Why is everyone, mostly Jade, so full of surprises?
A little while after Jayden’s first birthday, Betty informed Shego that she was pregnant again. Shego just wanted to bang her head against the nearest wall because she knew what that meant. When Betty went on maternity leave again, she was going to be left in charge. Oh, that was going to be awful, Shego thought. At least it would not happen until the following year as far as she knew; Betty was supposed to be having the baby some time in January.
(New day)
Kim looked at Shego with a smirk that told the pale woman exactly what was on her mind. The kids had been put to bed. The crazy brats’ messes had been cleaned. Everything was done for the night. The couple was in the bed and neither of them were tired in the least, which was new considering their lifestyles and having to chase the Tasmanian devil they called a son around. They did not have to chase Jayden for the simple fact that she still picked her spots where she was going to walk on her own, especially if the other rugrats were not around.
The couple did not even speak to each other; the looks in their eyes said everything that they needed to and they did not want to waste any time with words anyway. They went at each other, meeting at the mouth, while their hands went into for flesh to fondle. They made things easy on each other by having on loose camisoles and those were lost quickly, although they were not disregarded far away. There was a practical reason to that.
The couple kept their door cracked open now. It was for Jayden because she slept in a little bed now; it turned out that once they gave her a bed, she was fine with sleeping in her own room. The bed had a little guardrail to keep her from falling out if she moved in her sleep, but the lazy little monster could climb over it and would when she wanted to get up in the middle of the night. When her room door used to be shut, she would sit on her floor and scream to high heavens until someone acknowledged her plight. To avoid that, her door was left open and she would walk to her mothers’ room and had nothing to cry about when finding the door open, but God help them all if that door was shut. Once she would be in the room, she would stand at the foot of the bed and make small noises until someone picked her up and put her in the bed with them. They typically heard her a few seconds after she entered the room, so she never had to wait long for them to pick her up.
Sometimes, Todd would come to the room too, but he would knock, even though the door was open. The problem was that he would knock hard and push the door open wider. Once the door was open wide enough for him to step in, he just did so. He luckily had not been scarred for life yet by walking into a scene that no child wanted or needed to see.
Heated, passionate moaning filled the room as things steamed up. The sudden line of light from the hall failed to grab their attention as they were focused solely on each other for the first time in too long a time in their opinions. The light came from the hallway, which was always on at night to make sure Jayden did not wander too close to the stairs; if she could see the stairs, she damn sure did not go near them without someone at least four-feet-tall holding her hand and even then she preferred that she was carried down the stairs.
Just as Shego started groaning the name “Kimmie,” she noticed kind of a foreign sound in the room. It was “kind of” foreign because they knew what it was, but it should not have been in the room at the moment. The noise was sort of an “uhhnnnn” sound. Jayden’s code for “I’m in the room now, damn it, so pay attention to me.” She refused to speak real words yet; just another sign of her laziness in everyone’s opinions.
“Princess,” Shego said while pulling away from her wife’s hungry lips.
“Huh?” Kim said.
“You know you hear that,” the pale woman replied.
“Jade, you ruined Mommy’s chance to get laid,” Kim complained as she and Shego reached for their tops. The pale woman tried not to laugh about that comment, although she was of like mind on it too.
The redhead got out of the bed while putting her camisole back on and she picked the baby up. She took Jayden over to the bed and laid her down. Jayden did not seem to be in agreement with that, though. She sat back up with her mothers.
Shego decided to play with the baby just a little bit, even though Jayden really just needed to go to sleep. Shego gently pushed the child over and Jayden laughed as she fell back. Jayden was a big fan of being pushed over, which was something that Mayah would have enjoyed if not for the fact that when she pushed Jayden, the olive-eyed child would stand back up and head-butt her in retaliation. The baby quickly sat back up, just for Shego to push her back down again. Jayden giggled like mad and got up for the same action to happen again. After about ten times, Shego was bored with the insane game.
“Okay, Jade, time to sleep,” the super-powered woman declared and she went to lay the child down, but Jayden grabbed her hand and tried to make her push her again. Shego shook her head; what was she supposed to do with such a nutty child that always wanted to play such crazy games?
“You just had to start her up, didn’t you?” Kim pointed out, teasing just a bit.
“Don’t get smart,” the green-skinned female stated.
“Kind of hard for me not to when you always yell at me for playing with her before bed,” the redhead countered.
Shego rolled her eyes, even though she did often bark at Kim about playing with Jayden close to the baby’s bedtime. She did not like getting Jayden worked up before bed because the little girl would just keep going. The energy thing had to come from Kim, she figured. What was with Kim just making their kids vigorous little gremlins?
