It’s always something.
Christmas, oh what a wonderful thing Jayden and Raziya happily ruined for their classmates. They ruined it because Todd ruined it for them. Despite their genius, Jayden and Raziya did have childish hope and belief in magic to the degree that most children their age had, until they started thinking about things anyway. So, when Todd told them, along with their friends, that Santa did not exist and he explained why it was not possible, they had to believe him. He was right, so they had to tell all of their classmates that Santa did not exist; Mayah and Bokuden were doing the same thing.
Todd had told them that Santa did not exist because he honestly did not like some imaginary fat man getting all credit that their fantastic parents and grandparents deserved as far as Christmas went. He actually resented that Kim used to tell him that Santa was the one that brought the presents, but he forgave her as he understood that she was trying to provide a childhood for him that he sorely needed back then. Jayden and her crew did not need that, which was why he spilled the beans about Santa. They did not seem to mind either, being rather pragmatic for kids their age. Mayah had gone so far as to say she wondered why a fat guy was allowed do break and enter every house on the planet, even if he was not stealing anything. Jayden had always been stumped by flying reindeer, wondering why only those twelve could fly out of all of the reindeer in the world. Raziya had been skeptical on Santa once no one would tell her how he fit down a chimney. Bokuden wanted to know the basic question of how he delivered to houses without chimneys. They pretty much could only buy magic in a certain quantity and Santa seemed to have too much of it for them, so they accepted what Todd told them without much resistance.
The kids actually got in trouble for “killing” Santa. Their classmates went home and told their parents, who complained to the teachers, who called in the crew’s parents only to discover something deep. None of the crew’s parents cared. The two teachers called all of parents of Jayden, Raziya, Mayah, and Bokuden only to find that they were not very sympathetic to the fact that their kids might have ruined Christmas for two whole classes.
In fact, Shego and Betty had both hung up once they found out that why they were getting calls from their daughters’ teachers. Dahntay had listened all the way through before deciding that at some point in time a kid was going to learn that Santa was not real and he did not understand why he was being harassed about Mayah just destroying a make-believe character. He remarked that he would be sure to discipline her when she started slandering Bugs Bunny.
Kim had not been in the best position to listen to something that she quickly understood was stupid. Jayden’s teacher had called her while she was hanging over a very active volcano. She probably would have listened to what the teacher was talking about if it was important, but to tell her that Jayden had ruined Christmas for the class because she blabbed that there was no Santa Claus was not really taking her attention away from getting out of the volcano. She sort of brushed the teacher off, citing a very important matter that had her attention, which happened to be bad guys shooting at her while she was still hanging over the volcano. She disconnected the call without totally explaining why.
Felix did not answer his office phone when Raziya’s teacher called him. He was swamped and had to prepare for a presentation to make sure that he did not lose his funding. He had no doubt that he was going to keep getting money for the simple fact that his project was moving along very well, but he still wanted to make a decent presentation to everyone. So, he did not bother with phone calls, unless they were coming from his wife.
Monique was doing work too, but she did answer the phone when the teacher called. She really had no sympathy for the kids that Raziya “ruined” Christmas for. She was glad that Todd told Raziya that Santa did not exist because she certainly would have gotten to it sooner or later. And if not her, Felix definitely would have done it. The only reason that they celebrated Christmas was because Raziya’s friends did and they did not want her to feel left out.
Yori did apologize for Bokuden’s behavior when she received the call from his teacher. She also gave the impression of brushing the teacher off, though. She was not trying to be that way, but Nobunaga was crying and she had a baby to tend to. Once she was certain that the teacher was not calling because Bokuden was injured or something like that, she did want to get off of the phone as soon as possible.
Ron had also apologized for Bokuden’s behavior when the teacher called him. He did not understand why he had gotten such a phone call if the teacher called his wife, though. The others were of like mind on that. Was it really necessary for all of the parents to get a phone call over something like the kids telling their classmates that Santa did not exist? It really was not that serious and they all agreed on that.
