Between having Smiley’s first birthday party here and now having the first Thanksgiving in the house, we have a lot of firsts to look forward to.
Thanksgiving at Kim and Shego’s house went over well, even though Shego was worn out by the endeavor. Todd did have to put up with being bugged by Mayah once he ventured out his room. She even tried to follow him up the stairs when he was going back to his room to continue to whip up on his uncles in some racing games, but her mother stopped her.
“I’m wondering if I should be worried with the way Mayah is attached to Smiley. It could be a sign of mental instability,” Betty joked with a playful smile on her face while she went to let her daughter loose in the living room.
“Hardy, har, har,” Shego remarked sarcastically. She did think that it was a little weird that Mayah liked being around Todd, who seemed to find the baby cute for a few minutes and then annoying for the rest of their time together. But, since no one was being hurt or anything like that, she left Mayah to bug Todd. Sometimes, it was funny to see him freak out over the baby following him anyway.
Betty put Mayah down and she went to go bother Jayden, who was having a good time following Isabel’s finger with her eyes. Mayah went along with that for a moment, not seeing the joy in the frivolous game. So, she hit Jayden, which shocked the baby’s grandparents.
“Calm down, folks. That’s how they get along,” Shego said in a dismissive tone because she knew that her friend was on the case.
Betty took care of Mayah, scolding her for hitting the baby. Mayah appeared lost as if she could not understand why she was being admonished, like she thought that she was supposed to slap Jayden every chance she got. In fact, when Betty put the one-year-old down, she went back over to Jayden and hit her again.
“Jayden is going to grow up to kick Mayah’s ass,” Shego predicted. There was no way that her daughter was just going to allow someone to pick on her for the rest of her life after all.
“No way in hell my baby girl gets her ass kicked by someone younger than she is,” Betty declared.
“Bets, I’m three years younger than you and I kicked your ass every chance I got,” the green-skinned woman commented.
Betty just waved her off and turned her attention back to Mayah to make sure she did not hurt Jayden. Mayah continued tapping the baby, but she did not do it with any amount of force to do any harm. Jayden continued followed her grandmother’s finger with an intense expression on her; it was almost as if she did not notice that she was being hit.
“Hey, Dad, don’t you want to hold your granddaughter?” Mego asked curiously since it just registered to his brain that Jason had hardly looked in Jayden’s direction. He could not understand why his father would not pay Jayden any mind. After all, she was such a little doll that he thought everyone should pay attention to her.
“Shego didn’t have that baby,” Jason pointed out the obvious.
“So?” Mego inquired, not following. No, Shego did not have the baby. But then again, Jason had not had any of his kids either, but they were still his kids. He figured that the fact that Shego claimed Jayden as her own was enough for the rest of them to treat Jayden was hers. Besides, he loved having a niece and would never try to think of a reason not to look at Jayden as his kin and he felt like everyone should feel the same way.
“So, I…” Jason started to explain himself, but then he noticed not only his wife, but his daughter, giving him the exact same look, as if daring him to finish that sentence. He knew that in doing so, he would be signing his own death warrant. He made the wise decision of shutting up completely.
“You should hold, Jade. She’s a cute kid,” Mego commented while grabbing his little niece and tickling her a bit. His actions earned him a toothless grin from her.
A disaster was evidently avoided by Jason not saying anything and things went on without anyone having to be killed. Everyone also left at a decent hour, although not at the same time. Kim offered people food as they left, making sure that Mego took any fish that was left over since it was made especially for him. Both sets of twins were encouraged to take as much food as they could carry since the little family of four would not be able to eat everything that was prepared. The twins did not need much encouraging to say the least and left with as much as they could carry.
By the time everyone was cleared out, Shego was asleep on the sofa, clearly exhausted. She had a good grip on Jayden, who was resting on her chest. Kim smiled at the sight; it was always going to be sweet in her opinion. She went to the kitchen to see the damage and then she began cleaning up.
The redheaded hero put the food away and did the dishes. She then went upstairs and told Todd to get ready for bed, meaning he had to take a bath, get in his pajamas, brush his teeth, and get in the bed, in that order and without any detours. He had to be told no detours or he would end up not just in the wrong room, but on the wrong floor. A few times, he somehow ended up in the basement when he was supposed to be in the bathroom; he would be down there on the heavy bag, boxing with it as his She-she taught him to. He followed instructions that night, though.
Kim then carefully took Jayden from Shego. She bathed the baby and then put her down to sleep. Jayden’s crib had been moved into their bedroom because she would sleep soundly as long as she was in the room; in her own room, all bets were off. Once everything was done, Kim went to wake up Shego.
