Work Text:
“You ready to do this?” Ben asks, squeezing Leslie’s hand.
“Yeah, of course. I mean we have to tell them eventually. They’ll notice once I start to show.”
“I know, but what if they ask too many questions? How are we going to explain the facts of life to three-year-olds?”
Leslie just laughs and sweeps away some hair from Ben’s forehead. “Would you relax. They’re three. I think they’ll accept anything we tell them. I’m just worried how they’ll react to another baby. They’re so close with each other.”
Now it’s Ben’s turn to be reassuring. “They’ll be fine. They’ll love their brother or sister just as much as we do.”
Leslie kisses Ben’s cheek before leading him over to the living room where three hyper toddlers chase each other around the coffee table.
“Hey, guys, can you slow down. Mommy and Daddy have something very important to tell you.”
“Puppy!” Sonia yells at the top of her lungs as she and her brothers stop in front of their parents.
“No, sweetheart, we’re not getting a puppy.”
“But I wanna puppy.”
“I know you do, but that’s not what we needed to talk to you about. You remember me and daddy telling you that the three of you were in my tummy for a while?”
Three nods.
“And you know how Oliver and Leslie are brother and sister, but Leslie was born after him?”
Three more nods.
“Well,” Leslie looks over and smiles at Ben, “in a few months you’re gonna have a new little brother or sister, too.”
Ben and Leslie are met with three blank stares, and it’s obvious the toddlers are trying to properly process this information.
Wesley’s the first one to connect the dots because he waddles over to his mother and touches her belly. “’Zat mean there’s a baby in here?”
“Yeah, sweetheart,” Leslie smiles broadly and strokes his hair. “Your little sister or brother is in there right now.”
Sonia and Stephen exchange quick looks before also running over to their mother.
“I wanna feel,” Stephen yells out.
Sonia frowns and tries to push her way past her brothers. “No, me, I wanna.”
“Hey, calm down you guys,” Ben warns, “stop pushing. You can all touch Mommy’s tummy, okay.”
“I don’t feel nothing.”
“Wes, I’m not that far along yet, so we won’t feel her for a little while.”
“Tiny,” Sonia whispers as she continues to poke around.
“Yeah, the baby is still really tiny. But soon they’ll be so big that my tummy is gonna get bigger, too.”
“Why’s it there, Daddy?” Stephen asks with wide eyes. “Izzit like when peas turn into cupcakes in my tummy.”
“Uhm, no, not exactly like that.”
Sonia joins her brother in his inquisition. “Then how’d the baby get there?”
Ben wipes a nervous hand across his forehead, and he can already feel the sweat accumulating on the back of his neck. “Uhm, well, you see, uh when there’s two people, and uhm, there’s these eggs and Fallopian tubes -”
“What your daddy is trying to say,” Leslie cuts in, “is that sometimes when two people, a mommy and a daddy, get together, they do certain things that will help make a baby, and the baby grows in the mommy’s belly until it’s big and strong and ready to come out and be with the rest of us.”
Wesley makes a disgusted face. “Ewww, things like kissing.”
“Yeah, something like that,” Leslie laughs and pinches his cheek.
“How does it come out?”
“I’ll take Mommy to the doctor, and the doctor will help,” Ben answers, and once again, the three seem satisfied.
“And when the baby comes, it’ll still be small, so you three are gonna need to be my helpers and look after them, okay?”
Another round of enthusiastic nods and Ben sighs in relief. “Well, okay monsters, you can go back to playing, We just wanted to tell you about the baby.”
And just when Leslie thinks this moment couldn’t get any more special, her eyes water as Stephen presses a gentle kiss to her stomach and tells the baby that he loves it.
She’s practically sobbing by the time Sonia and Wesley follow suit, each whispering their own little message to their brother or sister before running off.
Ben pulls his emotional wife into a hug and lets her cry her hormonal, happy tears.
“See,” he whispers into her hair, “I told you they’d take the news well.”
“I know,” she sniffles. “I’m just so overwhelmed with love right now I don’t know what to do. We have the most wonderful children in the world.”
Ben rests his hand on Leslie’s belly and smiles. “Yeah, we really do.”