Adventures in Parenting 2: Alex’s Second birthday

 

Rating: G

 

Summary: Another story for my Adventures in parenting series. Rick is gone for a week, and it causes problems for Evelyn.

 

Disclaimer: they’re not mine

 

 

 

Part 1

 

"Bye daddy." Alex waved to his father as Rick boarded the plane to Egypt. It was three days until Alex’s second birthday, and Rick got an urgent message from Egypt to pick up an order to the museum that had been lost in the mail. He now worked with Evelyn at the museum, and was a frequent traveler since he’d accepted the job as Head Manager.

 

"Well, let’s go home and plan." Evie smiled and carried Alex back to the car and they drove home. "Jonathan, we’re home." Evelyn called into the somewhat empty house, getting no answer. She let Alex down to play and then saw his scribbled letter on the coffee table.

 

‘Gone for today, I’ll be home tomorrow late. Jonathan.’ Was all it read, and she sighed setting the letter down.

 

"Oh well." She walked into the kitchen and scowled at the dirty dishes ominously staring back at her in the sink. She set to work on them and soon finished as she piled the last plate into the cupboard. "Well Alex, it looks like it’s just you and me." She smiled as she walking into the living room where the little boy’s toys were neatly piled in the corner. His trucks and army men lay in a circle around him, as he lay in the middle sound asleep with a soldier and a truck in both hands. "Or not." She laughed and took a picture of the scene, and lifted him into her arms.

 

After lying him down, she walked back downstairs and looked around. There was absolutely nothing to do. She made herself busy with picking up Alex’s toys, but that took only a matter of minutes. She stood looking at the clean room and felt lonely. She huffed and pulled her little boys toys out and poured them on the floor.

 

"If I’m going to be alone, might as well make it look like home." She smiled and walked into the kitchen, warming up a pot of water for some tea.

 

Sitting in the kitchen alone, she drank her fill when the phone rang. "Hello?"

 

"Evie, its Amanda. Have you heard the news?" Amanda Smith. The most annoying young lady in the entire world, according to Evelyn, and the one whom also thought that the O’Connell family were her best friends.

 

"Amanda, so nice to hear from you, but I’m sort of busy right now. Can I call you…"

 

"It’s atrocious! The Museum has been thoroughly raided! Hundreds of Egyptian gold artifacts have been stolen. I thought you knew." She all but yelled over the phone, making Evelyn groan.

 

"Phone the museum and tell them I’ll be there in a moment." She ordered and briefly heard a muffled okay from the other line before hanging up. She ran up to Alex’s room and lifted him up causing him to wake.

 

"Daddy?" He asked, hoping they were going back to the hospital to get his father.

 

"No honey, we’re going to the museum, momma has some work to do." She explained as he fell back to sleep against her shoulder. And that was how the week began.

 

 

 

Part 2

 

After getting done putting the library half of her office back together, she flopped into her desk hours after arriving at the museum. Her muscles ached, and her feet were probably blistered and waiting to get out of her tight shoes. She peered over to where Alex was contentedly sleeping in his play pin that Rick had put into her office. She opened up her top drawer to find that all of her letters were missing, along with the gift she’d bought for Rick’s birthday, with was just a stones throw from Alex’s. She cursed the people who had ransacked the building as she cried. Still having two corridors that needed work she stood on wobbly legs and walked from the room, locking it from the inside door-knob to make sure that if the thieves were still inside they wouldn’t get to Alex. Her steps crunched on the smashed pieces of glass that littered the floor. The display cases were in shambles, and all of the gold and bronze artifacts were gone.

 

"I need a broom." She muttered and walked back over to her office, grabbing the knob and turning it. "Come on Evie." She grumbled and reached into her pocket to grab her keys. They weren’t there. Then she remembered she’d locked it from the inside, and hadn’t used her key. Meaning she was locked out, and Alex was locked in. Tears of anger escaped, but she brushed them away. She hoped Alex would sleep longer, and went to find Joshua the janitor, who was cleaning up on the lower level.

