Chapter Four: Moving- Baby Four

William and Lydia age up wonderfully, but the traits they acquire are less than helpful. Lydia has become quite absent-minded, forgetting everything from her homework to her chores.  

William is now a very unpleasant person. He is constantly in a bad mood and is always arguing or sulking. His latest gripe is that there's only one easel, which is in constant use by me, so he can't paint.

Valentine thankfully isn't as much of a hassle as her older siblings. She's the first child to get my blonde hair and got my eyes as well. She hardly resembles her Berry father at all. Like Lydia, she's an active tot, always moving and squirming. She also is very intelligent, picking up on things faster than Lydia or William ever did.

Lydia's love for the trampoline hasn't faded and now that she's older, she's grown the confidence to do flips, which is a bit concerning. William hangs out on the slide a bit farther away, alternating between sliding down and sitting at the top.

I'm not having nearly as much fun as then, I'm too busy trying to negotiate with the builder.

I'm not stupid. As awful wonderful as our house is, it's not going to last long with a household full of eight people. There's only one bathroom, which is a giant hassle when it comes to showers, and the toilet and sink are constantly breaking. However, it's hard to convince someone to build a house for so many people under such short notice, but I want to be out of this cramped house soon.

After a bit more arguing, he lets up. "There's an unfinished house on Savannah Lane that we can fix up for you. But, it's going to be quite costly."

"How much?" I reply.

"Hard to say, but my estimate is around 70,000"

I bite my lip. "I can manage that, but if it goes higher I'm not so sure."

"I'll try and get it reduced." he promises. 

"Thanks-"

William bursts into the front door and instantly begins complaining loudly. "I'm hungry!" he yells, stomping his foot. "Where's dinner?"

"Get some leftovers out of the fridge." I tell him, covering the speaker of the phone with my hand.  

"I don't want leftovers!" he complains, crossing his arms. "I want macaroni!"

"I haven't had time to cook. You'll have to make do with grilled cheese."

"I don't want it!"

"Then starve." I'm not in the mood to deal with William and his tantrums. "Grilled cheese or nothing."

He looks like he's about to yell again, but after a moment, he stomps to the refrigerator, grumbling under his breath. 

Dinner passes quietly, with only a few conversations breaking the silence. It wouldn't have been so uncomfortable if it hadn't been for William glaring at the refrigerator, refusing to move and muttering things. Lydia doesn't seem to notice the tense air, she's happily eating and chatting.

I think over my conversation with the builder as I take another bite. He told me the renovations wouldn't take long, a few days at most. It's going to cutting it rather close to the end of my next pregnancy, which should start tomorrow if all goes well with the next father tomorrow. I'm hoping for multiples this time, it's going rather slow with single births. 

It's hard to get Valentine to sleep that night, she's too busy looking around and playing with her feet to close her eyes for more than a moment. It takes a lot of rocking and singing, but I finally get Valentine to bed around 11. Thankfully William and Lydia had gone to bed earlier, so there's nobody else awake besides me. It doesn't last long though because a few minutes later, I'm slipping under the covers myself.

It's Saturday the next day, so I make some pancakes for breakfast while William and Lydia do various things around the house, like cleaning or watching TV. Lydia gets on an exercise kick and starts up a yoga CD that I had bought ages ago much to the amusement of William. He makes a remark how ridiculous she looks, but other than that he keeps his mouth shut, keeping the amused look on his face.

After breakfast, Lydia and William start arguing about where to spend the day. Lydia insists on going to the gym, but William is having none of it. He demands to go to the art gallery and starts throwing a tantrum when I come in and suggest going to the pool and going to the gallery later. Lydia hesitantly agrees after a  moment, but it takes William a bit of coaxing to accept the idea. They leave the house with Valentine a short while later while I dash off to the next father's house.

His name is Chadd something-or-other and I barely get to know him before I dash out the door. I love his hair color, it sort of reminds me of Paisley's, maybe a few shades darker. Maybe.

Lydia seems to take to Valentine quite well, which is nice to see considering William is attempting to get on everyone's last nerve. However, I take Valentine back after the ever forgetful Lydia left her in the women's bathroom for twenty minutes. 

"How do you forget that your sister is in the bathroom?" I exclaimed, picking up Valentine.