“Come on, sweetheart, let’s go to bed,” Kim whispered. She wished that she was a little bigger than what she was because she would have carried Shego up to the bed, but she had tried that once and failed miserably at a time when she was in much better shape. The only way for her to carry Shego was on her back and she would not try that at the moment since climbing stairs were involved.
“Hmm?” the green-skinned woman made the noise without opening her eyes. She snuggled into the arm cushion.
“Come on, love,” Kim repeated while nudging her spouse again.
“Princess?” Shego asked, her tone dazed and slightly confused.
“Yeah, let’s go to bed, love.”
“The kitchen…” the pale woman said, implying that she needed to get to the mess in the kitchen.
“I cleaned it,” Kim informed her wife.
“Smiley…?”
“Is in the bed.”
“Jade?” And then Shego realized with a start that she had been holding the baby, but the small amount of weight was not there anymore. She sat up and frantically looked around, fearing that she had dropped their child.
“I put her to bed, honey,” Kim stated with a small smile on her face while grabbing Shego by the shoulders to get her to stop bugging out.
“Oh.” Shego breathed a sigh of relief.
“Let’s go to bed.”
Shego nodded and Kim helped her off of the sofa. They checked the doors to make sure that they were locked and then went up to the bed. They changed into their pajamas and curled up in bed. Right before she was about to fall asleep, Shego thought to say something rather kind.
“Thank you,” Shego said. She was thanking Kim for doing all of the clean up and making sure the kids were asleep.
“Don’t thank me. I’m here to help, but thank you for making this a great Thanksgiving,” Kim replied with a bright smile.
“No need to thank me either,” the super-powered woman replied and then she closed her eyes to go to sleep.
Kim followed suit, going to sleep with thoughts of such a wonderful Thanksgiving. She thought that it was a fantastic first Thanksgiving at their home. She wondered if they were going to do it again next year. She hoped so.
(New day)
Kim was sitting in the living room with Jayden and reading a book for one of her classes. Yes, she still took classes at school. There always seemed to be more to learn for her, so she was constantly studying more things, hoping to find something new to work on while staying with cold-blooded creatures. Most of the things that she studied now helped out with her examining the toxins and venoms of the animals that she had become an expert in. She was also going for another doctorate, in chemistry now.
Jayden was busy trying to figure out the secret to crawling. The baby could easily get up on all fours and start moving, but the problem was that she moved backwards. She seemed to know that was not the way to go since Raziya crawled forward; Bokuden had finally mastered walking without hitting everything in sight. Shego still thought that there was something wrong with that boy, though.
So, Jayden was in the “ready” position. She rocked back and forth for a moment, as if she needed to do a warm-up first. Kim glanced up from her book in case she was needed, even though she doubted that anything was going to go wrong. Jayden took a deep breath and started moving, backwards as she always did.
The baby stopped when she noticed that Kim was getting further away instead of closer. Jayden looked down at her legs and then over to her mother. Her little brows furrowed together and she seemed to concentrate on her mother. Kim laughed a bit; Jayden sure was a cute little thing, especially when she was all serious about something.
The child rocked back and forth again. Their little girl was determined if nothing else, Kim thought. Jayden started going again, but she was going in the wrong direction again. She stopped, recognizing once again that she was not going the right way. She eyed her mother again as if she was asking herself why she could not make it to that woman. She stayed like that for a long time, as if she was seriously contemplating things.
Kim watched the baby from behind her book. She thought it was funny how serious Jayden seemed about things, not just crawling but plenty of things. When they read to her, she looked so intense until she fell asleep, which was inevitable when someone was reading to her. If someone was doing something when she was around, Jayden wanted to look at it and she did so as if she was studying it. Shego thought that she got that from Kim.
Jayden inspected her limbs, looking back at her legs on both sides and then down at her arms on both sides. They seemed to pass inspection and she turned her attention back to her target, Kim. The baby took a deep breath and started out again, moving backwards. She ceased quickly and having failed miserably three times, she went to her answer for everything. She started bawling.
“What’s wrong with the baby?” Shego inquired as she rushed to the entrance of the living room, her hands wet from washing the dishes.
“Nothing. Jade’s just mad because she can’t crawl forward,” Kim explained.
“And she’s being a little crybaby over that? Jade, quit that noise,” Shego ordered.
Jayden turned her attention to Shego while making sure not to stop weeping. She put her hands out, wanting to be picked up. Shego did not comply.
“You know better than that, Jade. I’m not picking you up just because you want me to,” Shego said soundly, turning her head away from the weeping baby.
