How Green Becomes Wood

It took some convincing, but eventually Ivy reached out to take the other ball, although it wasn't nearly as interesting as the paper. She attempted to hold onto both, and she bounced in Alec's lap, mumbling as she held both up to him.
 
"Those are two very good choices you have there," Alec assured her. He offered her a bright red crayon. "How about this instead of your paper? At least it's harder to eat fast. Certainly doable, but harder."
 
The red crayon was certainly tempting. It was so bright, and tantalizing. She reached out and tried to grab it with the same hand she held the paper, but the ball was too big and she ended up dropping it in favor of the crayon before screeching excitedly and bouncing the crayon up and down at both of her brothers.
 
The twins clapped and praised Ivy for her capture of the red crayon while Alec subtly used his foot to nudge the paper out of Ivy's line of sight. Out of sight, out of mind, right? The twins colored with Ivy for a little longer before Alec decided it was time to move. He was getting tired of sitting on the floor, so he decided to take her outside to the garden while Xander picked up the paper and crayons and other things, making certain everything was properly put away and out of her reach.
 
Daizi was out in the garden pulling weeds, and hearing Ivy's squealing she guessed they must have been finished with their art, so she asked, "How did the drawing go? Did she create a masterpiece?"
 
"Has she not?" Daizi asked, standing up and coming over to them as she wiped the dirt from her hands, "Don't worry Hummingbird, Mama can't draw either. She doesn't need to know I can make marks on the page."
 
Alec picked a spot near Daizi but far enough away that hopefully Ivy would stay focused on the dirt and plants in front of her instead of begging to see her mother. Daizi seemed to be enjoying her garden work, and he didn't want her to have to stop prematurely. So, he worked at pointing out plants to Ivy that she could grab and pull, taking great care to keep her out of arm's reach from the good plants they wanted to keep.
 
Ivy did grab at the plants and fiddled with the dirt, but it didn't strike her as particularly interesting. This wasn't nearly the most fun game she had gotten to play, and instead she tried to crawl over her brother and get his attention, although it confused her why she had been pulled away from her mother.
 
Alec did his best to keep Ivy distracted and entertained, but eventually she did get to be too much for him, and he took her over to Daizi. It was probably going to be time to change her soon, anyway, but he did hope he'd managed to give Daizi enough time to truly enjoy herself.
 
"Hi there, habibti!" Daizi said cheerfully, lifting Ivy up above her head before bringing her in for a kiss. Almost immediately, Ivy clung tightly to her and tried to grab for her hair, fussing when she couldn't because Daizi had it put up. "Oh, did you miss me, sweetheart? It's okay, Mama's here, I missed my dear Ivy-Qadira too. Yes, I did. Oh, listen to you! You're more like a koala than a Hummingbird." After giving her another kiss, Daizi turned towards Alec to ask, "Did she give you much trouble?"
 
"Good, I'm glad," Daizi said, swaying as Ivy settled, "I'm glad she got some good time with her brothers. It's good for her... although it's nice to know she misses me like this. But, Ivy, you really need to learn what is not a food."
 
Following after him, Daizi said, "We settled on a baby group we've committed to trying. She isn't going to be particularly interested in playing with other babies yet, but we need to get her around more strangers, for her sake."
 
"Really? She won't be interested in other babies?" Alec asked in surprise. "One of the few things our mum told us about raising us as babies was the fact that we were easily entertained. All she had to do was put us facing each other, and we'd spend at least an hour cracking each other up. Weird."
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top