"It just sort of happened." Lydia says with a sigh.

I give her an irritated look before heading outside. Lydia doesn't say anything else, just hops in the pool. In a few moments, she's yelling at William for splashing her, seemingly already forgetting the conversation.

As the pool fills up with people, I teach Valentine how to walk. We're going to need as much time as possible before the move to get everything ready. We're selling a majority of the furniture, but a few things are going with us, the trampoline, the dishes, stuff like that. 

Lydia is visibly getting uncomfortable with all the people around, so around three, I suggest heading to the gallery. Lydia doesn't complain, she hastily gets out of the pool after William, who is brimming with excitement.  She doesn't relax until we pile into the car and head down the street. I can only imagine how hard school is for someone so introverted. 

William nearly knocks Lydia over in his excitement, a smile on his face for once. I tell him to slow down at least five times, but he pays no attention to me until he's right in front of a beautiful painting of sunflowers.

"I wish I could paint like that." he sighed.

"Have you ever actually painted?" I asked him, shifting Valentine to my hip.

"No, but..."

"You just need some practice." I said.

"Well, if someone wasn't constantly using the easel, I could try it out." William responded.

I rolled my eyes. "When we move, you'll have an easel to use. Just hold out until then."

William's eyes grew wide. "We're moving?!"

Oops.

"We're moving?!" William yelled again, as if I hadn't heard him to first time.

Hadn't I told them at breakfast? I thought I had, but with all the activity, I must have forgotten. It only had been final last night, so I just hadn't a chance.

"Lydia!" William screeched, running down the hall to his blue skinned sister. I followed him as fast as I could, but it was hard to run carrying a toddler.

"We're moving!" William yelled as Lydia came into view.

Lydia turned around, a confused look on her face. "Huh?"

"We're moving!"

"William, will you calm down?" I asked, sighing.

"We're gonna leave our school and our toys and-"

"William." I said firmly, cutting him off. "It's still going to be in Twinbrook. It's just a bigger house."

"What about our toys?" William asked.

"They're going with us. And we'll be getting a computer."

Lydia's eye grew wide.

"A computer?" she squealed. "An actual, real computer?"

I nodded, a slight smile coming to my lips.

"Oh mom, thank you!" Lydia threw her arms around me, nearly knocking me over.

William crossed her arms. "I don't want to go!" he announced, a large frown on his face.

"Sorry bud, but it's all final. We'll be moving in a few days."

"I like our house!" he yelled, stomping his foot.


'Like it or not, we're going to be leaving. You can cry and pout all you want, but it's not changing." I said sharply. "Got it?"

I half expected a snappy response back, but with a sullen look, he closed his mouth. However, he was grumpy for the rest of the time and his moodiness carried over into dinner. However, I'm in no mood to scold him, so I just send him to bed and end it with that.

Breakfast is a bit tense with William refusing to talk to me and hardly speaking to Lydia. She doesn't seem to mind, she just sits quietly and eats her waffles. I'm quite irritated, but I don't say anything, I just ignore it. If he wants to grumpy, fine. I'm not going to get myself worked up over him being difficult, as always.

He does brighten up a little when he sees the empty easel. He makes a beeline for it and begins mixing up some paint. He's painting in a matter of minutes, eagerly putting down colors as fast as he can. He's not being particularly neat about it, he's getting paint all over his pants. It's washable though, so there's no reason to freak out.

Lydia chooses to spend some time alone in the playhouse. She's up there for over an hour before she climbs down and heads to the trampoline. William joins her soon after and they jump up and down together, occasionally doing flips.

I'm watching them from the window as I coax Valentine to walk towards me. She's doing well, she's only fallen one or twice since we started this morning.

A small bump appears on my stomach as we finish up. I smile, feeling the stirrings of new life inside of me. I'm quite excited for another baby. I cannot wait to have a house brimming with children and I cannot wait to hold a new baby in my arms.

However, I have three children to take care of now. I sit down on the floor in front of Valentine and start teaching her to talk, going over dinner plans in my mind.

I'm not in the mood to cook anything fancy, so I pull out some bread along with several other random ingredients and start making sandwiches for everyone. Lydia is hanging out with Valentine and William is somewhere in the backyard, his painting on the easel. I call him for dinner a few minutes later and he comes in with a grin on his face. He breaks his silence to talk nonstop about his first painting and continues on and on about it throughout the entire meal. Art seems to be the only thing to get him out of his grumpy moods these days.