“Come on, mini-monster, time for bed,” Shego said, trying her best to gently put Jayden down, but the child was still trying to get her to push her again.
Jayden seemed to realize that her mother was not playing with her anymore and she made a face that showed she was definitely Kim’s daughter; she pouted. She gave Shego a look that made her want to give Jayden one more playful shove to let the girl laugh again. But, she reminded herself that Jayden needed to go to bed. She was only a little baby, after all. Jayden could see that she was losing the little piece of sympathy that she had and shocked her parents for the second time that night.
“Mah-mee,” Jayden forced the syllables out of her mouth, passed her six teeth.
“Did she just…?” Shego inquired with a stunned expression plastered on her face. Was she hearing right? She could not believe it if she was.
“She did,” Kim replied with the same expression on her face. She knew that she was hearing right and she still could not believe it.
Jayden did not seem to realize that she had just done something that her parents felt was extraordinary. She just knew that she had gotten her mommy to stop trying to lay her down. She then proceeded to move Shego’s hand in a motion that showed she wanted another push. Shego was way too shocked to notice.
“She just said ‘mommy,’ didn’t she?” Shego asked, even though she had already gotten confirmation. She wanted to be sure since she had not finished the question before. There was the slim chance that Kim thought she was going to ask something different.
“Yeah,” the redhead answered, nodding now.
“She spoke. Jade spoke.”
“I gotta call my parents!” Kim declared in a loud voice while shooting up from the bed to make it to a communication device; it did not matter which one. She just needed something to call her parents and inform them that Jayden had just said her first word and she had done it rather clearly.
Shego also scrambled for a phone, looking to call her mother. While they both looked for communication devices, Jayden watched her mothers like they were insane. She wanted to know why no one was playing with her. Maybe she should not use that word anymore if it was going to get her parents all worked up and not paying her any mind.
“Hey, what’s the noise all about?” Todd inquired, standing at the doorway with one eye closed. He still carried his stuff saber-tooth, Tai, with him, even though he was trying to grow up.
“Jade said her first word!” Kim told him with a huge grin on her face as she finally got into contact with her parents; she was using the house phone.
“What’d she say?” he asked curiously.
“She said ‘mommy’!” the hero reported, telling him and her parents.
“Say ‘mommy’ again, monster,” Shego urged the baby while putting the phone to Jayden’s head. “Say ‘mommy’ so Grandma can hear you,” the pale woman said in a rather excited tone. If she was not so happy, she would have been considering how amused her mother had to be with her behavior.
Jayden laughed, amused by her mothers’ behavior undoubtedly. Todd thought it was funny too, especially since the baby was laughing at their parents. Shego pled with Jayden to speak again and Kim started doing the same, putting the house phone to the child’s unoccupied ear. On the other end, three of her grandparents were also encouraging her to speak. Jayden was just cracking up; everybody sure was acting weird.
Todd decided to join in because he would like to hear his little sister speak. Jayden grinned when her big brother came over and he got in her face, trying to goat her into saying “mommy” again. As soon as Todd was on her level though, Jayden did not even consider speaking. She did reared back and she head-butted her big brother in the center of his forehead. Todd coughed as the blow landed and fell back in a dramatic fashion. Jayden laughed and pointed at her brother, the idiot.
“Jade, if you weren’t one, I’d kick your butt,” Todd muttered. Jayden’s favorite thing lately seemed to be head-butting, especially him. He did not like the attraction, especially since she was hardheaded, literally.
“Jade, why are you being so difficult? Just say it again,” Kim pled. Only Shego’s daughter could be so stubborn, she thought.
“I don’t think she’s going to say it,” Todd commented as he sat back up, making sure to keep his higher than Jayden’s monster dome.
“No, really? Is that your professional opinion, Doctor Smiley?” Shego remarked with a teasing smile.
“Yeah,” he replied with a goofy grin of his own.
Shego rolled her eyes and they continued to try to get Jayden to talk, but she was not interested in say anything again. She was having fun getting to stay up late and watch her parents and brother act weird, not to mention her grandparents were ranting on the phone as far as she was concerned. After nearly a half-hour of such antics, they all did give up. It would seem that Jayden was just going to back to being lazy, no talking and walking to a minimum.
The baby yawned as soon as the phones were taken away from her. She crawled up to the pillows and settled onto her favorite one, which also happened to be Shego’s pillow. Her parents and brother watched in disbelief.
“Guess it’s bedtime,” Kim commented with a laugh as the baby closed her eyes and was sleeping in no time at all.
