diary, not yours, Creator-type person! Get your own diary!

Wait, what? Uh, Shante, this *is* ... uh, never mind. Skip it.
Here's my darling Deanna. For some reason, everyone kept studying her and her sister very closely after they grew. If I didn't know better, I'd have sworn they were staring at their jaws for some reason...
Here's my other little girl, Elizabeth. She looks a lot like her sister, but I don't think they're identical twins. I was kind of disappointed neither of them inherited their father's hair color - it's no secret that I despise my natural hair color. Grandma Laurel said not to worry - she had just the thing to change their hair colors to what ever we want.
Oh, I almost forgot it was Danny's birthday, too! I'm a bad aunt! Here's the little charmer... in a shirt matching his cousin's. Don't worry, we changed their outfits... and Grandma whipped up a few solutions to allow Alex and I to relieve the girls of my unfortunate hair color.
Here's the "D-E-D crew", as we call them, in one of their few joint sittings, for want of a better term - for three babies born literally within minutes of each other, their schedules quickly diverged. Elizabeth is the redhead, matching her father, and Deanna received my new hair color.

Now that we had three toddlers, the "Fun" really started - three toddlers who all needed to learn to talk, use the potty, and walk, while five adults had to go back to work. Which meant, we needed a babysitter.
I' m really glad this girl only showed up once, though. I can't remember her name, but the look on her face made me wonder what nefarious plan she had for the kids... thankfully, she didn't get a chance to carry them out, since Grandma got home early from work.
She came home from work with great news! She'd been promoted to Mad Scientist, which meant the Soil and Water Research Center was her domain! "Now, I'm the one that brushes new chemicals on people to see what cool stuff happens," she said.

She makes me nervous sometimes when she looks at various things in the house and says to herself "I wonder if I could..." Oh yes... that list of "things" includes her grandchilden, and the rest of us. She hasn't actually Performed any Experiments yet, though.
My brave husband came home from work that day, having gotten a promotion, too! In fact, all five of us came home with promotions! Needless to say, the money helped reestablish the bank account after it had been nearly drained building the new house.
Once again, when it came to training the kids, it was more a matter of who was free to teach a child than what each of the four of use Wished, but sometimes we did get to train our "own" kids. Elizabeth took a little longer to learn to Walk, but I was happy to do it.
I'm pretty sure it was Chris who taught Danny to talk. I managed to overhear them one time. "No, Danny, the word is 'chain reaction', not 'cake'."
Grandma Laurel is an old hat at toddler training, though. She's had the experience teaching Alex and Chris, so she's been able to teach her grandchildren faster than the rest of us. We don't mind, she's so great with them. She seems to be in good shape, even though she's older than Grandpa English was when he passed on.

It's so cute watching the cousins play together, once they all learned to talk, it seems sometimes, a bit sadly, that they know each other better than they know their own parents.
Oh, I just heard my husband get out of the shower. I think it's time for me to end this entry, and make him feel appreciated - it seemed like with the kids, we'd go days without moments to ourselves. Bye for now! *spin noise** Slurp noises here.*

Creator's Note: Move on, you lookie-loos. No cliffhanger today.