| "Needless to say," Shannon concluded the story, "the next few days were... interesting." Brian laughed. "There were times that I thought you five were going to be the death of me!" he shook his head at the children. "After that, I made sure that whenever I was gone, your mother had plenty of help taking care of you." "We weren't that bad Uncle Brian." Asia protested. "Oh yeah? During those few days, two of you were teething, one of you had colic, and Asia... you decided that you would only eat peanut butter and banana sandwiches with the crusts cut off." Brian looked harried at the memory. Shannon patted his arm in commiseration, then reached into the nearest box and fished around. Before she could pull anything out, Shay spoke up. "But after that, everything was fine with my parents, right?" "Oh, yes sweetie. They worked things out. And although you mother still has a tendency to overreact to the littlest things that your father does, and we are still called on to be mediators, there hasn't been any doubt that they'd stay together." Shannon assured her. "So what's the next item?" Scott asked, changing the subject. "Well, let's see what I've got here." Shannon pulled out a stack of photos and papers. She leafed through the photos, passing them along after she had looked at them. Most of them needed no explanation because they were of the kids and families during holidays and vacations. |