19// ~Suprise~

Looking over at Ara, I can see her mind is reeling. She's lifted her hand and has one of my fingers slightly pressed into her mouth, chewing down on it. "Hey." She doesn't respond at first, so I say it a bit louder, bringing my hand over to rub her thigh a bit, wanting her attention to be shifted to me. "Hey."

Her head swivels around from the window to me. "What? Sorry."

"You don't need to be sorry munchkin. You okay?"

"Ya." She nods her head. "Just thinking."

"I can tell." I chuckled. "What are you thinking so hard about?"

"I don't know." She shrugged her shoulders and looked down at her hands. "I guess...just thinking about everything that's happened and what's going to happen. I'm not scared, just...nervous, I guess. It's hard to explain."

"I get that. It must be a lot to take in ya? Moving and having so many things change at once."

"Ya." She nods a little more enthusiastic than before. I can tell she's happy that someone gets what she's talking about.

We stay pretty silent the rest of the ride home, although it's only about five minutes. As soon as we pull into the garage I reach my hand up to the button on the roof of the inside of the car and press it. The garage closes and locks behind us.

I shut the car off and step out, watching as Ara does the same. She heads to the back, presumably to grab her bags. "I got them baby, why don't you head inside?"

She nods and skips to the door, opening it and closing it gently behind her. Grabbing the bags out the bag before I close the door, I then make my way inside the same way Ara just went.

As soon as I open the door I see her squirming around on the couch as Morgan is tickling her. She giggles loudly, trying to push Morgan's hands away. "S-sto-p."

"Okay, okay, I'll stop." She lifts Ara up so she's now sitting, and ruffles her hair, kissing the top of her head. We like to apply consent in all situations. Which is kind of a given, but some people don't think of it that way. For example if we are tickling her and she says stop, sometimes people would continue, subconsciously letting her know that when she says stop it's okay for people to continue, and her words don't mean anything. That's why as soon as she said stop and showed disinterest, Morgan was sure to remove her hands and discontinue the tickling.

"What is going on in here little missy?"

She looks over the back of the couch, smiling at me. "Morgy was tickling me and making me laugh so much!" She stretches her hands out to emphasize and show the extent to how much she was laughing.

"Oh my goodness, she is so silly, isn't she?"

Ara nods her head, looking back over to Morgan, who was now smirking at her. I'm sure she didn't miss the way Ara had called her Morgy instead of her full name as she usually does.

Just then, Dani walks down the stairs. Her fiery red hair, pulled back into a slick back ponytail, most likely cause she had gotten hot and it was in the way. She was upstairs putting the finishing touches on Ara's rooms. Yes, rooms. We finished both her big and little room. Both adorned in mainly pink, with pops of other colors such as a sage green or light wooden browns here and there.

"Dani!" Ara got up off the couch and ran to her, wrapping her arms around her waist and burying her head into her chest.

"Hi pumpkin. How are you?"

"Good!" She exclaimed, tilting her head back to rest her chin on Dani's chest and look up at her with a smile on her face.

"I'm glad. Hey, do you want to come upstairs with us, we have a little surprise we want to show you."

"Surprise?"

"Ya." She rubbed Ara's back gently.

"Okay!"

She chuckled before they separated and Dani grabbed onto Ara's hand. Morgan and I followed behind, me still holding her couple bags she had. I would have put them down already but I assumed she wanted them in her room anyway and we were already going there so might as well bring them up now.

We had to walk a bit slower than normal, due to the significant height difference between Ara and us, her little legs still trying to keep up with us.

Once we made it to the door Ara looked up at all of us. "The surprise is in here?"

"Sort of, ya." Dani explained.

Ara furrowed her eyebrows a bit not quite understand why we were standing in front of the door. She didn't know that the surprise wasn't in the room, it was the room.

Dani grabbed the door handle and pushed it open, revealing the completely redecorated room. Fit for a princess.

Ara's jaw dropped open. She didn't say anything, but rather slowly spun, accessing the entire room. The bed was pretty low to the ground that way even if she was big and fell asleep in here, it wasn't too high for her to get off the next morning if she was little. Little flowers were painted above the golden headboard. A small table and chairs placed on the rug, allowing for tea parties or activities. Two chandeliers hang from the ceiling, lighting up the room along with the natural sunlight pouring in from the window.

After a minute of silence, I broke it. "You like it?"

"Like it? I love it! Thank you, thank you!" She ran to us and tried to grab all of us into a hug at the same time, her arms not being able to reach all of us at once. An attempt was made though.

She ran to the bed and jumped onto it, bouncing up and down, a word falling from her lips each time she bounced. "Oh...my...gosh...I...love...it!" She squealed.

We all watched her for a minute enjoying bouncing on the bed, before we made it know that this wasn't going to be an every day thing. "Alright, alright, enough bouncing now." I chuckled at her. "We don't want you falling and getting hurt so we have to stay on our bum-bum when we are on the bed."

She instantly jumped onto her bum, scooting off the bed and placing her feet onto the ground.

"Sowwy ." She mumbled, playing with her fingers and avoiding eye contact.

Did she just? I mean, she's used incorrectly grammar before and her voice has gone a bit higher pitched, indicating her headspace slowly popping out, but that's the first time her pronunciation has been off.

I looked up at Morgan and Dani who also had a shocked expression on their faces, but a small smile adorned their faces as well.

"It's okay. No one is mad and you're not in trouble, we just don't want you to get hurt."

"K." Her face looked a bit happier and she looked up at us.

"We do have one more surprise though. Do you want to go see?" Morgan voiced.

"Nother surprise?" Her eyes twinkled with innocence.

"Ya, another one." I smiled at her. "Come on pipsqueak." I grabbed her hand and led her out into the hallway and to the door next to the one we just exited. "You ready?"

