Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 85154 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 426(@200wpm)___ 341(@250wpm)___ 284(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85154 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 426(@200wpm)___ 341(@250wpm)___ 284(@300wpm)
“That you need a pen and paper to remember teethers is beyond me,” I snap at him. “It’s like teeth and ers.”
“What helps is putting them in the freezer so she can chew on them.” Addison tries to break up our little tiff.
“How long does this last?” Levi asks her.
“Avery started drooling at six months old and only broke through the gums at a year.”
“Six months!” Levi yells. “That isn’t normal.” Addison just laughs at him.
“Also, if you wet a facecloth and put it in the freezer for thirty minutes, that will help, too.” Addison smiles at me. “Definitely not a fun part of parenting.”
“No shit,” Levi mumbles, “six months. That’s like a lot of days.”
“That is like a lot of days,” Stefano repeats what he just said, shaking his head. “You’re a forensic accountant and don’t know how many days are in six months.”
Levi just stares at me, his jaw getting tight and the vein in his forehead really throbbing now. “Hang up on him,” he growls between clenched teeth.
If he wasn’t so upset right now, I would laugh in his face, but I know he sounds like he is teetering on the ledge, so all I can do is roll my lips and try not to laugh in his face. “Okay, well, thanks for helping,” I tell Addison, who is just shaking her head.
“Call me if you need anything.” She looks at me and then looks over at Levi. “Have fun, you two.”
Chapter Twenty
Levi
I lie on the bed with one hand on my chest and the other hand draped over the pillow that sits in the middle of the bed, listening to the footsteps that are coming closer and closer to the bedroom. My eyes burn from being so tired. “Is she down?” I lift my head when Eva walks back into the bedroom.
She drags her feet toward the bed, collapsing on it with a big thud on her stomach, her feet off the side because of the angle. “Yeah,” she mumbles. I look past her head toward the monitor screen, seeing Cici is lying on her stomach but isn’t moving.
“Was she fussy?” I stop staring at the screen, laying my head back on the pillow, my eyes closing on their own. The burning only making it worse and I’m wondering why I feel like my body has been hit by a Mack truck.
“A little bit,” she relays and I feel the covers moving, so I know she is covering herself up. “I can’t move.”
My eyes open for a second as I look over and she’s turned her head toward me. She’s curled under the cover into a ball, her eyes closed with her hands under her cheek. “The light is on.”
“Not if you close your eyes it’s not,” she notes and I toss the cover off me to get up and turn off the light. I walk over to her side of the bed, turning off her lamp. “We should get the clapper thing,” she mumbles, her body not moving.
“We put her down at seven.” I walk back over to my side of the bed. “And since then she’s been up three times.” I lean down and touch my phone. “It’s now midnight.”
“Thanks for the update,” she snarks and I look over at her chuckling. “Hopefully, she’s down for the night.”
I crawl into bed, afraid to move and make noise to wake her up. Since I brought her home from the daycare, she’s fevered every four hours. You could tell when the meds would be wearing off. She would get extra cranky and we tried everything. I mean everything. As soon as we got off the phone with Stefano and Addison, I got dressed and headed out to Wal-Mart and Target, where I bought every single teether thing I could get my hands on. I couldn’t get over how many different teethers there were. I walked into the house an hour later with three bags full of stuff. I got a giraffe teether. I got a banana toothbrush teether, a pacifier teether, a glove teether, a couple of round teethers you put in the freezer. You name it, I bought it. If it had teether in the title, it came home with me. I don’t think I’m asleep for longer than ten minutes before I hear her crying again.
“This can’t be happening,” Eva huffs and it almost sounds like she’s crying in frustration.
“I’ll get her,” I offer, getting up and walking toward her bedroom. The whine turns into a full-blown wail, then a scream. I walk into the room and she is rolled over from her stomach and is now sitting on her bum. “What’s the matter, girl?” I say softly and she holds her hands up for me to pick her up. “What’s got you this time?” I ask as I put my lips to her head to see if she’s hot, and thankfully she’s not. She looks up at me and uses her fist to rub her eyes. “You tired?” I walk over to the rocking chair. “I think it’s because you have to sleep in order not to be tired.” I grab her pacifier that clips on to her pj’s. “Are you having trouble sleeping?” I ask, sticking the pacifier in her mouth. She lays her head on my chest as I start to rock her, putting my head back on the chair, resting my eyes.