The kids, of course, liked Christmas. Any holiday that called for them getting gifts was always great. Bokuden was actually glad to find out that he and his family were not going to Japan that year for Christmas, which had been working its way as a tradition for them. Yori’s family came to them that year because no one wanted Nobunaga traveling at only two months old. Bokuden was glad that the family was coming to them, though. He liked his mother’s side of the family just as much as he liked his father’s side; they all typically saw Ron’s family on Thanksgiving and they usually saw Yori’s family over Christmas. He just disliked going to Japan.
Bokuden was happy that he did not go away because it snowed on Christmas. After opening presents and everything, Ron drove him over to Betty’s house where all of his friends were playing in the backyard, making a snowman and things like that. They were all having fun and Bokuden was glad to join in, going over to the snowman with Jayden and Raziya. Ron joined in too, helping on the snowman like Kim and Monique were.
Shego and Betty were inside, but they had blinds open, so they could look out into the yard. They had been out there earlier, but Betty said that she wanted to talk to Shego, which was when they retreated into the house. The pale woman wondered what it was that her boss wanted to talk to her about.
“Shego…” Betty started to say and her voice sounded uncharacteristically weak. She even looked a little scared. “I think…I think I might be pregnant again,” she admitted.
“How? Aren’t you on the pill or some shit like that?” Shego inquired, not noting the severity of the situation; well, the severity that her friend seemed to be placing on the situation.
“You know…every now and then I forget to take it…” Betty confessed, still sounding rather feeble and frightened.
“You forget?” the pale woman asked in disbelief. She wished that Betty would forget other things, like the fact that all assignments needed to be presented as a written report.
“Well, you’ve done this job before! I get stressed and I forget sometimes, especially lately with the department expanding again,” Betty explained and then she sighed. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Well, first, you should probably confirm you’re pregnant and the next step would be to tell your husband,” Shego replied while motioning outside to Dahntay, who was being mercilessly pelted with snowballs by his own son.
“Shego…what if I am?” the one-eyed woman asked, fearing strapping its way out of her throat to join her voice and show her apprehension to the idea.
“What do you mean, what if you are? You have the fucking baby, doy,” the pale woman answered.
Shego knew better than anyone save Dahntay how Betty felt about possibly having another baby, especially now. Her age freaked her out with Aztek and what happened with him. Now there she was four years older and possibly having another child. But, if she was pregnant, all she could do was have the baby in Shego’s opinion. It was not like Betty would want to even think about her other option.
“Do you think it’ll be all right?” the brown-haired female asked.
“Bets, you did fine with Mayah and sure Aztek’s nutty ass showed up early, but he’s fine now. Really fine,” Shego commented while pointing to the aforementioned boy, who now doing dives onto his father since Dahntay was lying in the snow.
“What if this one shows up early too?”
“Then you’ll just have another Aztek on your hands. Bets, you worry over dumb things. Go to the doctor and get a confirmation before you freak out and then what you need to do is celebrate because you know you like having kids just as much as any of us,” the green-skinned woman said.
Betty sighed. She hated that Shego made so much sense now. She could remember before the wife and kids and she knew that Shego would have just told her to stop whining and do whatever the hell she wanted. Now, Shego sat down and talked things out, like a normal friend, which Betty obviously needed at certain points. She glanced over at Shego and smiled a bit. Shego pretended not to see.
“Watch this,” Jayden said to Raziya with a mischievous glint in her olive eyes.
Raziya was not sure what she was watching until Jayden took off and did a flying leap at the snowman that their parents were now solely working on. She almost jumped high enough to take the head clean off of the four-foot-high snowman. Kim, Ron, and Monique backed away as the little raven-haired munchkin came crashing into their creation.
“Way to go!” Raziya and Bokuden cheered loudly with pride.
“She just kicked in the chest cavity of our snowman,” Ron complained, staring at their fallen hard work, crumbled in the dirt.
