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“Moooooms!”
Rose and Luisa both open their eyes, but stay lying in bed, staring at the ceiling for another moment.
“You or me?” Luisa asks with a yawn and when Rose gets up, she sighs in relief and turns to the other side again.
Rose tiptoes down the dark hallway, not bothering to switch on the lights; they’d been living in this house for 11 years, so she knows her way around in the dark just fine, and she doesn’t want to wake Mia, who should be fit for school tomorrow.
She pushes open the door to Magnolia’s room and quietly slips in, finding her 4 year old daughter sitting on her bed, wide awake.
“What’s going on, sweetheart?” Rose asks gently and sits down beside her daughter. “You should be fast asleep… It’s half past one in the night, Maggie.”
Magnolia nods her head, making her red curls jump, and crawls closer to her mom, snuggling into her side.
“Mommy,” she starts in a whisper. “I can’t sleep because… because there’s a monster under my bed!”
Her big blue eyes go even wider, and she clutches to Rose, as if she was some sort of human shield.
“A monster?” Rose asks dryly, following it up with a barely hidden yawn. “Well, then I’ll just have to say hello to your monster and ask kindly if it could leave my daughter’s bedroom, so she can catch some sleep.”
Rose is already getting up, but Maggie grabs her arm once more. “Mommy! You gotta be careful, okay?” she asks and reluctantly lets go of Rose’s sleeve.
Her mom nods her head, whispers an “Okay” back, and kneels down in front of Magnolia’s bed.
She lowers her head towards the floor to get a good look under the bed, and-
“WHAAAAA!”
Rose doesn’t even flinch. She just stares at that other, equally freckled face, framed by red curls, aka Azalea lying under the bed.
“Mommy, shhh! Don’t freak out now, but I am the real Maggie, and the monster is on the bed! I just tried to hide from it down here,” Azalea tries in a very dramatic voice, after not getting the reaction she had hoped for.
With an unimpressed face and a raised eyebrow Rose gestures her to come out.
The twins were having great fun lately, because they had found out how most people had trouble telling them apart; they just didn’t really understand that didn’t count for their mommies or Mia.
“You’ve got to sleep, butterflies. You’re big girls, aren’t you? Big girls don’t try playing jokes on their mom in the middle of the night,” she tells them, sitting down on Magnolia’s bed once more, with Azalea on her lap. “You both tell me and mama every day, you don’t want to take a nap after lunch anymore, but if you keep on playing monster at night, it’s no wonder you’re sleepy zombies during the day, hmm?”
The twins nod.
“Did I scare you? A bit?” Azalea asks hopefully and snuggles into Rose.
“It takes more than a four year old, baby ghost to scare me,” Rose grins and kisses her daughter’s freckled cheek.
After she’s tucked Magnolia in and gave her a goodnight kiss, Rose carries Azalea over to her own room, doing the same with her.
She shuffles back to her own bed, finding her wife passed out on her side of the bed.
“Lu,” she whispers and strokes her shoulder; without success.
“Luisa. Move.”
She tries pushing Luisa over to her side, but only earns a grunt from her.
“Just come here,” Luisa mumbles, and puts her arms around Rose’s neck, making her lose her footing and fall onto her. Luisa just giggles, and now it’s the redhead’s turn to grumble.
“Scoot over to your side of the bed.”
“This is my side too,” Luisa whispers, placing a suggestive kiss on the hollow of her wife’s throat. “We share everything, remember?”
“Yes, but this is the side I always sleep on, so I can claim it my adverse possession, and therefore you gotta move over now!”
Luisa lets out another sleepy giggle and scoots over just a little, still keeping her arms wrapped around her wife. “Cut the lawyer crap; it’s 2am. What was going on anyways?”
“Maggie and Zaza thought it would be a good idea to try scaring me at 2am,” Rose yawns and nuzzles the brunette’s neck.
“I take it, it didn’t quite work?” Luisa chuckles and pulls her love impossibly closer.
“What did you think? They’re four! I might have a heart attack because of their cuteness, but that’s about it,” Rose slurs and closes her eyes.
-
“They need to stop this,” Rose curses and pushes to blanket off with so much force, she almost throws it off the bed.
“Babe, wait,” Luisa mumbles. “I’m coming too. I’m scared you will turn into the monster tonight.”
Azalea and Magnolia had been trying to scare Rose almost every single night this past week, and they had not succeeded yet, so they kept on trying new things every night.
On Sunday, Azalea had been the one telling her, she’d heard a burglar downstairs, and seconds later, Magnolia had sprinted into the room, wearing a black scarf around her head, covering her mouth and nose.
Tuesday, they had managed to wake Mia, before Rose had given in and gotten up, and they were incredibly disappointed when Rose walked in before Maggie could hide in the wardrobe again.
Luisa had tried to keep out of it, wanting to see how Rose would handle it without freaking out. She had done well until now actually; tried telling them that they had to sleep, just like Mia and their mommies, and that their joke had lost its ‘element of surprise’ after the second time trying to scare her, but we’re talking about four year-olds here.
