“I fucking love Halo.”
“Tell me that we’ll stay together. Forever.”
He swallows. “We’ll stay together forever. Because we’re a family now.”
My eyes fill with happy tears. “Family. Yeah. Now kiss me.”
Chuckling, he does exactly that. He captures my lips in a kiss.
As if he couldn’t wait any longer. I couldn’t either.
I can’t believe I waited for this for thirteen years. I didn’t even know that I was waiting.
But I was.
Because how could I not?
How could I not have felt what he felt? Maybe that’s why he made me want to dance whenever I saw him play, the Wild Mustang. Maybe that’s why I couldn’t stay away from him, couldn’t stop thinking about him despite all the warnings.
Because I was his dancing fairy long before I knew it.
And yes, I have to tell him about Juilliard. About how I got my admission deferred for a year and talked to Miss Petrova about teaching ballet at Baby Blues for the next year. Everyone did so much while I was pregnant and now it’s my turn. And so I’ve got a year before I go after my dream.
A year to be Halo’s mom, to watch her grow up, to adjust to this new life, to be close to all my brothers because I wasn’t for the last two years. And now I’ve got a year where I get to be his. I get to watch him with Halo, him being the best daddy in the whole wide world. I get to watch him go for his dream and I get to watch him love me.
But first I’ll let him kiss me.
Everything else can wait.
She has pretty blue eyes and they’re widened in excitement.
Actually, her whole body seems excited.
Sitting in her high chair, she’s flailing her arms in the air, her tiny fists pumping, as she swings her cute chubby legs. And don’t even talk about the noises she’s making.
I’m convinced that her laughter and her coos, her excited squealing can melt any heart in this world and fill all the empty spaces with joy.
But maybe that’s just me because I’m her mommy.
To be honest though, my Halo is the most joyous baby ever.
Like, she smiles at strangers. She waves at them. If someone waves back — which pretty much all of them do because hello, Halo is adorable — she completely freaks out with happiness, practically dancing either in my arms or in her stroller.
Oh and she loves dogs. Puppies are her favorite in particular.
If she sees one in the park, we have to go and say hi. We have to pet him and let him lick our faces or our hands at least, and we have to tell him how much we love him.
Which I do obviously.
Because Halo can’t talk but she does tell me what to say.
She nods her head at me, which in Halo talk means ‘tell him that I love him.’ If she’s waving her little fists and squealing, then that means ‘tell him he’s the cutest puppy ever.’ But if she also tries to get out of my arms to go crawling over to him, then that means ‘tell him I wanna take him home.’
I keep telling Halo that we can’t take someone else’s dog but she’s yet to believe me on that.
So then we get into this whole mess where she cries and gets angry. Snot runs down her nose and she gets all red-faced, breaking my little mommy heart.
But you know, kids need to learn that they can’t get their way every time they cry and throw a tantrum.
Even though it’s super hard when my baby girl’s voice has gone all hoarse from crying and she looks at me with accusing eyes, I try to stay stern.
Not someone else though, no.
Someone else is a complete sucker.
Oh God, is he a sucker.
A slight tremble on her rosy lips and his frown comes out to play. If she points her finger at a toy in the store, he lunges to get it off the shelf. In case someone else gets their hand on it. Even though we can clearly see that they have that toy in stock, like tens of them sitting on that shelf.
And God forbid if a tear rolls down her pink cheeks, his wrath will not be contained. He’ll pace and stomp and won’t settle down until his Halo girl has what she wants.
And so after a long, long debate and discussion, we’re giving her a puppy. Because as I said, he’s a sucker and tomorrow’s my baby girl’s first birthday.
Of course, she doesn’t know that.
Not about the birthday — I think she knows; I’ve told it to her a million times now and I think she totally understands me. But about the puppy.
It’s supposed to be a surprise.
The one who can’t see his Halo girl cry, her daddy, is going to pick it up after work.
Anyway in this moment, my baby’s excitement is due to something else altogether.
It’s because we’re baking. And Halo loves baking as well.
She has to be present in the kitchen when I bake. She has to sit in that high chair and help me put the butter in the mixing bowl and measure out cups of sugar, add in a pinch of salt and everything.
And every time she does, we have little high fives.
But her favorite part is frosting.
I think she loves the colors. The brighter, the better.
And so I’m leaning across the island, flipping pages of an amazing baking recipe book that I found online, showing her all the pretty colors that she wants to see.
They have some elaborate decorations on their cupcakes. I’m an amateur baker; I can’t do all that but I at least know how to whip up some amazing shades so I’m asking her, “Okay, this one?”
Her answer is to chew on her teething ring we bought her a few months back when her first teeth started to come in and she was miserable, she still loves it, and scrunch her nose.
“Hmm… so not this one then.” I flip the page and show her a pretty green cake. “What about this one?” I ask excitedly. “How green it is. Look! So pretty. Like Mommy’s dress. See?”
I’m wearing a light green sundress with white flowers that Halo sees but instantly dismisses by shaking her head and making protesting noises.
“What? You don’t like Mommy’s dress?” I pout and she shakes her head again.
Narrowing my eyes at her, which only makes her giggle and chew on her toy, I say, “All right, girlfriend, I’ll remember this. I’ll remember what you said about Mommy’s dress. But for now we need to figure this thing out. We need to figure out what to color those cupcakes we made for Daddy and…”
I stop talking because that just gets her to another level of excitement, Daddy.
He’s not the only one crazy about his Halo girl actually. She’s crazy about him too.
You can’t say ‘Daddy’ in front of her, without her getting super excited. She’ll flap her chubby arms, wiggle her tiny body and laugh and chuckle and squeal, fill the room with her happiness and joy at the mention of him.
Like she’s doing right now.
And she’ll say random baby syllables. “Da da… Da da da…”
“I know,” I say, leaning further over to nuzzle my nose in her sweet smelling hair. “We made cupcakes for Daddy. He’s gonna love it, right?”