Page 44 of A Dye Hard Holiday
“You would be if you heard that precious little voice curse.” Josh snickered some more. “My favorite part is that he used it in the right context.” His light laughter turned into full-bellied laughs as he recalled the incident.
“Are you going to share?” I asked irritably. I hated that I missed my son’s first curse word.
“He dropped his cookie on the floor and Buddy ate it. I’m not sure if he said it because he was mad or he cursed the dog, but either way it was fucking hilarious. I had to sternly say, ‘Dylan James we don’t talk like that in this house, just the birds do.’ Then I had to leave the room so that he wouldn’t see or hear me laugh. Our dads came with me and we laughed until we cried.”
“Damn, I wish I was here.”
“I’m pretty sure you’ll have plenty of opportunities to correct salty language.”
“Good.”
“You know what else is good?” Josh asked.
“I get two surprises tomorrow?” I asked hopefully.
“Why wait? Do you trust me?”
“Of course.”
I felt him rooting around beneath our pillows then heard a soft buzzing sound when he pulled his hand free. Funny how alert a man could become when his husband pressed a small vibrating object against his taint.
“Oh, holy night, Sunshine.”
IWOKE UP WITHa happy smile on my face and it remained there even after I stepped on Gabe’s belt buckle and tripped over one of his shoes. I couldn’t be angry with him because I knew he was exhausted when he got home and just wanted to get in bed with me. It helped that he sent me back into dreamland with curled toes and a sappy grin on my face like the one I saw in the mirror when I brushed my teeth.
I didn’t lose my good humor until I got downstairs and saw that I had two droopy babies on my hands. Their misery was obvious in their eyes and it broke my heart. I pressed the back of my hands to Dylan’s forehead and he had a fever. Destiny was clammy and damp like her fever had just broken.
“My poor angels,” I said, snatching them from their grandmothers and holding them against my chest. “Colds?” I asked the in-house experts.
“That’s what we suspect,” Martina said. “They’re not teething.”
“I gave them a dose of the infant Tylenol I found in the cabinet,” my mom said. “They both sound a little congested, so you might want to call the pediatrician’s office to see what they recommend for them to take.”
“This isn’t our first rodeo with colds, is it, babies?” I looked at the moms and said, “I have just the thing. If it doesn’t work then we’ll call the doctor for a medicine recommendation, but I’d like to try a natural method first.” The grandmothers followed me up to the nursery where I kept the eucalyptus tummy rub I made for them the last time they were congested.
“Is this like a homeopathic version of Vicks?” Martina asked when she smelled the contents of the jar.
“Yep. They don’t recommend Vicks for children under the age of two, and I’m not crazy about giving my babies over-the-counter meds because they contain chemicals that make their hearts race.”
“You never could take decongestants very well,” my mom said. “Do you use this on yourself?”
“I don’t get sick, but I smeared it on Gabe the last time he had sinus congestion. He wanted to fight me on it, but he thanked me later after he could breathe again.”Boy, did he ever.“Mom, can you get the humidifier from the closet and add a few drops of the eucalyptus oil to the water? That’ll help too.”
“Sure,” both moms said then laughed.
Martina pulled the humidifier down while my mom retrieved the essential oil.
“We can also put a tiny dab of Vaseline in their noses to ease the dryness in their nasal passages,” I told them.
I stripped Destiny down to her diaper and smeared the concoction of coconut and eucalyptus oils on her tiny little chest. When I was done, Martina took her from me to dress her so I could see to Dylan.
“Papa,” Destiny said when Gabe entered the room, but she didn’t sound her normal cheery self.
“What’s going on?” Gabe asked, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He sniffed the air. “Do my precious angels have a cold?”
“Looks like it,” I answered. “We’re going to try a natural method first, and if that doesn’t work, then I’ll call the pediatrician’s office to see what they recommend.”
“It worked great last time,” Gabe commented as he joined me. He dipped two fingers into the glass jar and spread it on Dylan’s chest. “Didn’t it, big guy?”