“At least she went to bed on her own,” Shego said with a sigh. Often Jayden just liked to stay up with everyone, even if she was obviously sleepy. It was just about the only non-lazy thing that Jayden did.
Kim nodded and they lay down to go to sleep too. Todd joined them since he was there. They all settled down for sleep, silently hoping that Jayden would shock them again and speak. Maybe she would even say “mah-mee” again.
(New day)
Kim and Shego were knocked out. Sleep had come easy for the simple fact that they had both had busy days with work and with their kids; Todd was over for a long weekend because his birth parents had just decided to take a vacation and not think about how he had school. Between saving the city/world (depending on the spouse) and running around with their kids, they figured that the saving business was a lot easier, especially when Todd got an idea in his head.
It started snowing early that year, before winter even showed up actually. It was a couple of inches worth of snow when it was all said and done. Todd wanted to go out in the snow and playing with his friends in the neighborhood was not enough. He had to drag them out with him. They did not take the baby with them the first time it snowed, but it happened more than once and they figured that everything should be all right taking her out for a few minutes.
Jayden seemed to get a kick out of being in the snow, even though she could not move around too much while she was out there. Kim bundled her up in so many clothes that Todd joked they were going to have to roll the baby outside. He also got a huge kick out of watching Jayden waddle around in all of her winter gear; he said she looked like a baby penguin.
Jayden did have trouble moving when she was in her snowsuit, but she generally tried to stay in the same place. She leaned down, always with extra-care, because she knew that if she fell over, laughing would come long before help up did. She especially hated the laughter and that was always clear from her expression. No baby should ever look so irked just because people were laughing at her.
The little child did like trying to throw snowballs like Todd, but she could not pack snow together. She was a funny kid, according to Shego anyway. Jayden always looked so focused when she was trying to understand something and she had her signature look of intense concentration while she tried figure out why her brother could throw snowballs, but she could not do the same. She stared at the snow and she tried several times to do as she saw Todd do, but it was not capable of replicating his actions. Sometimes Shego could swear that baby was screaming “damn him!” in her head.
So, the couple was worn out and thankful for the bed from the early snow days. They had practically collapsed on it and each other. Shego was laying spread out in the bed. Kim was draped halfway on her, using Shego’s shoulder as a pillow and drooling on the top of her breast because the sleep was really good. Shego had her arm wrapped around Kim to keep her in place because she was most comfortable when the redhead was on her. Shego’s mouth was open and she seemed to be eternally inhaling. They were the very definition on knocked out.
The door was shoved open, but they failed to notice. Jayden made her way to her special spot in the room and she started making noises. It was not working as well as it usually did. Her mothers were not stirring, which bothered her, a lot. She started in louder, but she did not get a reaction. Now, she was distressed.
She marched over to the bed, going to Shego’s side. She was not tall enough to do much, but she did bang on the side of the bed and she tugged on the covers, hoping, wanting, demanding some attention. She began crying too.
“Mah-mee, mah-mee, mah-mee,” she practically chanted while slamming on the bed and weeping.
“Ah, Jade, cut Mommy a break,” Shego pled with the baby.
“Mah-mee!” Jayden cried while putting her hands up since she now had a parent that was wake.
“Jade, why do you do this to me?” the pale woman inquired while shifting to pick up her mini-monster, but trying her best to not wake up her mega-monster.
Jayden practically jumped into her mommy’s arms. She also clung to Shego once she was secure in her arms and she kept crying. Shego rocked her gently and rubbed her back, which usually calmed her down. It was not working at the moment.
“Oh, god. Come on, Jade. Be a good baby and go to sleep for Mommy,” Shego implored the child, who continued wailing.
Shego kept up her actions while glancing at Kim, who was still sleeping through the noise. For the moment, Shego officially hated her wife. She bounced the baby more and begged Jayden to stop crying, which did not work. Shego stopped what she was doing and looked at the child.
“Jade, baby, what is wrong with you? Why are you acting like a nut? Stop crying,” Shego ordered the baby. Well, she tried the order, but whenever Jayden cried, she more pled with the child than anything else.
“Honey, what are you grumbling about?” Kim inquired while turning over to face her spouse.
“It’s Jade. She won’t shut up,” Shego replied.
“What?” Kim said while opening her eyes completely to focus on what was going on. She rubbed her eyes.
“It’s Jade,” the super-powered woman repeated.
“Oh, whassa matter with the baby?” Kim asked as she sat up and put her arms out for the child.
