I was up with Hallie twice through Wednesday night.
Both times, she went to sleep fairly soon.
I was awakened to the sound of Hallie crying loudly bright and early at seven in the morning.
Crawling past Rapunzel, who was still sleeping, I went out to get her.
By the time I'd picked Hallie up, Allie was starting to whimper as well.
Weelll...if I didn't pick Allie up, too, she would start screaming too. So I picked her up in my other arm and bounced the both of them for a few minutes. Thankfully enough, Merida woke up at the sound of Allie's crying, and she came over.
"I'll take my little stinker from ye. Ye look like ye have yer hands plenty full enough with yer own." She said, holding her hands out at Allie. She scooped her up out of my arms and went to settle her down.
In the meantime, Hallie was crying even louder yet.
She didn't quiet down, either. She woke up Jase and Alexis around quarter till nine.
Hoping to get a good impression on Alexis this morning, I made my way over to them both and told them good morning.
"Morning, girls...this silence is wonderful, isn't it?" I said slightly sarcastically, gesturing towards Hallie.
"Morning, Daddy! Yeah..why's she crying so much?" Jase asked me, looking up at me with wide eyes.
"I have no-o-o-o clue at all, dear. I wish I knew, but I don't...How are you this morning, Alexis?"
The little redhead glanced up towards me, and then hunched her shoulders up and stared at the ground. I saw her mouth move, but Hallie was crying just loud enough that I didn't hear her...and I didn't want to press her, so I just left her be.
I resumed my attempts to quiet Hallie, and Allie was crying again now too.
After a while, I thought I heard Jase yell something loudly, but I didn't know if she was just playing with Alexis or not, since I couldn't hear over Hallie and Allie combined, so I didn't butt in.
Pretty soon, I saw Rapunzel emerging from under the bench. I was going to make my way over to her, but before I could catch her eye, she darted off to break off whatever Jase and Alexis were doing. They must've been fighting over something, but over what?
When she'd broken up the fight, I strode over to my wife, noticing her pale face and I saw - didn't hear, but saw - her shoulders droop and her chest heave in a sigh.
"What's the matter, hon?" I asked, worried.
"Nothing..." she trailed off and glanced down at Hallie, refusing to meet my eyes. "Want me to take Miss Screams-A-Lot?"
Nothing? Yeah..I'd heard that before...
"I can handle miss Hallie. What I'd like to know is why you look so..." Zombie-like? Sick? Crummy-feeling?...How did one tell their spouse they looked sick or whatever? "...like...I dunno."
Wrong move.
"Like a zombie? Thanks. I'm fine." She grumbled, crossing her arms and refusing to look me in the eye.
She was definitely not telling me the truth about how she felt, but it was no use picking a fight or anything. "I'm not sure I believe that, but I'll let it slide. What were those two fighting about?"
"Alexis apparently called you names, because she's afraid of you... And Jase flipped on her. I broke it up."
"I see," I said, giving her a quizzical glance. I hoped she'd spill the beans and let me know what had her irked, but she didn't. So I just left to continue tending to Hallie.
Allie cried off and on all day long. Hallie cried for the better part of the day, and she only stopped to take one single nap.
When she was taking a nap, I walked over to my wife, who was looking worse by the hour.
"Are you sure you're alright?" She was sitting on the wicker chair that Blondie had abandoned for awhile, and so I leaned over it from behind.
She tipped her head up to look at me. "Yeah, I'm sure."
"Need to talk?"
Shrug.
"Alright..." I said, glancing one more time at her bloodshot eyes. Wait..bloodshot. Didn't people get bloodshot eyes if they had bad headaches, migraines (yuck, I don't want to talk about THAT), or from lack of sleep or whatever? I hoped she didn't have a headache.
"Do you-"
"I'm fine, hon." She gave me a small smile and rested her head on the hand I'd put on her shoulder.
"Okay...well, if you wanna talk or anything, let me know." I gave her shoulder a squeeze and then turned towards Alexis, who was sitting with Jase.
Jase had been...well...nasty all day long, after her little spat with Alexis.
"How are you two girls doing?" I asked.
"Fine." Jase shot a glance towards Alexis, and Alexis shrank back.
"Do you two want to go for a walk or something to get out of here for a bit? I'm sure Momma-"
"No, I'm fine." Alexis mumbled.
"Yeah. I guess I'll stay, too." Jase told me as well.
"Okay, if you're sure." I gave them both a small smile, but Alexis refused to even look at me.
That's basically how the whole day went.
By the time ten PM rolled around, Rapunzel looked ten times worse than she had this morning, Jase was grumped, Alexis was still unrelenting on her shyness towards me, Hallie was still crying, Allie had finally calmed down...and I think just about everyone was ready to snap at the smallest thing.
Right before Rapunzel started to crawl into bed behind me, Hallie started wailing.