 

"Josh, I locked myself out of my office, can I borrow your keys?" She asked as she walked over to the young man.

 

"Sure Miss. Evie." He smiled and handed the heavy set over as she walked back upstairs. Halfway to the door she heard Alex crying and ran the last few feet. After ten minutes of trying to soothe the baby and try to figure out what key it way, the very last key fit into the hole. She walked up to the sleepy infant and saw his pajamas as well as the bed sheet underneath him was soaked. She lifted him up and pulled the long shirt off as well as the pants. Grabbing a clean diaper from her purse, she cursed which caused Alex to slap her cheek.

 

"Bad urds momma." He corrected and let her change his diaper.

 

"Well son, looks like we’re going home for tonight." She had forgot to pack extra clothes for him, and mentally cursed even more for her bad memory.

 

"Well Josh, we’re heading out. He’s tired and it’s just hard to get him to stay asleep here." She apologized and left him to clean up the lower halls by himself. "I’ll get upstairs tomorrow, if you would close that area off. I need to see what’s missing and what isn’t." At his nod she left and walked out to the car. After getting Alex strapped into the car seat, he was already asleep. She was almost gone as well when they pulled up to O’Connell Manor.

 

Getting Alex changed and back into bed, she headed that way herself. After getting undressed, she slid under the covers. Noticing the small clock on the bedside table saying two something, she drifted off to sleep.

 

"What a day." She muttered and her eyelids closed.

 

 

 

Part 3

 

Evelyn’s week was getting worse by the day, and as she lie in bed for another sleepless night she sighed into the empty room. Alex’s birthday was tomorrow, and she’d have four other toddlers to contend with. Daniel, who was Alex’s best friend at the time, his mother would be along with him, but the other parents had made plans with the O’Connell’s to drop their children off for the day. "Tomorrow’s going to be a busy day." She mumbled to herself and ran her hand over Rick’s empty pillow as sleep claimed her.

 

 

 

"Mine!" Alex yelled at another child with big blue eyes. He grabbed the toy she was playing with away from her, which made the infant scream in protest.

 

"Alex, you need to share your toys, or momma is going to take them away." Evelyn scolded, as she stopped another baby from running through the living room. She and Jamie, Daniel’s mother, were having problems with the other children. Two of the babies that said there weren’t going to be there showed up, creating chaos between the two parents.

 

"Evie, let’s do c-a-k-e last to reduce the sugar intake." Jamie laughed and set the kids down for color time. That lasted a whopping five minutes when they were fighting over the crayons, and two were eating them.

 

"Okay kids, let’s go have lunch!" Evelyn called and they came running, doing that little toddler walk that was more like a waddle. They ate in semi-quietness when Daniel brought up having cake. The two had no choice but to give them cake after lunch and they were doomed.

 

 

 

Two hours later it was over and Jonathan came home to help Evie give Alex a small birthday party with their own gifts and then go to bed.

 

"Happy birthday Alex." Jon smiled and hugged his nephew as he opened a new set of army men with plastic biplanes with them.

 

"Panes! Rrmee men panes!" He laughed and hopped down to go play with the rest of his toys as well as his new ones.

 

"Look’s like you’ve had a rough day." Jonathan laughed as he poured he and his sister a cup of coffee.

 

"Well, I’ve been having an awful week Jonathan. Without Rick here everything’s going wrong." She sat up and saw her son yawn in the other room. "Maybe he’ll just go to sleep like he did before." She leaned back and closed her eyes. "I’m just glad he’s coming home at the end of the week." She muttered and Jonathan said his farewells for a night on the town leaving Evie at home with Alex again.

 

 

 

"Daddy." Alex cried as Evie rocked him. It was the middle of the night and she’d been up for three hours. Thinking that Alex was going to sleep the whole night through, Evelyn went to bed early to get a head start for when Rick came home the following morning. She was wrong. Alex had woken up three times, and this was the fourth. Worst of all, he wasn’t interested in his mother at all, only wanting Rick, who wasn’t quite available at the moment.