“Build another one so we can give it a go,” Raziya urged the parents while pointing to herself and Bokuden, who nodded in agreement.
“They want us to build another snowman just so they could knock it down? Are they crazy?” Monique inquired.
Kim and Ron just looked at her to answer her question. Monique nodded, remembering who she was talking about now. Kim went to check on Jayden and brush the snow off of her. Jayden was fine though, and ran off before Kim could finish the job.
The raven-haired little girl decided to ambush her brother, who was being nice and making a snow angel with Mayah, even though he hated the idea of lying in cold snow. Also, being on the ground put him at risk for what happened, Jayden leaped on his stomach, doing a full belly-flop right on top of him. Todd coughed as his little sister landed on him.
“Jade, you suck,” Todd groaned in agony. He supposed that it could have been worse since his little sister had no problem with putting her knees in his chest when he was lying down.
“Jade, get off!” Mayah shouted in a fury as she climbed to her feet and pushed Jayden off of the redheaded boy.
“Don’t push me!” Jayden barked at Mayah.
“Don’t jump on Smiley no more!” she barked back while falling to Todd’s side.
Jayden came at Mayah before the caramel-skinned girl could do anything for Todd. Jayden tackled Mayah around the waist and they got to rumbling. Todd sat up and just laughed as the pair went at it. Kim and Dahntay watched the kids and then just decided to let them fight. They would work things out on their own, which the girls did.
After the fighting, Mayah and Jayden went back to playing in the snow with everyone else. They were all called in a little while later by Shego and Betty, who had prepared hot chocolate for everyone. Ron then popped in the “Snowman Hank” dvd that he had brought over for the kids to watch; the children loved the show just as much as Ron, which made him all the more upset that it had been canceled. Watching the kids made all of the parents smile, even though Betty was having her own mild crisis.
Betty decided to take advantage of Shego’s good mood brought on by a great Christmas being celebrated by her family and she made Shego go with her to the doctor’s office to confirm her pregnancy a few days later. It was a good way to spoil both of their moods because Betty found out that she was pregnant again and Shego knew that sometime in the summer, she was going to be back to working Betty’s job. To make matters worse, the department had expanded. There was even a chance that they might be their own independent department by the summer, which only further pissed Shego off as she thought about it.
“Don’t worry, you always do a great job when you’re in charge,” Betty told her friend while giving her an assuring pat on the shoulder.
“I won’t worry if you won’t. I mean, you and this kid are going to be just fine,” Shego said with confidence.
“I hope so,” the one-eyed woman muttered and she rubbed her flat abdomen. She always had no problem getting back in shape after she had her kids, even though her job was mostly sedentary in nature. She supposed that she was going to have to endure a workout again in a little less than a year’s time to get her figure back once more.
“You’ll be fine. Now, you get to home and tell your husband and nutty kids that there’s going to be a new addition to your family and you don’t mean that you guys are buying another dog,” Shego remarked with a bit of a smile to help set her friend at ease.
Betty sighed and nodded. She figured that her husband and kids would be happy about things, but she was nervous. She was getting kind of old, in her opinion anyway, and she knew that the older a woman was, the higher the chances for something to go wrong with her pregnancy. She did not even want to think about what could go wrong now, especially after what happened with Aztek.
When Betty got home, she called a family meeting. Aztek was the first to show up, his hands were covered in white glue and he was giggling. Mayah followed, sporting an “I didn’t do it” face, in case the meeting was because something was broken. Dahntay came in last, muttering about what the kids were doing with the school glue and how it definitely was not being used properly.
“What’s up, Ma?” Aztek inquired in his odd, high pitch voice. He did not sound like Dahntay, but his voice was definitely up there as far as tones went. He was soft-spoken for the most part, which contrasted with Mayah’s loud, commanding tone.
“I’ve got an announcement for you all,” Betty replied.