The twins were back to 2 hour long naps after lunch by now, and Rose and Luisa mostly wanted to do the same.
“Can I start threatening them, Lu? Just harmless stuff like, ‘No dessert for a year, if you wake mommy one more night this week’, or that I’m gonna confiscate both their plushies every single night they won’t sleep?” Rose begs, when she and Luisa drag themselves down the hallway to Azalea’s room.
Before Luisa can answer, the door behind them opens and Mia stomps out, rubbing her eyes.
“This is worse than back then, when they were still babies,” she grumbles.
“How about we beat them with their own weapons?” Luisa grins suddenly and grabs her wife and oldest daughter’s hands, turning around and dragging them downstairs.
Five minutes later, she has produced their costume box from the basement and hands Rose a beard, a green robe, and Santa’s hat.
“What-”
“Mr. Sandman has come in person to tell them they’ve got to sleep. Didn’t you know he does home visits?” Luisa grins.
“I’m not gonna play Mr. Sandman!” Rose protests, when Luisa takes the beard from her hand, to help her fix it. “You play him!”
“Babe, you are the one with the talent in drama, and you can be so very convincing at impersonating somebody that you are not,” Luisa winks, and Rose gets the hint at their past, which makes her grumble even more, while she puts her hair in a messy updo and slides the hat on.
“See, you’ve got the Sandman attitude, Ro, I knew it,” her wife laughs and Mia joins in. Rose pokes her tongue out at them, blowing raspberries when the beard hair gets stuck to it.
“And you Mia, go upstairs, knock on Azalea’s door and lure the two downstairs, okay?”
The ten year old nods her head excitedly and makes her way back upstairs.
About 5 minutes later, they can hear the stairs creak, after Mia has slipped into the room again a minute earlier.
“I put up a trail with my stuffed animals, and then I knocked on the door,” she proudly tells them in a loud whisper, causing both her mothers to motion her to be quiet.
A moment later, Magnolia and Azalea show up in the door to the living room. They’re holding each other’s hands tightly, keeping their bodies pressed together at the shoulders; a real ghost knocking on their door was not what they had expected.
When someone clears their voice in the dark of the room, they shudder and yell a loud “Mommies!” in sync.
“You don’t have to be scared,” a slightly raspy voice from the far right corner answers, and when the small, dim lamp on the couch table suddenly dips the room into a warm, gloomy light, they see a tall, bearded ‘stranger’ sitting in the armchair.
“Are you Azalea and Magnolia Alver?”
Eyes wide with fear, the twins manage to nod, holding each other’s hands so tightly, the tips of their fingers go bright red.
“Shouldn’t you both be fast asleep at this time of night?”
The twins nod again.
“All of my fairies have been complaining their sleepy dust hasn’t worked on you two all week.”
One of the twins swallows so loudly, Luisa and Mia can hear it from behind the couch.
“They even threatened to just not use any of it on you two anymore… Such a waste… But that would mean you could never fall asleep again and would be tired for the rest of your lives!”
Luisa internally thanks Rose for not going overboard, and using any word implying death in her Sandman speech, she was just giving their 4 year-olds; she had really learned a lot about children those past ten years.
“Are you Santa?” Magnolia asks shyly and almost inaudibly.
“No, that’s-” Mia wants to blurt out, but Luisa covers her mouth with her hand, and Rose successfully covers up the noise by clearing her voice loudly again.
“I’m not Santa! He’s a good friend of mine though. I’m the boss of Sound & Sleep Corporation, and I think you own a book about me… “
“You’re the Sandman!” Azalea blurts out proudly, before she realizes that’s still rather scary actually.
A couple of minutes later, after Rose told Magnolia and Azalea the fairies from Sound & Sleep Corp. would sue them, taking away one toy for every night they woke their mommies and sister from now on, she tells them to say goodnight to Mr. Sandman now and go upstairs to their beds, because the fairies would come soon, giving them one last chance.
Once Mia is in bed again as well, Rose and Luisa fall into the sheets of their own bed, wanting nothing more than just sleep, but…
“Mommies!” a wailing voice makes them open their eyes again after only five minutes, and a second later the door opens, revealing a crying Azalea in the doorframe. “I-I… I wanna sleep but… “
Rose is up in no time, picking her shaking daughter up, who right away slings her arms and legs around her mom.
“I’m really… really t-trying to sleep, b-but I-” her voice breaks again, and Rose sits down with her on the edge of the bed, feeling so incredibly bad about scaring her poor, poor girl.
“Shhh Zaza, it’s okay,” Luisa soothes the upset, little redhead in Rose’s lap now too.
“Mr. Sandman said, if I don’t sleep tonight, I can never fall asleep again, and now I can’t! The fairies forgot about me! Maggie is asleep, but they forgot about me!”
Rose looks at Luisa, silently asking if she should tell her the truth about ‘Mr. Sandman’, but Luisa takes over quickly.
“Well, you see, mommy and I aren’t asleep yet either, so the fairies haven’t made it into our bedroom yet. You just stay here, and fall asleep with us, yeah?”
