A Birth day

"Yeah, these first diapers can look and smell pretty toxic, that's for sure," he laughed.

Unhappy as Caprice was with a bath, it didn't take Angus long to clean up the baby, and he soon had her in a fresh diaper and in a pink sleeper with a print of white bunnies. He wrapped her in a fresh swaddling blanket, and he cleaned up what little mess there was in the Moses basket before putting her in the basket and bringing her back downstairs.

"If I had to judge how much she weighs now based just by what was in that diaper, I'd say she'd have to weigh about a pound and a half now," he teased, "but she's clean again til the next time. She's not happy with me right now, but she'll get over herself. She should be fine until we're through with supper. Then we'll need to feed her again, I'm sure." He put the basket on the floor between his chair and Ruby's. Finn came over and looked in the basket, smelled the baby and then laid down on the floor next to the basket, laying his head on the side of the basket so he could just lay beside her and look at her.

"I think we're safe to eat now. Looks like Finn has it figured out and he's taking his turn taking care of her," Angus said. "Good boy, Finn. Keep an eye on her." He sat down at the table and saw she's put out some candles. "Nice touch. I'm glad you thought of it. Now, let's eat while it's quiet.

"You know," Angus said. "I'm going to have to send some some notes out to some of our friends and some of my family about Caprice. Sergio and Ana will definitely want to know, and so will the entire Donohue clan, not that new babies are generally a huge thing with some of them. What sets her apart is the fact that my reputation in the family is the one that is the least likely to have ever settled down and started having kids. That will be what surprises them. I might see if Robert or Kate has a quick quotes quill and see if I can set it to writing the notes to my family since there will be so many of them."

"You're right, of course. I really did feel like I could stop living my life alone. There were parts of my bachelor life that I really did like, but, in a lot of ways it was empty. I was busy as heck, but my whole life was about work. Most days I worked 20 hours a day or more. I guess I rather closed myself to thinking I could have a family of my own because I didn't see my job as allowing me to have time for a family. Robert had been trying to get me to make some changes for a long time, working fewer hours, hiring on some extra help, all of that, but I really didn't see the need for it. Then, when you and the boys came into the picture, Robert just went ahead and altered my job so that I could actually have time for myself and for building a family. He didn't ask me if that was what I wanted, which was probably wise. He just made the changes that really should have happened a long time ago so that I actually have time for something other than work. What a novel concept, right?" He laughed a little that he had been so tunnel visioned into work that he had never taken time for anything else.

"I mean, think about it. We're coming up on our one year anniversary of knowing each other, and things are 180 degrees different from where it was a year ago. I'm hoping that in the next year, you do go back for more training and that you do get your confidence back and start to go on some missions again. I want you to be able to do anything and everything you want to do."
He tucked into his filet mignon. It was grilled perfectly. He loved the spices he put on it. There was a smoked paprika base to the grilling spices Zoe had made, and then she had charcoal grilled it. It was delicious, one of the best steaks he'd ever had. He was surprised when he tried the mashed potatoes that Zoe had added cheese to them--a white cheddar, some gruyere, some parmesan, and some ricotta for creaminess. She had used Mayan Gold potatoes so they had a buttery look to them anyway, but the butter and the cheese made them rich and flavorful.

"This is one of the best steak suppers I've ever had," he said. "You know what's going to happen. We're going to eat until we're comfortably full, and then we're going to want to turn in early and get a good night's sleep, and our new five pound noisemaker is going to have other plans."

"You're certainly welcome to feed her," Angus told Ruby. "I've already sent letters to the boys with pictures while you were sleeping earlier. I expect we'll hear from them by morning if not sooner. Remember, they made me promise that they could come home for the weekend on the first weekend after the baby came, so I expect they may want to come home tomorrow late afternoon as soon as their classes are finished for the week. I probably should have asked someone if they wanted to come along with me to go get them at King's Cross.

"Formula is still pretty easy at this point," he told her. "It's just one scoop of powder to 2 oz. of water. You handle it however you like but, personally, I might try adding an additional fourth of a scoop and another half ounce of water because she has not been entirely satisfied with just two ounces. I added another half an ounce to her last bottle, and she was a lot more settled with it. We can always end the feeding sooner and choose not to give it to her than to frustrate her because she wants a few more sips. As far as the nighttime feedings, you do what you're up to. If you're too tired or not up to it, just let me know. I don't know how you feel, so you're going to have to let me know what you want to do or what you need help with."

"I am certainly not begrudging you your maternity leave--not at all, but I much prefer the way the States does leave. Maternity leave is only 12 weeks there, and that's shorter than here, but--they also have paternity leave that is the same length as the length of the mother's leave. They firmly believe dads are just as important as the moms. The way it goes here, dads are largely cut out of being part of their children's lives right from the bloody start. I'm sorry, but it just isn't right or fair either one. One or two weeks. What sort of crap is that, really, except old stereotypical thinking that a man's place is just to be the breadwinner while the mom should handle the raising of the kids. Apparently, we're supposed to just get out of the way and let you lot just handle it all by yourselves," he sighed. "I'm sure you and I will manage it just fine, though."