I'm just about to put Valentine to bed when my phone begins to ring. With a yawn, I answer it, not bothering to check the caller I.D.

"Hello Ms. Falls!" The voice of the builder greets me and I wince a bit at his overenthusiastic greeting. "The house is fixed up, your family can move in tonight if you hurry."

"Great!" I reply, thinking over what he said. The kids have school tomorrow and I don't want to make Monday mornings more of a hassle than it already is. But heading out this late would keep us up past midnight. Majority of the furniture is already gone, but unpacking the few boxes we had and putting them away would take over an hour. But I want to be in the house before the the baby arrives, so I don't have much of a choice.

"We'll head over as soon as we can."

The kids are surprised when I announce that we're leaving and that I need everything together as quickly as possible. I'm expecting William to put up a fight, but he follows my instructions and piles into the taxi with the rest of us. Lydia carried Valentine, something my achy back was grateful for.

Nobody said anything as we drove away from our old home. We were all tired and Valentine was kicking up a fuss, whining in muddled baby talk that she wanted to sleep.

The kids didn't seem to overly excited about our new home, they just wanted Valentine to go bed. We didn't get a good look at our new home until Valentine fell asleep in the nursery.

View when you first walk in.

Our family room, which has an easel, much to the delight of William.

The kitchen, which also doubles as the dining room.

The bathroom for everyone.

 The nursery, which contains five cribs, three potty chairs, and a dollhouse.

My room, which isn't much bigger than before.

The bathroom connected to my room.

Upstairs, you have the kid's rooms. This is the girl's room.

The girl's bathroom.

The boy's room.

The boy's bathroom

Laundry area. I haven't had any of this stuff before, so it should be pretty interesting.

It was no secret that Lydia was thrilled about the computer. The moment everything was settled, she made a beeline towards it and started up a game. She only played for a few minutes before I kicked her off, due to it being close to midnight. This was met with complaints, but I finally pried her off and got her to bed.

Lydia and I enjoyed the first meal in our new house together. William was in an especially bad mood and got up late, so he only had time for a few mouthfuls before hopping on the bus. I wasn't too impressed, but I couldn't help but feel that school was a part of his bad mood.

After I finished teaching valentine to talk, it was time for the first load of laundry. It took me over an hour to figure out what buttons to press to make it work and one near accident with the bleach before I got it started. Nothing was more relieving than hearing the washer start. Then it was another battle with the dryer. But finally, there was a clean load of laundry in my hands. However, my joy was interrupted when I realized that I would have to do this over and over again.

You can imagine how well that improved my mood.

After the mess with the laundry, I decided to try out the new sculpting station we had bought. I had no idea what I was doing for majority of the project, I was just shaving away clay and hoping it came out nice. I do come out with a chair, but it's quickly sold off.

I have some down time after dinner, so I take the opportunity to relax. Soon, my thoughts start to wander and I'm thinking about the baby, who's due to arrive tomorrow. It also means that the other kids will age up.

And that means Lydia's going to move out.

The thought stops my train of thought right in it's tracks. I hadn't thought of that. Of course I knew Lydia would move out, but I never really put much thought into it. But now, it was all I could think about. 

I didn't want Lydia to leave. She was my first born, so energetic and introverted. She was forgetful and loved computers. How could I let her go?

I decide to call up Skye on the issue and she points out that she's only moving out, not dying, which somehow makes me feel better. Still, the thought is heavy on my mind when I fall asleep that night.

The next day starts off with leftover pancakes for the kids and a PB and J for me. It's a nice way to start off the morning, a nice chat with my children. I take the time to talk to Lydia as much as I can. But soon, the bus honks and the kids head off to school, leaving Valentine and I alone.

There's no time to brood however, the house needs to be cleaned. I make the beds and wash the dishes before heading downstairs to fix the computer, which has been used a grand total of two times since we moved. Stupid appliances.

The repair is cut short by the arrival of contractions. I'm getting used to the sudden pain now, but it's still a surprise when I feel the burst of pain. I waddle as quickly as I can to the nursery.

It's a long labor, over three hours, but I finally give birth to a baby boy, who I name Oliver.