“We can have pizza for dinner?” Mayah asked in a hopeful tone.
“No, we’re not having pizza for dinner,” Betty answered and the girl pouted because of that. Betty continued on. “I went to the doctor today—” she tried to say.
“Why? Are ya sick?” the children asked with concern. What would they do if their mother was sick? Well, they were pretty sure their father would fix their mother and there was a higher chance of them getting pizza for dinner. Hmm, the situation suddenly did not seem so bleak. Betty would be surprised to find out that her children were willing to compromise her health for pizza.
“I’m not sick. It turns out, I’m going to have another baby,” Betty announced. Her husband looked shocked; she might as well have said the western hemisphere of the planet sunk into the sea considering his expression.
“Hey, be a sister in there, okay!” Mayah yelled at her mother’s stomach and then had the nerve to poke her. “Okay?” she repeated, just for her new sibling to understand that it better be a sister.
“Can I touch it?” Aztek requested.
“Not with those hands, buddy-boy,” Betty remarked quite seriously, as his hands were still covered in glue and then she turned her attention to her husband. “Why the hell do his hands look like that anyway? I leave you alone for an afternoon and you let them do this damn glue thing again?”
“It could’ve been worse. She didn’t even try to pour it in his mouth this time,” Dahntay replied in his own defense. It was the best that he could come up with considering the fact that all he had to do was leave their kids alone for a minute and one of them was bound to do something mean to the other one.
Betty just shook her head. She and Dahntay eyed each other for a moment. He was not surprised really that she was pregnant again. He noticed how she was with those birth control pills. He had to remind her a few times to take them and sometimes she would just wave him off, as if she would do it later. He was well aware that he was going to have to be extra-supportive because he knew how she felt about being pregnant again. He knew the fear that ate away inside of her.
“We’ll make it through this,” the former thief promised his wife and he embraced her. Betty appreciated the hug and returned it. Mayah got into the act just because it seemed to be the right thing to do, so she hugged her parents around the legs. Aztek was not looking to be left out and join in too, getting glue on everyone. He was such a dirty kid, they all thought.
(New day)
“How in the hell do they all have the chicken pox at the same time?” Monique groaned into the phone in sheer disbelief. She was on the phone with four other concerned mothers, Kim, Yori, Shego, and Betty.
“They all go to the same nasty ass school,” Shego pointed out and her attention was drawn from the phone to her daughter. “Jade, what the fuck did I say about scratching?”
“But, it itches!” Jade whined while dramatically collapsing to the living room floor, which was where their whole family was holed up.
“Sounds like Jade is acting just like Mayah,” Betty commented.
“Ron had to tie Bo to bed to keep him from rolling around on his carpet like a dog trying to stop the itching,” Yori reported with a sigh.
“That boy needs help,” Monique muttered.
“No didn’t catch it, did he?” Kim asked Yori curiously.
“No, I’m glad he didn’t. We’ve been keeping him away from Bo, so he hopefully won’t get it,” Yori explained.
“So, what do you guys want to do? We could gather them all under one roof and let them gripe and moan together?” Betty proposed.
“Kim and Shego’s house,” Monique and Yori volunteered at the same time.
“I agree. It’s settled,” Betty stated.
“How the fuck is that settled? I didn’t agree to that shit,” Shego pointed out in a slightly heated tone.
“Democratic vote. Majority wins. Besides, the kids like your house the best because of the snakes,” Betty countered as if that made everything all right.
“Princess, we’re getting rid of those snakes,” Shego commented.
“We can’t! And the kids aren’t going near any of the animals in this house while they’re sick,” Kim stated soundly. She was not about to risk anything in her collection getting ill while being handled by infected children.
“We’re still bringing them over,” Monique said.
“All right, but you guys better stick around. I’m not watching a bunch of sick psychopaths,” Shego remarked.
“Hey, at least now they’re not so quick and you typically hear them coming since they’re always moaning about it itches,” Monique quipped.