"Oh," he said, when she mentioned the secrets at Hogwarts. "Yeah. The one eyed witch passage. I found out where that was purely because of who I hung out with. I hung out with Khaat and Brian because we were all Gryffindors. And--remember who Khaat's godfather is--Michael Tremaine, and Michael learned it from Robert and Remus and Sirius. So, of course, he told Khaat and Brian where it was, and we definitely used it more often than McGonagall knew.

"It's up on the third floor in the castle, in the hallway that leads to Gryffindor tower. There is a statue of a one eyed witch that is a humpback. It takes a spell to open the passage, but its the hump on the witch's back that is the opening to the passage. That leads to a slide that is a heck of a great slide that takes you from the third floor all the way down to a tunnel below the basement level. And then, it takes about a hour to walk the distance of the tunnel, where you come up into the basement of Honeydukes. That passage wasn't a well known thing back in our school days either, but Michael had mad skills at getting into and out of places even way back when he was a student.

"In fact, I remember the first time I met Michael," he laughed. "We had slipped out of the school one evening when we were supposed to be studying, and we took the tunnel to Honeydukes. We came up through the tunnel to the Honeydukes cellar and went upstairs, and the first thing I saw was this guy who was standing at the fudge counter. I walked up to the fudge counter beside him, and the only thing I saw was that several big thick slices of chocolate fudge seemed to just vanish before my eyes. I was standing right beside him, and I didn't see how the heck he did it. Then Khaat introduced him, and I just made a guess that he'd swiped that darned fudge. Now, I've learned he does, in fact, swipe the fudge. Marcus's dad owns Honeydukes now, and he knows exactly what Michael does, and he just bills him for it.

"I have no idea if the boys know about that passage out of the school yet, but if there are any Weasleys at Hogwarts now, they're surely in Gryffindor, and there's every chance that Sam and Victor might know about it. I look at it like this--if they'd used it and gotten caught, they'd have gotten in trouble, and we'd have been notified of it. So either they don't know about it, or they've been clever enough to not get caught. I'm fine with them knowing about it as long as they're not acting like little idiots with it."

"Well, you're right. There is a rather permanently reserved room at the Three Broomsticks, and I honestly think it's rather informally permanently reserved by the Ministry. I'm not sure why they keep it such a bloody big secret, but it makes sense to me to have a room near the school that they could access at the drop of a hat, after all, the distance between Hogwarts and the Ministry offices is roughly 500 miles, not something that they can just apparate to. It's too far. They could portkey to it, and I'm sure they do. I portkeyed to Hogsmeade a number of times when I was an auror. That room came up one time in conversation over at the main house a couple years ago, while Robert was still minister. What I remember, specifically, was that neither Robert nor Michael made any comment at all. They avoided any sort of comment, and they would know, if anyone would. They both have a boatload of secrets, though, that they just never tell. I just have presumed that since they didn't respond, we were right that the ministry does use that room. Brian and I tried to sneak in there one night when we had both had one too many firewhiskeys, but that door is enchanted to not open, not even to an alohamora spell."

He finished his meal, and he cleared the table and rinsed his dishes and put them in the sink and started a washing up spell to clean the kitchen. Then he set tea and coffee in the pots to simply turn on in the morning to brew. He let Finn out for a quick trip out, and he stepped out on the porch for a moment and felt the breeze and studied the sky for a bit. He felt the wind picking up a bit, and he could feel some cold moisture in the air and saw a flash of lightning in the distance. He watched for Finn to finish his business and then whistled for him. Once Finn was inside, Angus secured the door.

"We're going to get a storm. It's blowing down from the northeast. I think the temperature is going to drop because the wind is getting colder. It might be a good night to light the fireplace upstairs when we go up. It will keep the chill out of the room," he told her.

"Sounds fine to me," he replied to her. He added more wood to the fire, checking the pile of wood to make sure he didn't need to bring more inside before it rained. "I think we have enough inside to get us through til morning. Then we'll have to restock it tomorrow." He checked the clock and then made up a fresh bottle for Caprice and doublechecked it before he gave it to Ruby. "I presume you'd like to feed her? I realize she's happy at the moment, but she should probably eat pretty soon. Besides, then she'll sleep for a couple of hours, and that leaves us to some time to ourselves."

"I promised Lizzy I'd try to help her come up with a couple new spring desserts for Sparks, so maybe I'll try to design something tomorrow. She's been sort of out of ideas. I think we all go through that at some time or another when we would like to be original and creative and it just isn't happening. So I'll try to come up with something and lend her a hand. There's a fruit in Tuscany that's in season this time of year called a loquat. It's a kind of fruit that has a really different taste. Imagine a blend of apricot, peach, and plum. That's basically what a loquat tastes like. I might try to make a loquat tart or a loquat cake, maybe. Maybe with a fresh honey ice cream. What do you think?"