"Ready!" She said a bit louder than normal.

I laughed at her and squeezed her hand a bit. "Okay." I opened up the door and she entered first, all of us walking in behind her.

Her reaction was similar to the first time around, although she couldn't get into the crib on her own so she wasn't able to jump up and down on the mattress inside it.

"I go sleep now." She tried to climb up the side of the crib, failing and slipping down a few times. She continued to try and climb it a couple more times before pouting and running over to Dani, whinging and reaching up to her.

"Aw what's the matter baby?" Dani said, picking her up by her armpits and placing her onto her hip, patting her bum a few times to try and calm her down.

She just pointed to the crib, the pout still upon her face.

"What? You want to go in there now." Dani smiled at her, questioning her wants.

Ara nodded excitedly and pointed to it again. "I go 'seep."

"Let's stay awake for a little bit longer before we sleep. We haven't even had dinner silly girl."

Ara didn't respond, just staring at the crib for a little bit before looking back at Dani and staring at as well. "M'kay."

"Good girl. How about we go downstairs and have some dinner, that way we can relax right after and get ready for bed, cause I think a little girl I know might be a little sleepy, huh?" She tickled Ara a bit.

Ara giggled and then leaned forward into Dani, making it so she could no longer be tickled.

We started to all walk down the stairs, Ara still in Dani's arms. She hadn't yet asked and showed any interest in being put down, so Dani continued to hold her. I mean, who would refuse cuddles with her?

Once we made it downstairs I went into the kitchen with Morgan and we decided to make dinner while Dani kept Ara in the living room with her. We had a few books we had pulled out of the library that we thought she would enjoy and put them onto the coffee table, that way it was easier to grab them quickly and read instead of making her wait or having to walk there and sort through the books to find one she was interested in.

I see Dani pick up one of the books we had out there, 'Charlottes Web', and she picked up where she had left off before. Ara rested her head onto Dani's chest and kept her head tilted to the side so she could see the book just a bit.

After I made sure they were settled, I walked into the kitchen to see Morgan already pulling out ingredients. "What are you making?"

"I figured I'd just whip up some chicken and cheese quesadillas, that way we don't have to wait long since it's already pretty close to dinner time. Plus we already know Ara likes them since she ordered them at the restaurant last week."

"Sounds good."

We work together to make a couple of them for each of us, well...besides Ara. We only made one for her because we know she doesn't have as big of an appetite, which makes sense, she's a lot shorter and smaller than us.

Once we had all the food onto the plates  we set the table. "I love you." I reached out to Morgan and pulled her in, kissing her slowly. She moaned into it and I could feel her mouth lift up into a smile.

"I love you too. Now let's go get our girls and let them know dinners ready."

I walked out of the dining room and to the living room. I felt a smack land on my behind and turned around to see Morgan smirking at me. I rolled my eyes and smiled, continuing my walk to the living room.

We walked in to her hear Dani's voice softly and quietly reading to Ara. Ara's head was still laid down onto her chest, her eyes fluttering open and closed slowly, and the tip of her thumb had made its way to her mouth. She sucked on it slowly, trying to keep her eyes open and on the book as best she could.

"Dinners all ready." Morgan said when she relaxed I was just admiring and not speaking.

Dani looked up at us and closed the book after dog earring the page. She smiled and looked back down at Ara, rubbing the hand that was resting on her back up and down. "Ara baby, you ready to eat some yummy dinner?"

She mumbled out an unintelligible response, but brought her hand onto Dani's chest, using it to push herself up straight. She rubbed her eyes and blinked a few times, trying to wake herself up. She nodded her head and looked over to us.

Ara slowly got herself off of Dani's lap and followed us into the dining room. "Was someone a little sleepy?" I teased her.

"Little bit. Dani's voice nice and relaxing." She smiled, waking up a bit more.

"Maybe after dinner we can finish up reading a little more and then watch a movie or play a game before bed. Do you want to go to bed a little earlier than normal tonight? You a little tired?"

She shrugged. "Don't know. You choose please." She pointed at me as she sat down into her seat at the table.

I chuckled before doing the same. "Okay honey, I'll choose."

We ate our dinner in silence for the most part, listening to the music we had put on in the background, and watching Ara make a mess with the sour cream, guacamole, and salsa we had out on the side of her plate to dip her quesadilla in.

"Done!" She exclaimed, holding her hands out in front of her. They were covered in food and so was her face. Who knew she would be such a messy eater when she was feeling a bit little.

She had eaten a little more than half of what we had plated her which we were okay with so I moved to get a wet wipe and start wiping her down. "Oh my goodness, are you so messy baby?" She just giggled and looked up at me as I cleaned off her hands before getting a second wipe and doing the same to her face. "Okay. Mo- we are going to clean up here, can you be a big girl and go wait in the living room for a few minutes for us."

"Uh-huh!" She nodded her head and ran out of the room, before realizing she wasn't allowed to and slowed her pace down to a walk, before skipping the rest of the way.

"I heard that." Dani said as she walked past me, with the plates in her hand and walked into the kitchen.

Well...let's just hope Ara didn't notice anything. I don't think she did.

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Here is Ara's big girl room!

This is her little room!

As always, this is how i imagine them, but you can imagine them however you want if you don't like the pictures I have used!

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2571 words

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I hope you all likes this chapter! I can't believe we are already at 18k reads now, it's just going up and up so fast!! Thank you, thank you!! ❤️

Question for this chapter:

Do you usually arrive to places late or early?

I am always early! I get places 5-10 minutes early and if I'm not it stresses me out so much cause then people will think I don't respect their time and if you walk in late then everyone stares at you and it's embarrassing!

Bye-bye!

- lauren 💕