“Mah-mah!” Jayden hollered while putting out her arms to go to the redhead.
Shego let the baby go and Jayden pretty much jumped to her other mother. The redhead cradled the baby and then a look of alarm spread across her face that sort of frightened Shego. Kim felt the baby’s forehead and cheeks.
“She feels kind of warm. I think she’s sick,” Kim replied.
“Sick?” Shego echoed as if she did not understand. So, Jayden was crying for a reason and not just being a brat? It was surprising news.
“Yeah, I think she’s sick.”
“Well…what do we do?” the green-skinned woman inquired as if she was at a loss for everything. She had never had to deal with a sick baby.
“I don’t know,” Kim admitted with a shrug. She was just as concerned as Shego about the baby. What were they going to do with Jayden if she was ill? She had never dealt with a sick baby either, after all.
“You call your mom. I’ll call mine,” Shego suggested.
Kim nodded while making sure to continue to rock Jayden, who made sure to continue bawling her eyes out. Their mothers were not too happy about being woken up in the middle of the night until they found out the reason why. They thought it was rather adorable about how much their daughters were worrying about little Jayden and they were willing to bet that it was nothing to be too concerned about.
Isabel and Ann did walk through a list of things that they wanted Kim and Shego to check to narrow down what might be wrong with the baby. They also had to try to calm their daughters down, who were just acting like Jayden had died in their arms, which was far from the case. Jayden was just crying at a decent volume, for her anyway. But, that was too much as far as Kim and Shego were concerned. They nearly got frantic when Jayden started coughing, but their mothers calmed them down about it. Isabel and Ann stayed on the phones with their children for a couple of hours until Jayden finally fell asleep.
Kim and Shego stayed awake, carefully watching their daughter as she slept. They were so scared. What if something happened? Would they be able to help her? What if she woke up crying again? How could they comfort her? What did they need to do?
Their mothers told them to take Jayden to the doctor in the morning since they were so worried. They were in agreement with that and planned to call the doctor in the morning and they were going in no matter what. They needed to know what was wrong with Jayden and how they could make her feel better.
(Next day)
Jayden’s doctor assured the worried mothers that Jayden just had a little cold and it would pass with the proper care and time. The two did not seem to believe that. The doctor was amused at how Kim and Shego were so worried Jayden and her little cold. Jayden was not helping, crying endlessly because of the sickness, just making her mothers believe that there was something seriously wrong with her.
The doctor wrote them a prescription for some cough syrup to help Jayden’s cough and because she knew that if she did not give them something, they would just freak out more. She did inform them that they were lucky Jayden gave them over a year of being sick-free or they would have worried themselves sick and everyone would have been crying together. They did not seem the humor in anything coming out of their doctor’s mouth at the time.
After the doctor visit, the mothers returned home with Jayden. Kim was rocking the baby, which Jayden seemed to like, even though she was still weeping. They did not have to worry about Todd bugging out for the moment because he went to go hang out with Ron and Bokuden.
“I’ll go pick up the medicine. You’ll be all right here with her alone?” Shego asked Kim as they went into the living room.
“You’ll be right back, right?” the redhead asked, practically pleading with her mate to come right back.
“Of course,” Shego replied. She definitely was not going to leave Kim alone for long while Jayden was so miserable. She was going to do her part as much as she could, especially since she had first thought the baby had been being a brat when she was actually sick.
“Okay,” Kim agreed.
Shego leaned down and kissed Kim, more for support than anything else. She also kissed the baby and rubbed her head a bit, hoping to give her just a little bit of comfort. Jayden quieted down for a second, but then went back to her bawling. Shego looked at the baby with sorrowful eyes before pulling herself away from her family to go pick up the cough syrup.
Kim stripped the baby out of her outside clothing and put on some pajamas for her to make sure that Jayden was comfortable and warm. The child continued to make noise, although she was all cried out from bawling that morning. Jayden did cling to her mother the whole time, loving being bounced in Kim’s arms, but still miserable. The redheaded adventurer felt horrible for the baby and wished that she would get well soon.
Shego was back in a flash, not even bothering to think about all of the motorists and pedestrians that she had to have traumatized during her brief trip. She just wanted to get back to the baby and her wife. She entered the house to see Kim rocking Jayden, who had cried herself to sleep for the moment.
They were thankful that Jayden was sleeping, even though they were still worried about her. Kim continued to pace while rocking their baby girl and Shego walked with her, caressing the baby’s head, hoping to provide some comfort of her own to the child.
“I can’t believe I didn’t know she was sick,” Shego said out of the blue.
