Diary of a Teenaged Mimic

Dear Diary,

Yeah, I talked all about not expecting things yesterday, then only really described one thing that I did not expect happening. Siobhan's return to eating with a vengeance. She ate like a woman who had not been able to enjoy food in over a year, who suddenly had not only the ability, but all that year's worth of desire returned to her all at once.

I will leave it as an exercise to the reader to guess at what other Siobhan and Siobean related things surprised me.

...

No the hell I will not. Who the hell do you think I am, big bro?

At any rate, every adult living in East House is definitely exhausted to one degree or another. For Tallulah, it's from multiple days of short sleep while helping to wrangle our horde of offspring. Deific people really ought to have some immunity to exhaustion, but Mom, Dad, and Marie are all showing signs of short sleep and long hours. I think part of that, at least for Sigyn and Loki, is the difference in expectations between 'Mom' and 'Grandma'. Or Grampa, in Loki's case. Mostly. If Mom is available and present, but not really active, the kids may or may not do something that screams 'witness me' at the top of their metaphoric lungs.

Okay, with as many as we have, there's probably one a day that does that, but with one a day doing that and five of us in the Mom Collective, on any given day most of us are able to rest up if we need it. Fuck, even with Siobhan being on the injured reserve for the past year, the other four of us could wrangle the kids pretty easily. Shit, in the interests of absolutely full transparency, I'm pretty sure Marie and I could tag team things if we had to, and neither of us would wind up in desperate need of a vacay for at least a few months.

Thing is, despite the recent influx of grandparent presence in the lives of our horde of kids, Mom and Dad are still 'new', so to speak. 'Special', in the way grandparents who don't live in the house frequently are. I mean, Grandma Aetos was still like that for our kids, but then she passed not long after she moved in, in the scheme of things. So where any of the Mom Collective might get one 'witness me' moment a day, I kinda think Mom and Dad are getting that many an hour. Each, possibly. Like, every kid wants some Grandma time and Grandpa time while they're here, not quite realizing that both of them can show up whenever any of them really need them to.

Yeah, Sigyn needs Loki to give her a lift if she's not gonna take a minute to get here, but it's not like he's got anything else to do. Okay, once a day they've both got something else to do, but they've shown they can set that aside when need be and pick it up later. Also, that's not really a kid friendly activity. Also, also, I just realized that given Dad's typical reaction to Mom tormenting him combined with them likely taking care of his daily torture and her much anticipated comeuppance after hours, they probably haven't been getting full nights' sleep either.

So every nominally adult person in East House started out the day exhausted. Which, since the day technically starts at sunset, wasn't a huge problem, since despite a certain appreciation for adult after dark activities, none of us are actually nocturnal. Also, the kids had been up and sort of active all day long, between meeting Eve, trying to get Eve's attention, realizing that she could barely focus her itty bitty baby eyes on the only objects she had any desire to pay attention to, which was milky boobs, then more or less gossiping about how fast she'd grow up and who she'd room with.

I was about to say that I don't envy the kid her life, with so many big sisters vying to plan it out for her, but our kids are pretty good sorts when it comes to that. I'm pretty sure she'll get every opportunity to do whatever thing they can think of, with as much help and encouragement as sixteen sisters can summon, but I don't think they'll actually force her into anything. Not all our kids have done more than one test flight on their hang gliders, after all.

Speaking of, I might need to talk to Conrad about that. I don't want the kits or Boy and Girl to think that only the sisters with seniority get hang gliders or any other cool toys. I also don't want them using hand me down hang gliders, what with them each being carefully designed to hold the weight of the girl they were made for. Isadora using Isnomi's hang glider would not so much fly as plummet, for example. Also, I really need to talk to those two about, y'know, picking names.

Speaking of names, much to my eternal chagrin I have been fucking up, and may wind up fucking up for the foreseeable future, just because my brain has latched on to 'Eve' and will not let go. Because that's not technically her name. Or maybe it is, but transliterated, with a different meaning. Aoibh. Her name is Aoibh. Pronounced 'eve', yeah, but spelled Aoibh. Apparently it means 'beautiful' or 'radiant'. Which, when I mentioned the whole 'born at sunset' thing, Siobhan just said, "I suppose she was born in the evening. All the more fitting then."

