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Ms. Ilene Easton has seen a lot of different families in her ten years of teaching kindergarten. She’s seen broken families, families with two moms or two dads (and sometimes two moms and two dads), mixed families, foster families, and adoptive families. She’s had students who are only children and students who have two or three siblings. The largest family she’s ever taught had five, and she’d spent a lot of time that year wondering how their parents hadn’t gone insane because she gets to send them home at four in the afternoon, but their parents have them full time, and honestly she couldn’t imagine having some of her students for more than seven hours a day.
So, she’s seen a lot.
Sometimes she thinks she’s seen it all.
But then she meets the Bradfords.
And it’s not that there’s anything wrong with their family. They’re a perfectly nice family, actually, with cute, well-dressed and well-groomed children.
It’s just that there’s a lot of them.
Like… a lot of children.
Mrs. Bradford walks in a few minutes early for open house, pushing a double stroller, wearing a baby against her chest in a very cozy looking baby wrap, and holding the hand of what Ms. Easton assumes is one of her new students, Emma Bradford. She’s smiling, practically glowing, her hair in loose waves around her shoulders as she takes in the classroom with sparkling eyes.
Then two older kids follow her in, and Ms. Easton short circuits a little bit because oh. My. GOD.
“Good evening!” she says, instead of what she actually wants to say, which is something along the lines of did you kidnap some of these children, or are they all yours?
“Good evening! Emma, say hello to your new teacher, Ms. Easton!”
The little girl shakes her head, her sea blue eyes wide as she ducks behind her mother.
“Nuh uh,” she mumbles, and Mrs. Bradford laughs as she walks further into the room, pushing the stroller while Emma trails behind her. Ilene peeks inside (she loves seeing her students' little siblings), and nearly dies from cuteness when she sees the twin girls. They’re probably about two, with the biggest brown eyes she’s ever seen, wide smiles, and wispy blonde hair.
“Aww! Your little sisters are so cute,” she coos, and like she predicted, Emma pokes her head out from behind her mother.
Sometimes kids won’t talk about themselves, but they’ll talk about their little brothers or sisters.
“That’s Isabella and Sophia,” she wisely informs her teacher. “They just turned two yesterday.”
“Oh, wow, and I bet you’re a great big sister!” Ms. Easton says, clapping her hands together. Emma blushes and nods, reaching one hand up to stick two fingers into her mouth as she glances up at her mother. Mrs. Bradford nods, smiling encouragingly as Emma takes a step out from behind her back. “Can you introduce me to the rest of your family?”
Emma nods and turns, two fingers still in her mouth as she talks. Her words are a little muffled, but Ms. Easton has been teaching kindergarten long enough that she makes them out just fine.
“That’s my baby sister, Ivy, she’s 8 months old, and mama said we’re gonna have another baby soon. I hope it’s a bother.”
Ms. Easton nearly swallows her tongue.
Mrs. Bradford is pregnant?
Oh, bless her heart.
She hopes that the woman’s husband helps out a lot, although considering he’s not here, she has her doubts.
“And who are these two?” she asks, motioning toward the older children. She knows the Bradfords must be new to the school, because she thinks she would remember them if they’d gone to kindergarten here.
“My big sissy Lilly and my brother Liam. They’re twins, too, an’ they’re starting second grade,” Emma states proudly.
Ms. Easton does the math in her head (she’s good at counting, after all, since she teaches kindergarten) and realizes that Mrs. Bradford has six children under the age of eight, with another one on the way.
She has a lot of questions (none of which are very school appropriate), so she settles on, “You have a beautiful family!” instead of one of the many other questions she’d like to ask, chief among them “do you know what causes babies?” because she thinks maybe Mrs. Bradford missed that day in sex ed.
“Thank you,” Mrs. Bradford says, and Emma seems to forget that she’s shy, because she bounces in front of her mom and points up at her.
“This is mommy! She has a real name but I call her mommy. Her real name is Lucy,” she says, stage whispering as if it’s a secret.
Lucy laughs and holds out a hand. Ms. Easton takes it, and notes that she has a firm grip. “It’s nice to meet you! We’re new to the school but not the area; my husband and I have lived in Mid-Wilshire since… well, forever. We had to move to a bigger house, and unfortunately the only one we could find that met our specifications moved us from Matthews Elementary to here. The twins are nervous, but Emma has never been anywhere else, so she should be fine.”
“I’m sure they’ll fit right in,” Ms. Easton says as she begins leading the family over toward Emma’s desk. She sits in the purple team, and she watches with a smile as Emma walks around her desk, grinning as she touches her new supplies. Ms. Easton watches her for a moment, but she can’t help glancing at all of the other kids again.
Two sets of twins???
She feels really sorry for Mrs. Bradford’s vagina, because ouch.
Ouchhhhhh.
That’s a lot of babies in seven years!
She wonders if she can slip some of the middle school sex education pamphlets into Emma’s backpack…
“My husband should be here soon,” Lucy says, as if she’s reading Ilene’s mind. “Unfortunately he couldn’t switch his shift, so he’s going to try and come on his dinner break. We’re both police officers, by the way — we each work 3, 12-hour shifts a week, so sometimes you’ll be dealing with our nanny. She’s great, and she’s used to doing the school run because of the twins. Emma will always be car pickup; either her father, nanny, or I will pick them all up.”