“It’s okay, sweetheart. It’s not like you did anything to her and the only reason you didn’t know was because she was warm,” Kim replied.
“Still, I just thought she was being a brat and all I wanted to do was go to sleep,” the pale woman stated. She felt guilty for missing the hints that Jayden was sick and the fact that she had really wanted nothing more than to go to sleep when she picked Jayden up last night.
“Shego, we both wanted to just go to sleep. Hell, I didn’t even know the baby was in the room,” Kim pointed out.
“You know, this is probably from taking her outside in the damn snow. Why the hell were we even doing that? What’s she going to do out there?” the older woman wondered out loud for the most part.
“She was playing, Shego. You know she likes the snow and she likes being out there with us.”
“No, no, no. We should’ve been more responsible than that. We shouldn’t have taken her out there. What the hell is wrong with us?”
“Shego, calm down. She liked being outside.”
“No, no, no. No more outside, so this can’t happen again. What if she gets even sicker the next time?” Shego pointed out.
“Honey, you’re talking crazy. Jade would probably kill us in our sleep if we stopped taking her outside. She’s got to go outside, like any normal little kid. She’s going to get sick every now and then. That’s how life is, so just calm down,” Kim replied.
Shego took in the words of her spouse. For once, Kim was the voice of reason in their relationship and Shego recognized that. She guessed that she was just anxious about their daughter being ill. It was stressing to know that their daughter was miserable and they would not do anything to relieve it right away.
Kim could relate to that. She felt almost helpless as Jayden cried in her arms earlier, as if begging her to take away the agony of her sickness. She wished that she could do something for the baby, but they just had to give her the medicine, be patient, and offer her whatever comfort that they could.
When Jayden woke up, she went back to crying. Kim rubbed her back for her while Shego tried to coax her into taking the cough syrup. Jayden caved and took the medicine, which probably tasted as good as it looked; copper never was a good color for a liquid. Jayden had to pause from weeping just to make a face in pure disgust. She then looked at Shego as if asking, “Lady, what the hell are you trying to do to me?”
The next time that Shego tried to give Jayden the cough syrup, the baby refused to take it. Todd had to act as a distraction for his She-she, making a face at the child to get her attention. By the time Jayden realized that she had been tricked, she had a spoonful of that terrible medicine in her mouth again. She made a face that seemed rather suspicious to her mother.
“You better not spit that out,” Shego ordered the baby when she noticed the expression that Jayden was making. The little girl looked ready to just spit all the cough syrup up on the carpet.
Jayden decided against spitting the syrup out and swallowed the bitter concoction. Once that was out of the way, she went back to crying and she did that for the whole night and the day after. Her parents stayed up with her, calling to take days from work to be with the baby and support each other. Todd watched them those days, helping out where he could. He even rocked Jayden to comfort her somewhat while their parents got to catch a nap.
“You should get better soon, Jade. She-she and Kimmie are doing the best they can for you, so you gotta do the best you can to get better too. You get ‘em all worried and everything when you cry too. So, you gotta get better,” he urged his little sister while pacing in the living room.
Kim and Shego were knocked out on the sofa. They did not want to be more than a couple of feet away if Todd or Jayden needed them. They were totally knocked out, though, which was how they could sleep through Jayden’s crying. Todd was confident enough in handling Jayden to let them sleep soundly and they had gone through everything that he might need to do while they were sleeping. He loved the fact that they had so much faith in him, even though they were right there in case something did go wrong.
He handled Jayden for an hour before their parents woke up and started dealing with her again. He shadowed them to help out when he could. They made sure to let him know that they were grateful for his willingness to help and his help altogether. After a few miserable days though, Jayden was showing signs of feeling like her old self, which just meant that she stopped all of the crying. She still wanted to be picked up and rocked, though.
“I’m so glad that’s over and we can get some sleep now,” Shego said as she and Kim hit the mattress on their bed with a vengeance. If they could just get six hours of sleep, they would thank every god in existence; hey, six uninterrupted hours was a lot in their house.
“Yeah,” Kim agreed with a content sigh as she snuggled up close to Shego. Oh, yeah, that was just the best, she commented mentally.
Shego wrapped her arms around Kim while settling into her pillow. They closed their eyes. They were just drifting off to the sleep when the door was pushed open. They expected to hear the usual noise from Jayden, but they were surprised.
“Kimmie, She-she, I don’t feel to well,” Todd complained.
Shego and Kim both wanted to cry. What did the world have against them getting some sleep? They both got up and went to take care of Todd now.
Next time: the affects of Betty giving birth two months earlier than expected.