Jayden did not seem to accept that. She kept crying and kept her hands out for Shego. The green-skinned woman still refused to pick the baby up. Usually, she did not mind an excuse to snatch Jayden up and soothe the baby, but she was not looking to encourage Jayden to just cry whenever things did not go her way and then to beg to be picked up.
“Stop that noise,” Shego commanded soundly.
Jayden guessed that she was not going to get sympathy of that mother, so she turned to her other mother. She put her hands out in Kim’s direction and kept bawling, obviously now wanting Kim to pick her up. The redhead did feel sorry for the baby and her failing, so she put her book down. Shego knew what Kim was about to do.
“Princess, you leave the mini-monster alone. Don’t pick her up,” Shego stated in a firm tone.
“But, she’s so upset,” Kim objected.
“I don’t care. Crying shouldn’t get you everything and you should know that by now,” the pale woman remarked.
The scientist pouted, but she did not say anything. She turned back to the baby, who was still weeping. Kim put her hands out, as if she was saying if Jayden could make it to her, she would gladly cuddle the baby. Jayden just cried harder and Shego walked off to go finish what she was doing.
“Oh, my god,” Kim muttered in disbelief and awe. “Shego!” she screamed.
“What?” Shego huffed.
“Come here! Quick!”
Shego took her time coming back, thinking that Kim was just being a pest. She got back to the living room to see the last bit of why Kim was calling her; Jayden had crawled forward. The baby made it to Kim and Kim wasted no time snatching their child up for a proud hug.
“Did you see that?” Kim inquired in an excited voice, speaking to Shego.
The emerald-eyed woman was trying to contain her joy, but a small smile did sneak out. “Yeah, I saw,” she confirmed.
“That was so great!” Kim declared and then she looked at the baby, who was grinning, as if she knew she had just done something remarkable. “You are such a wonderful, little mini-monster!” Kim proclaimed; from the look on her face, an outsider might have thought that she cured cancer because of the pride she was displaying. She kissed the baby’s cheek.
“That was great, baby,” Shego concurred as she walked over and rubbed Jayden’s back.
Jayden continued to smile. It would seem that more than crawling forward, she liked her mothers’ attention. The praise and proud smiles seemed to be quite enough for her and she smiled all the way through it.
(New day)
Todd was sitting on the sofa with a bowl of cereal and he was watching cartoons. A little bit in front of him was Jayden. She was sitting on her Care Bear blanket and chewing on a Care Bear teething ring; yes, she was teething, but none of her teeth had come in yet. He had volunteered to keep an eye on the baby for a little while, giving their parents a much needed and deserved break. So, the kids were on their own, at least for a few minutes.
Shego had planned to put Jayden in her playpen while she was with Todd. It was just to lessen the strain on him; he was only eight, after all. But, he protested. He really disliked seeing Jayden in the playpen, especially since she seemed to utterly despise being in the thing. Whenever she was in the playpen, she would look out and put her hands up whenever someone came near, as if she was pleading with them to spring her from the prison that she was in. He was willing to watch her while she was able to roam free.
Jayden was not even doing much moving. She was intent on chewing through that teething ring it seemed. Lately, all Jayden wanted to do was chew things, which made her a bit of a pain. Her parents thought that it was a good thing that she could not walk or she would just be chewing on everything that was at her level.
Jayden could not walk and did not seem interested in doing so any time soon. Outside of chewing things, the next thing that the baby enjoyed doing was standing up and not walking. She would put her hands out for someone near by, silently requesting that the person pick her up. For Jayden, being carried seemed like it was the only way to travel.
Todd did like teasing Jayden, faking like he was going to pick her up and just grabbing her arms to hold her up. It was his way of encouraging her to walk, but she seriously was not interested in doing that. She would just stare her brother, who was usually grinning widely while teasing her. The baby seemed to call her brother a moron with her gaze whenever he tried to get her to walk. A lot of the time, Shego envisioned Jayden going, “You dumb ass, just pick me up and stop being so fucking goofy,” when it came to the eight-year-old boy.
Jayden looked up at her brother and noticed the food. She held her teething ring in one hand and pointed with her other. Todd knew that she was pointing at the cereal. He stuck his tongue out at her, taunting her because they both knew that she could not have anything that he ate. Jayden did not like that and tossed her teething ring at him. He was willing to bet that she was trying to hit him in the head, but she luckily had no aim or arm. The ring hit against the bottom of the sofa and he quickly reached down to grab it.
“Oh, it’s mine now,” Todd teased her, waving her teething ring at her.
The baby took exception to that, or so the angry look in her eye implied. He gulped a bit; the expression on his sister’s face reminded him of his She-she. Jayden puffed out her cheeks in anger and put her hand out, silently demanding her toy back. He stuck his tongue out at her, teasing her even more. She narrowed her gaze at him, which caused him to gulp again, but he did not surrender her teething ring.
