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The world was made up of many different kinds of families, Ballister knew.
Many people longed to have a child and could not do so right away. For those families, it may take several attempts to conceive, or they would adopt, or elect a surrogate, or try different methods to help. Modern technology made it so that prospective parents had many options, which was a beautiful thing.
Other families wanted a child and easily found themselves becoming parents on the first try.
Some people never wanted children, whether by lifestyle or personal choice. ‘I don’t want to’ was a complete answer. Ballister greatly respected those people who knew that they could not provide the sacrifice and dedication that a child deserved.
For the longest time, Ballister himself belonged to that last school of thought.
He liked kids, provided that those kids had decent manners. He just never saw himself with one of his own. So he did not have one. Simple as that. Ballister had his peace, and a child did not need to question how much they were cherished. A win-win situation for everyone.
But now he belonged to another category entirely, one that he was not sure had any parallel: his family, which already consisted of his true love, now included a daughter and a son and a bird and an otter(s plural) and everything that constituted the brilliant soul with vibrant pink hues and a six-letter name.
Sometimes that brilliant soul was a little girl, head one-third the size of her body, long long red hair trailing down to her stubby legs.
Most of the time, she was a sharp-toothed, spiky-haired teenager, with a witty remark about everyone and everything.
This afternoon, she was something in between: a girl who hadn’t yet reached preteenhood but was by no means still a toddler. If Ballister had to take a guess (and he was getting better at gauging ages!), he would dub her in the realm of six or six and a half. Half-years mattered greatly at this age, apparently. He remembered his own childhood days, with a young Todd proclaiming that he was seven and a half, and the half made a big difference.
Now Ballister was older, and he had his own child to love. For some reason, and he may never figure out why, he had been entrusted to care for this fascinating remarkable being.
A remarkable being who was currently fast asleep on the living room floor, face buried in the rug.
“Silly girl,” he murmured to himself. “How is that comfortable?” He slowly lifted her off of the floor and into his arms, slipping a hand under the back hem of her shirt to caress her bare back with his human hand. Warm skin against warm skin. This girl – and shark, and cat, and wolf, but for now a girl – was his to love.
The small body stirred from the change in position. Little fists gripped his shirt. “Daddy.”
Oh. Oh, goodness. Ballister felt his eyes well with tears. What did he do to deserve this? How did he get so lucky? An ordinary man like him, granted the privilege of this wonderful creature.
Some people wanted a child, or a pet, or both. Ballister got all of that, plus so much more.
“I’m here,” he promised her. “Go back to sleep.”
The six-something-year-old girl shifted younger to the small child with the long long red hair, then younger still to a toddler whose magenta hair was styled into two pigtails. Pink eyes blinked open to gaze at Ballister in wonder, as if he was the sun around which Planet Nimona orbited. “Daddy!” She patted his cheek with her pudgy hand.
“I see you, lovelight. I’m Daddy.” And oh, if his voice and his heart didn’t break on that last word. “What are you, then? Who are you?”
“Moma!” the toddler cheered. “I Moma.”
Ballister tossed her (carefully) into the air and caught her against his chest. “You are.”
Little shrieks of glee filled the air. Then the girl whipped her head around, pursing her lips in an adorable concentration. “Where Papa? Papa Abrosip?”
Abrosip. Papa. Papa!! Ballister’s heart surged with many warm things. “He’ll be home soon. Do you want to wait with me?”
She nodded enthusiastically, mischief in her eyes. “Wif ice cream?”
He could deny her nothing. Which he knew that she knew full well. That sneaky little thing. “Two scoops and loads of sprinkles.” If she insisted on cycling between different forms of a young child for a little while, Ambrosius would be the one who put her to bed that night. He could deal with a sugared-up tiny Nimona.
And that was the beauty of it, really.
Ballister got to put her to bed every night, or in this case delegate who did so. He got to wake her up in the mornings or be woken up by her, and have a whole day of lessons and memories and important conversations with her before putting her to bed once more.
He got to argue with her, or stand his ground while she screamed at him and then open his arms for her to run to. He got to soothe her from nightmares or talk her down from moments of panic, only for her to do the same to him.
Ballister Boldheart loved all of Nimona, and all that came with it. The ugly and the beautiful. It was all real. It meant that it – all of this, all of them, their precious little family – was real.
So yes. The least he could do was offer her two scoops of ice cream, with sprinkles. And whipped cream.
“Tank you!” the current toddler chirped.
At least toddler Nimona had good manners. “You’re welcome.” Ballister kissed her head, right in between her two pigtails. “When he gets home, we’ll eat dinner and then Papa will give you a bath and put you to bed. How does that sound?”
The little girl yawned. “I no sleepy.”
“That’s a pity. If you were sleepy, I’d give you some ice cream to give you energy. But since you’re not sleepy, you don’t need ice cream.”
Nimona gasped, eyes widening. “No! I sleepy. I get ice cream please.”
“Only because you asked so nicely. Let’s get some ice cream in you.” He carried her to the kitchen and began to lower her down so that he could retrieve the tub of ice cream from the freezer, but she clung stubbornly to him. So he did the only correct action and brought her against his chest once more. “Okay, Nono. You win. You can help me scoop it.”
As he let her wield an ice cream scoop like a prized battle weapon, more ice cream got on her than in her. Tiny fingers leaving sticky handprints everywhere, chocolate chip fragments staining underneath her nails, minty green globs in her pigtails providing a nice contrast to her pink hair.
It was chaos. It was messy and loud and perfect.
He snapped a photo of a triumphant Nimona eating directly from the ice cream scoop and set the photo as his new phone wallpaper.
There was no one definition of a family, Ballister knew. A family was whatever someone made it. But Ballister also knew that he had the best one.