Yeah, I'm gonna try to remember that, but I know I'm gonna forget. Tier six Memory my rock hard ass.

At any rate, the second thing that I ought to have expected, but totally did not, occurred shortly after dinner. Funniest thing, despite having given herself a food baby I would have called 'of epic proportions' before I saw Marie's binge early on in her own pregnancy, Siobhan kept trying to cram food for the entire rest of the day and through dinner. She still wasn't moving real fast, but when we finished eating dinner up in the bedroom, she said, "you know, I think it might be good for little Aoibh to get used to the Bath."

"You sure it won't be too warm or humid?"

She shook her head as she rooched over and levered herself to her feet. "I wouldn't want her sleeping there all night, but a few minutes to soak some of the..." She stopped, and though she didn't go green, she got the weirdest look of near nausea on her face. "Oh, Goddess..." I scooped Aoibh and stepped her to the water closet all with one smooth move. Okay, smooth-ish. Because she immediately plonked her butt on the toilet and unleashed hell. Like, the baby's poop hadn't stunk, but Siobhan's guts were in full on rebellion at her attempt to restore normal function.

I couldn't help it, I could laugh or cry, because either way my eyes were watering, so I giggled and said stuff like, "maybe Mommy needs a diaper now too?"

Siobhan might have had her butt locked to the pot, but she still managed to kick me in the shin.

Saffron knocked a moment later. "Everything okay in there?" I'm mostly asking so the children know, love.

I raised my voice to be heard through the door, wrapping a soft tentacle around baby Aoibh's ears as I did. "Yeah, we're fine. Siobhan just had to use the toilet real bad. But everything's going through the right direction now."

The Sister herself grunted her lack of amusement. "Just put it all right out there why don't you?"

I smiled at her. "Hey, the kids know you've been sick so often, and they're worried about you." And unlike Saffron, they can't look through either of our eyes.

She sighed as she continued unloading. "I'm sorry. I get that." Then she chuckled to herself. "I suppose I need to start thinking less like a Concubine and more like a mother now, don't I?"

I stepped over and hugged her shoulders to my hips. Then Mimicked lactating Saffron, because Aoibh had started in with the angry rooching toward my boobs. Kid wanted her food.

"Y'know, I remember reading that little babies can't regulate temperature well, so it's best not to keep them in hot, humid environments, at least for a little while."

She frowned. "Yes, well. I intend to keep an Assess on her the entire time; should she begin to warm too much, I'll bring her back down here."

"We'll bring her back down here." She glanced up at me. "Seriously, Siobhan. Mom Collective. You're one of the Collective now, but remember that it is one. Nobody has to go it alone."

She slipped her arm around me. "Thank you, Tabitha."

"De nada."

Turned out little Aoibh was a little resistant to the heat, enough that she was fine for about ten minutes, but after that she started to pink up a little, so Siobhan, Saffron and I adjourned to the bedroom.

Also turned out that Siobhan had strong opinions on whether or not she was going to be returning to the Bedroom any time soon. In the 'Co-Located all five of us up there and got really forceful about plonking all our butts down. At which point I said, "aren't your lady bits out of commission for at least a month or two?"

She Co-Located four of her strategically around the room and chorused, "not what I planned on using."

Yeah. Apparently surviving pregnancy has given Siobhan opinions, and maybe a little more self-confidence in expressing them.

Which I am all for, and almost none of it is because the woman is preternaturally talented at certain activities.

When we all got back to bed, all of us cuddled around Siobhan and Siobean, because some part of me will always think of her as such, Saffron murmured, "when you are fully recovered, reciprocation will occur."

Siobhan just smiled and, eyes already closed, murmured, "looking forward to it."

Today I didn't really get much done. Karen filled in for me at the Academy. I did laundry, cooked, and got a good look at Aoibh in the natural light on the East House roof. She's already got some hair, dark as Saffron's Blades or my un-Blended fur, but shiny where my fur is matte. Her skin is the kind of pale porcelain that made me realize that Siobhan really did have the tiniest, faintest bit of color. Her lips are what really surprised me, though. Bright red, like almost lipstick red, especially when she'd just finished suckling.

She's utterly adorable, and every single one of our girls thinks so too.

Even Boy seems to think so.

I so need to get that kid to pick a fuckin' name.