Jayden made a noise like “yo” as if it was an order to give her back her toy or else; she could not talk, but she had several noises that got her points across. Todd made a face at the baby, which only seemed to infuriate her further. Her eyebrows came close together and she puffed out her cheeks again. She put her hand out again, harsher than before.
“That’s not going to get you this thing back,” Todd informed her, making another face at her and leaning down as if daring her to do something.
Jayden frowned; it would seem that her big brother was asking for it. She stood up, which did not bother him. She stood up all the time; it was nothing special anymore. He stuck his tongue out at her and blew a raspberry at her. Jayden was angry now and it was clear on her face.
“Whaddaya making that face for? It’s not gonna get you the toy back,” he teased, waving the teething ring in her direction.
Jayden then did something that made Todd’s face fall; she took a step. She took a step without holding on to anything. His mouth dropped open. His brain was ordering him to call their parents for them to see, but he could not remember how to talk. She took another step and then moved like she was going to take another one, but she fell back. He was still speechless while Jayden was pushing herself back up to her feet.
“Holy crap,” Todd muttered and then he got up from his seat on the couch. He put his breakfast down and grabbed Jayden, who began reaching for her toy. He rushed upstairs and burst into their parents’ room. “Kimmie! She-she! Jade walked!” he reported in a hyped up tone.
Shego and Kim were laid out on the bed, trying to take a nap. They were startled by Todd bursting in and they sat up with panicked looks on their faces; Shego even put a hand up as if she was expecting a fight. Between the baby, running around with Todd, and working fulltime, life was catching up with them and they really just wanted eight straight hours of sleep. There was really no way in all the world that they were ever going to get that eight hours though, and they knew that.
“Huh?” the parents said in dazed tones while trying to will their eyes to stay open in order to pay Todd the attention that he seemed to want at the moment.
“Jade walked!” Todd repeated.
“She did?” they asked, now mostly awake because of the information that they were getting. They could not believe that lazy Jayden actually walked somewhere.
“Yeah! She took two steps! Let’s see if she’ll do it again,” Todd said while putting the baby down. Jayden did not move; she still wanted her teething ring back. “C’mon, Jade. C’mon. Walk again. Walk for your mommies. C’mon,” he urged little girl.
Jayden looked at her brother like he was extra-stupid. She put her hand out, which confused him. He forgot that he had her teething ring. He continued to urge her to walk for their parents, who were watching and hoping that she would, but Jayden was still just looking like her brother was an idiot. Jayden made her demanding noise again that sounded like “yo.”
“Smiles,” Shego said, realizing one of the reasons why Jayden probably was not going to move.
“Yeah, She-she?” Todd replied.
“You got her ring. Give her that and then maybe she’ll do something,” the pale woman suggested.
“Oh,” Todd smiled sheepishly. “I forgot I had this thing.”
He handed the teething ring back to the baby, who cheered and grinned as if she had accomplished something truly great. Jayden shoved the ring in her mouth like it was made of the juiciest meat that ever existed. With her toy back where it belonged, Jayden sat down for a moment; apparently, those two steps from earlier had taken a lot out of her.
“No! Jade, you’re not supposed to sit down! You should walk over to She-she and Kimmie! Look, go to them!” Todd pled while pointing to their parents, who were still sitting up in bed and watching the siblings.
Jayden looked back between her brother and their parents, but she did not move. She continued chewing on her teething ring; evidently, she was not going to be anyone’s show, even if they were her parents. Todd groaned and dramatically fell to the floor; his sister sure was stubborn. Shego and Kim figured that Jayden was not going anywhere, so they thought that it was safe to lie back down.
Kim eased down first and Shego soon followed. Right before Shego hit the pillow, she noticed movement at the edge of the bed. At first, she thought that it was Todd playing around and she was going to ignore it, but then she saw that Todd was still lying on the floor. What was that movement then? She peered over the edge of the bed and saw that Jayden had stood up and was holding onto the bedspread.
“Princess,” Shego said in a low voice, shaking Kim just a bit since it looked like she had fallen back to sleep.
“What?” Kim asked curiously.
“Look at our mini-monster. She might actually be about to do it,” the green-skinned woman replied in a low voice. She did not want to talk too loudly to avoid startling the baby.
The olive-eyed hero sat up slightly to peer at their baby. Todd noticed what was going on too and remained silent as Jayden just stood there for a moment, chewing on her toy and holding the bedspread. She then suddenly dropped her teething ring and turned her attention to the bed. She leaned forward and started biting a handful of the covers. Shego leaned forward, as if she was going to stop Jayden from doing that, but Kim held her back.