 

"I know baby, but the sooner you get to sleep, the sooner you’ll see daddy. Momma misses him too." She was almost in tears along with the infant as he finally cried himself to sleep. She took him to bed with her, and settled the toddler underneath the blankets before getting in herself. Falling asleep instantly, and they were due to pick up Rick at 6:30. In three and a half-hours.

 

 

 

"There’s my little nephew." Jonathan called coming into the house from his excursions the night before. He yawned and accepted a large cup of coffee from an exhausted Evelyn. "You look a little tired today Evie, perhaps you should have gone to bed a bit earlier." He said as he sipped the soothing caffinated liquid and peered over the rim of the glass into her bloodshot eyes.

 

"Alex decided to miss his daddy last night and woke me up four times. I went to be at nine, and didn’t officially get five yours of sleep." She mumbled, nearly inaudible.

 

"Well Old Mum, I’m off to bed." He grinned and poured the rest of his coffee into the pot, and headed for his room.

 

"Traitor!" She called and got their things ready for the trip to the airport.

 

"Daddy." Alex whimpered, making Evie smile.

 

"Yes baby, we’re going to get daddy, and then he’ll let momma sleep while he watches you." She grinned and buckled him into the car.

 

The drive to the airport was long, and Alex slept the whole way there. At the entrance, a young man in a larger car tried to pull in front of her. Seeing he wasn’t going to make it he twisted the wheel left to avoid crashing into the side of the, what appeared to be brand new car. Evie slammed on the brakes, but the other car smashed into the drivers side. After blinking a few times to clear her throbbing head, she looked back to Alex to make sure the baby was okay. He sat stunned on the passenger side seat. She usually had him on the other side because Rick was the one who drove, and she liked to see him from the passenger’s seat. Since she was driving, he was buckled on the other side, which was a good thing. The entire left side of the car was buckled in and the glass had shattered. Unable to open her car door due to the damage, Evelyn crawled out through the window. Instantly, the man was helping her out and began looking over her for bumps and scratches, noticing the knot and scratch on her head where she’d hit the steering wheel. She shook him off, wanting to curse him at the same time as wanting to thank him for helping her, and walked to the other side of the car grabbing the screaming baby.

 

"It’s okay Alex, momma’s right here baby." She reassured, and cuddled him to her.

 

"I’m so sorry ma’am, I thought I would fit in, and I’m late for my plane so I was rushing. I’ll pay for the damages ma’am." The young man was next to her, checking over Alex as well.

 

"Evie?" A deep booming voice called from behind the group and Evelyn turned to see Rick drop his baggage and run over, his white suit bright in the light. "Evie, are you okay?" He questioned, seeing the damage to the car as she nodded, and Alex reached for his daddy. He pulled them both into his arms and rocked them lightly.

 

"I didn’t mean to hit you, really." Rick nodded the man off as Evie sobbed into his shoulder, and Alex wrapped his tiny arms around his neck and held on for dear life.

 

"It’s all right, don’t worry about it. We’re all fine." She wiped her tears away, thankful she hadn’t put on any makeup this morning, despite how much she thought she had needed it.

 

The police showed up and issued a ticket to the man, who agreed that he’d pay for the damages for the car. Still able to be driven, Rick climbed into the driver’s seat from the other side and started it up. He waited for Evelyn to buckle Alex in behind her, and she herself was in.

 

"Dare I ask how your week went?" He asked as he pulled out of the airport and back onto the main road. He looked over her bloodshot eyes and her trembling lip and sighed. He pulled her to him and kissed her head lightly.

 

"Don’t you ever leave me here alone again. I’ll shoot you before you have a chance to finish the news." She grumbled and cuddled into him. She told him all the things that had happened and finished as the car pulled into the driveway.

 

"You’ve been busy I see." He grinned and took Alex from the car holding her hand as they walked into the Manor together. "Well, next time I’ll just decline, or take you both with me." He promised and unlocked the door.

 

"Yes, it was quite an adventure." She smiled and went straight to bed, trying to sleep off the entire week.

 

The End