She presses a kiss to Azalea’s tear stained cheek, and Rose puts her down in between them, draping the blanket over their bodies.
Roughly five minutes later, the little girl is fast asleep, having her curls stroked by both her mom’s gentle hands.
-
“Mooooms?”
“In the kitchen!”
Magnolia and Azalea both stagger into the kitchen, and Luisa has to hold back a grin again; the twins had had another growth spurt, and weren’t really in control of their legs presently.
They looked entirely awkward, with their still flawless, pretty babyfaces, and the too long arms and legs.
They were taller than Mia and herself now, leaving only Rose to still be able to look down on their, sometimes just plain annoying teenage-selves.
“So,” Magnolia starts, “Zaz and I made a bet… “
“Back then when we were little, ‘Mr. Sandman’ came to tell us we have to let you both sleep at night, blabla and so on,” Azalea goes on. “Now, who of you two played him?
Rose has gotten up from the table, signature cup of black coffee still in her hand, and her glasses on her nose.
“Why, you think he wasn't real?” she mocks them with a grin, and slings her free arm around Luisa’s waist.
“Ugh, stop it mom! We’re no babies anymore,” Magnolia sighs. “So, I said it was you, mama! Mommy couldn’t have kept a straight face through all of it.”
Luisa looks up at Rose with a smile on her face.
“You underestimate your mom, Maggie.”
The twins stare at them for a second, before Azalea starts to cheer.
“HAaaah! I told you it was mommy! Now, loser, go say goodbye to this month’s pocket money.”
“How is Magnolia going to buy her lunch at school without pocket money, Azalea?” Luisa calmly asks the, by three minutes younger twin, who’s currently doing an (awkward) happy dance, making Rose completely lose it and laugh at her.
“Not my problem,” Azalea gives back with a shrug and glares at Rose, who’s still laughing tears.
She had, on the one hand been kind enough to tell her twins, she knew how weird they felt after growing about 5 inches over the last year, but on the other hand she was the one who was the most amused by their jerky movements.
“Aaha, well darling, I guess it is your problem. Your sister, like yourself, needs to buy her lunch from her pocket money,” Rose tells her, having finally stopped laughing.
“I don’t care! It was a bet, and she lost!” Azalea yells, before storming/ tottering out of the room, making Rose laugh again, until Luisa kicks her in the ribs.
“Wow. Thanks for the support, moms!” Magnolia barks now, and turns around too, heading for the stairs.
“You’re so mean, Ro,” Luisa grins at her wife, who’s gone red trying to hold back another laugh. “Our poor baby girls feel weird enough already with all the growing and crazy hormones, and their mom has got nothing better to do than mess even further with their already impaired self-confidence.”
She turns around, sliding her arms around Rose and stands on her tiptoes to press a kiss to her wife’s mouth.
“But they move like giraffes! I’m sorry, it just looks so hilarious,” Rose giggles and kisses her love back. “What are we gonna do about Maggie’s pocket money?”
“Nah, Azalea isn’t gonna let her twin starve. They’ll be thick as thieves again by tomorrow morning,” Luisa calms her and cuddles more into Rose. “Still, you shouldn’t always laugh at them, babe… You said, the same happened to you as a teen?”
Rose nods her head, smiling softly.
“Yeah, but I was a very lonely giraffe! They’ve got each other, and Magnolia told me, she’s never been a better goalkeeper than lately,” she tells Luisa. “They’re gonna get used to it within a few weeks, and Maggie will soon play in the women’s national soccer team, you’ll see!”
“And you’re not at all setting them high standards, are you?” Luisa rolls her eyes, squeezing her wife’s side.
Just in that moment, the front door is unlocked, and a, definitely shorter, but full-grown person shows up.
“Hey moms,” Mia greets them, dropping her suitcase in the hallway, just in time, before she’s literally being picked up by Rose. “Moooom!”
“I missed you! Why didn’t you call? We would’ve picked you up from the airport. How did you get here?”
Mia smiles, having overcome her ‘everything’s embarrassing’ teenager phase a while ago, and hugs her mom back. “I missed all of you too, and Ben picked me up from the airport,” she answers and hugs Luisa, once Rose has let go of her.
“Hi, preciosa,” she whispers, smiling proudly at her eldest. “How did finals go?”
Mia had moved to Boston a year ago, to study law at Harvard; like Rose had.
Just that her grades were better than Rose’s had been actually; she really had inherited Luisa’s IQ it seemed.
Less so her mothers’ sexuality, but Ben was a boyfriend, one as a mother could only wish for; he had passed the ‘Rose-test’ after all, and that shouldn’t be underestimated.
“Great! Best of my year,” Mia tells them proudly, blushing a little when both her moms look at her with so much pride, it almost hurts. “Where’s the two ginger giraffes mommy wouldn’t stop rambling about on the phone last week?”
Rose and Luisa look at each other.
“As sad as it is, they finally found out Mr. Sandman doesn’t exist, Mia, and I think, they’re silently mourning his loss in their rooms right now,” Luisa explains in a faux-sentimental tone, and Mia starts to laugh.