Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 80562 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80562 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Between Walker, who is growing every day and always presenting new challenges for me as a mom, and everything that happened with Jake and the risk of losing my family’s business… well, I’m going to give myself a pass. I’m just lucky I remembered to put pants on this morning.
I look down, double-checking that I did, in fact, put on pants. Okay, it’s a skirt. But we’re not half-naked, so we’re doing good enough.
Once I shut off the water, I fire a text out to Cade, asking if he can come help.
It’s not long before a frazzled-looking woman with suds in her hair appears in the lobby, asking when the water will be back on.
I smooth things over, promising a discount to her and the other two guests who come down before I can call the rooms and let them know I’ll have the water back as soon as possible. For now, I send her back upstairs with a pitcher of water I had set out in the lobby.
Walker has graduated from sleeping most of the time to just sleeping a lot of the time. I have a play area on wheels that I drag around the B&B with me. He’s not crawling, but he’s showing more awareness of the world. I can even get him to smile sometimes. He's not laughing yet, but the pediatrician said that could come any day now.
I’m admiring him–a tactic I’ve found helps calm my nerves when I’m stressed. He’s wiggling around, swinging his arms up and down while lying on his back. His eyes are on me, and I can tell he’s actually seeing me. I smile down at him, ticking his belly and getting a smile.
His face screws up for a moment, turning red.
“Oh, don’t you do it,” I warn, lifting a finger. “Walker Scott Prince. If you poopy your diaper, I will–”
He lets out a shuddering grunt, relief clear in his little features. Then he’s smiling again as the smell reaches my nose.
I sigh. “You’re lucky. You know that?” I ask, unbuttoning his onesie and grabbing a diaper. “If you were even this much less cute?” I hold up my thumb and forefinger an inch apart. “You’d be in trouble. I might not think it’s cute that you can’t just poop all at once like a normal human. No,” I say, wiping him clean. “You think it’s necessary to poop every two or three hours. All day. Just save it up, hmm? Doesn’t that sound like fun? Wouldn’t you like it if Mommy didn’t have to do this so often?”
Unsurprisingly, Walker offers no feedback. In fact, he looks sleepy.
“Am I boring you?”
“Nope,” Mia says from the doorway. “You guys are super cute together. You know that, right?”
“Oh, hey. I didn’t even hear you coming in.”
“Yeah, well,” Mia plops down on a couch in the lobby of the B&B. Grams and Edgar haven’t been by this week because they’re in Colorado for a “lovers retreat.” Nobody asked any questions, even though we could tell they wanted us to.
“Probably hard to hear when you’re doing all that baby talk,” Mia says.
I give Walker his pacifier, and he sleepily sucks it into his mouth, eyes closing all the way. I touch his belly gently, then smile and leave him to his nap. All that pooping will wear a guy out, I suppose. He needs to recover if he’s going to keep up his impressive pace.
I join Mia, taking the couch across from her.
She’s looking up at the ceiling, then points. “That looks bad. Is that water?” she asks.
“Yep. That’s a water stain. My guests are currently getting a discount while I wait for Cade to finish hockey practice so he can come fix the pipe. Then he will ask me why I didn’t replace my pipes with whatever he told me to replace them with the last time we talked. Lectured by a teenager. That’s what my life has come to these days.”
“I see,” Mia says.
I can tell she’s waiting to say something but probably doesn’t want to seem insensitive to my troubles by bringing it up right away. I sigh. “Out with it.”
Mia smiles, leaning forward and letting her excitement show fully. “Okay. So, you know how we discussed needing more game ideas for the Frosty Harbor Wedathon?”
I narrow my eyes. “Didn’t we veto that name? I think I remember saying it felt too grand for what’s essentially just going to be a few fun party games every day.”
She waves off my question, continuing. “I’ve got ideas. Great ones, actually. First of all, I got Nolan to agree to cater the whole thing.”
“Catering? We didn’t talk about–”
Again, she waves my concerns away. “You can just shut your cute little mouth and accept it because this is happening. We all love you, and we all want this whole wedding and engagement to be freaking amazing. So your Frosty Harbor Wedpocolypse will be the smash hit of the winter. Nolan isn’t charging anything, obviously. So if you’re stressed about that part, you can just stuff it.”