"Get some sleep...I'll be back if I can get her to go to sleep.." she mumbled sleepily, and she was gone before I could offer to get her.
I listened to her quiet chatter with Hallie for awhile, but I eventually fell asleep.
Next time I woke up, it was Too-Early-In-The-Morning-O-Clock, and my wife was crying. To herself, but I could still hear her. I felt for her beside me, but she wasn't there, so I sat up and looked around. When I saw her, she was balled up near my feet, her shoulders heaving.
I scooted down beside her and asked her what was wrong.
"Hmm?" she glanced up at me in alarm. "N-nothing."
Nothing, yet her voice cracked.
"There's obviously something. C'mere," I told her, reaching to hug her.
"I'm telling you, it's-"
I broke her off by pulling her close to me, but she pushed me away.
Oookay.
"You're going to tell me one way or another, girl." I stared at her for a few minutes, and she wouldn't look at me.
I flopped onto my back, still staring at her, and she scooted towards my head so she could try to stare me down.
She lost. "You're not gonna back down, are you..." she said, sounding tired, deflated, and upset.
I silently offered for her to lay down beside me, and she continued to look at me as she took in a ragged breath. My heart squeezed with sympathy for her, because whatever it was had obviously gotten her pretty upset.
She curled herself up into a ball at my side, and I wrapped my arms around her and held her heaving shoulders until she regained composure.
"I-I'm...sorry I shoved you. And you're right. I'm tired, run down, I wish I knew what was the matter with Hallie, aand..and poor Alexis is so scared of Ray coming back that she had a nightmare tonight about him. And I wish she wasn't so scared...and I have a massive headache and I can't go to sleep because of it..." she paused, glancing up to meet my eyes. "You have really gorgeous brown eyes, you know. Oh, gosh; did I really say that? I'm so dumb..I'm just - just too tired to even really THINK straight!" she half sobbed, half gulped out.
Well...that last part there was pretty random. Okay, REALLY random and off the wall to be precise, but the rest was understandable.
And she'd seriously gone all day long with a headache, with the babies screaming and all the other tension going on today? She was obviously stronger than I was if she'd kept her cool all day long with a headache. I just felt bad that she hadn't told me, but at the same time, I wasn't surprised that she hadn't.
"I'm sorry, hon. I wish I knew what was up with Hallie, too. But don't worry...Alexis will come around. But why didn't you tell me you had a headache? That's crummy."
Her shoulders pulled up into a shrug. "I didn't think I needed to. I mean, you wouldn't have been able to do anything about it, anyway. That, and I felt kind of dumb being so grouched about it, when that's not even CLOSE to what you dealt with, with the migraines."
"Yeah, but it's not dumb. Headaches stink as well." I told her. I wanted to give her a kiss, but I didn't want to aggrivate her, so I didn't.
She stretched her legs out and wormed a bit closer into my side, and so I tightened my arms around her. She put her head on my chest, and my heart pounded for a few minutes. I fumbled for something else to say, and I finally offered to get up with Hallie through the night.
"No...I can-" she mumbled, her voice slightly muffled.
"You can go to sleep and get rested up. Your headache will go away if you get a good night's rest." I told her, hoping she'd think about that and accept it willingly.
"But you'll-" she started.
You'll get a migraine.
Well, these things happened sometimes.
But you, my dear, need to get rest.
I'm supposed to be cured of migraines, anyway.
I didn't say any of these things, I just broke her off and said, "Be just fine. I was fine today, and I will be fine tomorrow."
She sighed in defeat. "Okay...well, thanks, honey."
"Sure, hon." I paused, deciding to risk teasing her. "Oh, and for the record? You've got the most captivating green eyes." So it wasn't really teasing..it WAS true, but hidden in a tease. If that makes sense.
"Knock it off." she grumbled, huffing.
"Oh, I'm just teasing, hon. Actually,..." Woops. I hadn't thought THIS through. "I-it's true, and I'm...not really TEASING, but - you know."
"Y-y-y-y-y-yeah-h." she drew the word out, and I could hear her getting irritated with me.
"Okay, I'll let you get to sleep now. Night," I paused to plant a kiss in her hair and then I pulled her just a bit closer and sighed as I realized how tired I was. She gave me a one-armed hug and I wondered if she could hear my heart pound, since her head was still on my chest.
"I love you, my dear girl... I hope tomorrow's a better day," I told her, but she didn't answer, and her chest rose in deep, even breaths, so I figured she'd finally gone to sleep. I removed one of my arms from around her and carefully reached to pull the handkerchief over her, hoping to goodness I didn't move around enough to wake her up again. [Yeah. Try to hold someone at your side, with their head on your chest and an arm around you. And reach something juuuuust an arm's length away, without moving a centimeter. Or waking anyone up. Not the easiest thing in the world!] And then I went to sleep.
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