“Sounds great,” Ilene says, reaching for the paper that has her student’s transportation on it. She quickly jots down car rider, and then turns her head as another family enters the room, their kindergartener giggling and laughing between them.
“Feel free to look around the room,” she tells the Bradfords, and Lucy nods as Ms. Easton turns to greet the new family.
She keeps her eyes on the Bradford’s throughout the night, though. She watches as the younger twins eventually climb out of the stroller and amble around the room on their chubby, toddler legs.
She watches as the older twins follow the little ones around, and as Emma plops on the carpet in the classroom library and grabs a book. She listens as she begins sounding out the words, and is shocked that this little girl, barely 5, is already reading.
She wonders how two parents, both of whom are police officers, have enough time to work with their children enough that they can already read pre-kindergarten, and she’s curious about the father and the nanny and the whole family, really, because Lucy is so pretty and the kids are so cute and it seems like they really have their shit together, which is shocking for a family with six children and another one on the way.
She’s about to walk back over to them and say goodnight (because Open House is almost over), when possibly the most beautiful man she’s ever seen in her life slides into the room, his eyes wide and his breath coming in pants like he’d run all the way down the hallway to the kindergarten rooms.
“Luce!” he says, and Ms. Easton watches with hearts in her eyes as Lucy turns to the man, and that’s her husband?
Oh.
Oh.
OH.
Well, the number of children suddenly makes a lot of sense, she thinks, and then watches, her eyes glued to the man’s ass, as he walks over to his wife and family.
“Daddy!” Emma cries, and Ms. Easton positively swoons when the little girl launches herself into his arms. He picks her up easily, settling her on his waist right above his utility belt.
“Emmy!”
“Daddy, this is my classroom! An’ my teacher!”
Mr. Bradford turns to Ms. Easton, and she thinks that she’s just going to crawl into a hole and die of shame because she’s still staring at him, her eyes wide and her lips parted, when he meets her gaze. He grins, and she finds herself wondering if this is a common occurrence for him.
Mrs. Bradford rolls her eyes, and Ms. Easton blushes more deeply, her eyes rolling toward the ceiling before turning back toward the little family.
“Hi,” she greets, because avoiding Mr. Bradford until Emma is finished with kindergarten probably isn’t a sustainable plan. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“You, too. You’re going to have your hands full with Emmy here. She’s a genius, but the problem is she knows it.”
“I can read!” Emma pipes up, and they all chuckle as she holds up the book she’d taken from the classroom library. “I read to my baby sisters eeeeevery night. And when the new baby comes, I’ll read to him, too!”
Lucy chuckles and lays her hand on her belly, under the bottom of the sleeping baby strapped to her chest, and Ms. Easton watches as Mr. Bradford stares at her with absolute adoration in his eyes.
They’re both very beautiful people, and as she watches them get lost in each other’s eyes, she realizes that it’s actually a miracle they don’t have more children than they do.
But still.
Birth control.
It’s a thing.
(Although, Ilene has to admit, if she had Mr. Bradford waiting for her at home, she thinks her birth control would be moot because it’s only like 96% effective and hot damn she’d never let him out of bed.)
Plus, they make adorable children.
“We’re off to see Lilly and Liam’s teachers next,” Lucy says, breaking the silence. Ms. Easton shakes herself, sucking in a breath as she watches the two beautiful people before her begin corralling their children, and she blames what she says next on the fact that Mr. Bradford is still wearing his Metro Police uniform (she’s always been a sucker for a man in uniform).
“You guys have a lot of kids,” she whispers, wonder in her voice, and Tim laughs uproariously as Lucy blushes and grins, biting her lip.
“Can you blame me?” she whispers, and Ms. Easton shakes her head, her eyes wide. “I mean, look at him. We always say ‘no more until the last one is potty trained’ but… I mean, best laid plans and all that…”
“Oh, no, I get it,” Ms. Easton assures her. She imagines she’d have a hard time keeping her hands off of him, too, and if she swung the other way… well. Lucy is one of the most beautiful women she’s ever seen, with a personality like sunshine and deep, brown eyes that she could easily get lost in.
Lucy grins and winks at her, and then turns back toward her husband as he finishes strapping the younger twins back into their stroller. He smiles at his wife and then leans down, pecking her on the lips as she takes her place at his side. One of his hands slides around her waist while the other settles on the back of the sleeping baby in the baby wrap, and Ms. Easton sighs because she wants that one day.
She wants to find someone who can’t stop looking at her, someone whose hands gravitate toward her without conscious thought, who can’t stop touching her.
“I can’t wait to get to know Emma and work with you this year,” she says, smiling as she walks them toward the door.
“I wanna go to kindergarten now! ” Emma chimes, and Lucy laughs as she reaches down and takes the little girl’s hand.
“Soon, baby. School starts next week.”
Emma pouts until Lilly and Liam begin making faces at her, and then all three of the older children collapse into fits of giggles as they exit the classroom. Mrs. and Mr. Bradford turn toward her before they leave, though, offering her smiles and waves as they head toward the hallway with the second grade classrooms.
Ilene blows out a breath, makes sure her classroom is empty, and then closes the door before collapsing against it.
Well.
It’s going to be an interesting year.