The other ladies laughed, even though they were not very much enjoying the fact that their babies were miserable. They all disconnected the phone call and met up at Kim and Shego’s house. The little ones were all happy to see each other and everyone greeted each other with “It itches!”
The children were all in their pajamas and were regulated into the living room, which was where Jayden had been originally. Todd was in there too, also suffering from the chicken pox because he never got when he was younger and thanks to his sister, he had it now. Todd was lying on the sofa with his pajamas on, which were just black basketball shorts and a dingy maroon football jersey. He looked like he was going through Hell, which was slightly because he had a bit of a fever, but he was the very definition of miserable at the moment.
“Poor Smiley,” Monique commented when she caught sight of him. She did not think he would have the illness as bad as he did, but if he felt anything like how he looked, well, she just pitied him.
“Don’t pity him. That’s what the big baby is looking for,” Shego stated gruffly.
“Besides, Shego was practically cradling him before you guys came in,” Kim said with a huge grin.
“Shut up,” the pale woman huffed and she slightly shoved her spouse for revealing such top secret information.
“Let’s get those maniacs settled in,” Betty suggested, talking about the kids. The other ladies nodded.
They all went into the living room to find Jayden and Mayah fighting already, even though everything on their bodies itched. Mayah got offended because Jayden kept touching Todd, who swatted weakly at his little sister with the hope that she would go away and stop bothering him. So, they ended up getting in a brawl. Betty separated the pair without any words and they just knew better than to go at each other again.
Yori had to handle Bokuden, who was rolling around on the carpet, trying his best to scratch his rash without actually touching it. He figured that if he did not touch it, he could not be scolded for scratching. It did not work out.
“But, it itches so much!” Bokuden practically cried. His pajamas were a plain tee-shirt and grey sweat pants. He had refused to put on any of his good pajamas because he did not want to contaminate them with his chicken pox.
“I know, but you mustn’t scratch,” Yori reminded him and she picked him up with the hope of bringing him some comfort.
Monique had to pull Raziya away from Aztek, who was scratching Raziya more than likely to be annoying, but he was just helping her out as far as Raziya was concerned, which might explain why she was not yelling at him. Raziya’s favorite pastime when Aztek was nearby was to scream at him for whatever nonsense he was into; he did not make it hard.
The kids were straightened out by settling them down on the floor. They each had blankets of their own for them to relax without incidents happening and their mothers all put mittens on their hands to make sure that no one did any scratching. There was plenty of wiggling going on the floor as the group watched Peter Pan, their collective all-time favorite movie. Peter Pan was followed by the cartoon movie of 101 Dalmatians, their second all-time favorite movie. And that was followed by the cartoon movie of the Jungle Book.
Throughout the day, the mothers all made sure that the kids got plenty of liquids. They gave the kids calamine lotion to sooth the itching, which the kids swore to heaven and back did not work. They all complained that they must not be getting enough, but no matter how much lotion that they received, it never seemed to work. The kids concluded that their parents had been gypped at the store and the lotion was faulty.
After the three movies, the kids fell asleep. That fact made Todd happy because it meant that he could go to sleep without having to worry if Jayden was going to touch him in his sleep. So, Todd fell asleep too, looking just as miserable in his sleep as he did when he was awake.
“So, you mean to tell me that your department doesn’t blow up when you and Shego aren’t there?” Monique joked, speaking to Betty. They had all retreated into the kitchen to avoid accidentally waking up the children.
“We do get normal days off like the rest of the world,” the one-eyed woman commented. “Not that you guys know anything about regular jobs.”
“Hey, Mo once had a regular job,” Kim defended her friend. She was sitting off to the side while the others were at the kitchen table. She had a bunch of papers in her hands that she was also going through while talking to them.
“A kick ass regular job,” Monique added. “But, nothing kicks more ass than what I do now.”
“You mean sit on your ass all day?” Shego teased.