“Wait, let’s just see what she does,” Kim whispered.
“But, I hate when she bites on everything like that,” Shego objected in a whispered tone too.
“I know, but let’s give her a moment.”
Shego sighed, but she silently agreed to that. They all watched Jayden, who seemed rather unaware of the eyes that were on her. She made a noise while pulling the cover out of her mouth; the noise sounded like “ah.” She then started moving along side the bed, calling out “ah” all the way around. Everyone was speechless to what they were seeing; Jayden was walking.
Jayden made it all the way around the bed to Kim’s side. She called out “ah” again and the next thing she knew, she was being snatched up by her redheaded mother. Kim was grinning madly and she hugged the baby tightly. Shego joined in while Jayden proudly yelled another “ah!”
“I told you she walked!” Todd shouted in an awed tone as he bum-rushed the bed to join his family in praising the baby. He picked up her teething ring along the way and gave it back to her.
“Gah!” Jayden declared proudly, holding her teething ring up in the air as if it was a trophy. She then shoved the toy back to where she felt it belonged, namely in her mouth.
(New day)
Shego thought that she, Kim, and the rest of the nutty lot that they hung out with were out of their minds and she thought that because of what they did for their babies first birthdays. They threw actually parties for the babies, even though they were just babies and they did not even have any friends really yet. It started with Betty of course since Mayah was the eldest of them all.
Mayah’s first birthday had been a weird thing because Mayah was the eldest. She seemed to enjoy the party because it gave her a chance to be around Todd the whole day, no matter how much he tried to run away. Bokuden had only been six months old and could not do much. Hell, Raziya was only a month old and Jayden had not even been born yet. But, there was still a party with the silly hats, a cake, and even a piñata. Ron had been all over that piñata, but somehow Kim had gotten most of the candy. Kim had not been able to reap the rewards because Ron squealed on her, telling Shego that she had all kinds of sweets, which were out of her diet as far as her spouse was concerned while she was carrying their baby. Ron emerged the victor of that battle, although Kim called foul whenever it was brought up.
Bokuden’s first birthday was just as strange. Mayah helped him open his gifts because he did not seem too interested in tearing things open. He actually just watched her open his gifts and since he did not raise a funk about it, his parents did not either. Mayah was not interested in the gifts after she ripped the paper off of them, but Bokuden at least showed some intrigue with the few toys he got; most of the gifts had been clothing for him. Once again, everyone had been subjected to party hats, which Raziya did not like much and snatched hers off every time someone dared place it on her head. Bokuden had not seemed too interested in the party until the cake was brought out. All he wanted was to put his hand in the cake when it was presented to him and Ron ended up blowing out the candle while Yori held the blonde child at bay.
Raziya’s first birthday had not been much better, especially since all of the babies could walk by then. Mayah was the easiest one to keep track of since they knew that she would be chasing Todd. Jayden was also easy to keep track of because she still did not like walking, even though Shego tried to encourage her to do so by not picking her up when she whined about it. It was just really hard to ignore such a pathetic look, which Shego was certain Jayden got from Kim, from someone that was so tiny, so Shego ended up caving and picking Jayden up a lot; Kim did not even bother to resist and just took the baby in her arms whenever she came around.
Bokuden just followed food while at Raziya’s party because there were plenty of finger foods. Felix tried to get the kids to play musical chairs; no one knew why he thought that would work. They all put the kids next to the row of chairs and started the music. The kids did not move until Mayah turned to Bokuden and slapped him. He slapped her back. Jayden wandered off over to her brother, who picked her up and she revealed a new trick of hers; she head-butted him. Raziya took it upon herself to knock over all of the chairs and made sure to look rather proud about that.
One would think that by Jayden’s first birthday, they would have had their acts together. They had already been through four birthdays; Mayah turned two a month before Jayden turned one and there had been a party for her. But, once again, they tried to set things up like it was a real party, instead of a party that was going to be attended by toddlers with no attention span or desire to do what anyone wanted them to do.
Between the way the little kids continuous ripped up their party hats and ran off when games were introduced, the parents all finally gave up halfway through Jayden’s party. They all put their kids down in the backyard and just told them to do whatever they wanted to. All of the kids were to play in the dirt. Their parents did not even bother to stop them.
“Do you think they’ll always be that out of control?” Monique asked.
“Nah, surely they’ll grow out of it,” Kim replied with an optimistic smile.
“They better,” Betty stated and there were a round of nods in agreement.
Next time: Betty has news while Jayden gets sick for the first time. What’s a mother to do?