“You’re just mad because you don’t get to do that,” Monique countered.
“Speaking of sitting on your ass, Princess, what the hell are you doing?” Shego asked curiously as she turned her attention to her mate. Everyone else looked down at Kim too because they were just as curious.
“Science?” Yori guessed.
“For once, nope. I actually left all of my notes at the lab when they called the other day and told me that Jade was sick. No, this is something I’ve been sitting on for a while,” the redhead answered.
“Which is?” Betty pressed the issue.
“These guys want to make a television show based on my life,” Kim answered.
“Based on your life?” Betty echoed incredulously. Who would want to watch a show about such a brat?
“Yeah, based on my life. I’ve been putting off looking at the first proposal because then I have to meet with them and all kinds of stuff and I don’t know if I want to go through with it,” the hero explained.
“Well, if you do, are we going to be in it?” Monique inquired.
“I don’t know yet. I don’t know much about this. I’m taking the time to look at it now because I don’t have my notes with me to do any work on my venoms or my antivenin thanks to school calling me and making it seem like Jade died in the classroom,” Kim answered.
“They made it seem the same with Bo,” Yori commented with a nod. “I was so worried that I ran out of the school without explaining why,” she added. She taught physics part-time at a high school while also working on a theoretical equation. She wanted to get into experimental physics, but she would rather not do that with her sons around and she did not want to lose any time with the boys anyway.
“I actually thought Felix would get out of his chair and run to the school when they called us,” Monique remarked.
“Oh, you were both home?” Yori asked.
“Yeah, Felix decided to do some work at home that day. I think they scared him off because he hasn’t even talked about doing work at home since,” Monique commented with a bit of a laugh.
“I’m glad they called Dahntay. He told me how they made it sound and I know I would’ve run through my office door to get to Mayah,” Betty said.
“How long do the chicken pox last?” Yori inquired curiously.
“You never had them before?” Shego asked the Japanese female.
“No,” Yori answered. She was glad that Ron knew what the rash was on Bokuden and how to treat it for the most part because she had no clue. She had never had or even seen the chicken pox.
“They don’t last that long, just a few days. We should keep them home for a couple of days after it seems like it’s gone, though. We don’t want to chance infecting other kids,” Betty stated.
“Why don’t we? Some little bastard at that school gave it them,” Shego pointed out.
“Let’s be the bigger people then,” Betty argued.
Shego was about to argue, but they some noise from in the living room. They decided to go check it out, even though they doubted that the kids were up so soon; even if they were up, they would have made more noise. Still, they went to go check and there they found Aztek pouring whole bottle of calamine lotion on himself, head first. They shook their heads.
“Tek is a dirt bomb,” Shego stated and she felt that was a stone cold fact.
Aztek looked over at the adults and did not even have the courtesy to appear ashamed for his actions, which he was fairly certain were wrong. He just wanted the itching to stop and he wanted to see if the lotion actually worked. So, the plan was to cover his whole body in it, although he had not taken off his pajamas before pouring the lotion.
Betty closed her eye for a moment; what was she going to do with Aztek? And to think, she might be carrying another one of him. Parenting was an adventure and it did not get any easier when the other kids woke up.
(New day)
Bokuden seemed to be done with the chicken pox, which made his parents happy. They were also pleased that Nobunaga had not caught the illness. They thought that they had done well until Yori complained of feeling sick and then one day, everything on her body seemed to itch.
“You got the chicken pox!” Ron shouted in disbelief, speaking to his wife.
Yori groaned. Ron actually panicked for a while because he knew that it was bad for adults to get the chicken pox, but Yori’s case was mild. Yori finally understood Bokuden’s plight though. Everything itched and she wanted to scratch so badly. She often gave into the temptation to the point where Ron ended up putting mittens on her hands to prevent her from scratching. She hoped that she was fine in a few days too because she could not take it.
Next time: Meet Betty’s third child and Shego gets a promotion and Kim wants to celebrate.