A Birth day

Ruby smiled and took the two sandwiches " thank you" she said and as she passed him kissed his cheek then walked into the living room giving Aria one of the sandwiches . She placed down her plate as she heard the babies start crying . Walking over she saw the toy and removed it as Marcus battled with removing the stuffing from one of the babies mouth .

" oh dear lord " Aria said as she started to remove fluff from Caprices hands and the bottom of the playpen then remove all the stuffed animals so they would not tear any more. " I'll fix the toy but maybe we should duplicate it so they have one each" she added and looked at both girls in the play pen.

"That's fine," Angus said. "Whatever you want to do. I am not going to get all buggared by a stuffed squirrel." The babies were both furious with Marcus for taking away the ripped toy. Marcus took Diamond out of the playpen and put her on the floor with a set of soft rubber blocks but left Caprice in the playpen.

"That one crawls at about 60 miles an hour," Marcus pointed to Caprice. "The other one hasn't figured it out yet. I'm separating them from each other long enough that we can eat." Marcus sat down with his sandwich, and the two babies looked at each other, separated by the mesh of the playpen wall, and they both started to tantrum that they couldn't get to each other. Angus simply got up, took his sandwich and his firewhiskey and went outside.

"I think he's giving himself a bit of a time out," Marcus laughed, continuing to eat his sandwich.

Aria nodded as Marcus took Dimond out the playpen and placed her next to him on the floor but this just made them both want to be together and throw a tantrum again. " oh boy can't stay together can't be apart" Aria said then saw Marcus walk out side and heard Angus " yeah , guess after dealing with his ex he could use some time out" she said wishing she could help him but knowing him being alone and sorting his thoughts was not something she could help him with. Aria finished her sandwich and then walked out to the porch area. " Penny for them?" she said softly as she moved to stand close to Marcus.

Ruby watched the girls but left them separated " I think time apart will do them good" she said " might make them appreciate what they have and not destroy things, and no I'm not duplicating the toy it can stay broken, give then something to think about next time they break a toy." she spoke softly as she saw Aria walk to the back door and out to the porch area.

(it was angus that went outside, not marcus, but the way your post is written, i'll shift to just assume it was marcus.)

"Not that important," Marcus told Aria. "I'm not ever going to hate her, you know. I'm not in love with her either, but she is the mother to four out of my five children. And I've taken care of her for a long, long time, almost all my adult life, it feels like. I know people judge her based on who and what they think she is now, but she's not really a bad person. She's a sick person, and if it weren't for her, I wouldn't have four of the five great kids I have. I'm always going to care about her, and, honestly, she doesn't have anybody else anymore who genuinely cares about her. She's had a lot of people who have exploited her and taken advantage of her because of her illness, but I honestly just want her safe and provided for.

"You might not like this, but Jeffrey's' facility isn't free, you know," he told her. "I was able to keep her on my insurance until the divorce was final. Jeffrey has written off a significant portion of her care, but I am continuing to pay for the difference. She doesn't have any assets of her own. Part of the advantage of staying married was that she was covered by my insurance. That's no longer the case, and as grateful as I am the Jeffrey doesn't want me paying 100% out of pocket for the rest of her life or mine, whichever comes first, I want her taken care of, and, as long as I stay employed by Robert, I can afford it."

"Its a good thought," Angus told Ruby, "but they're really too young yet for that sort of thinking. I was only hoping to get them to calm down by separating them, but that clearly didn't happen. And I'm really not wanting to have to invest in a separate playpen. Our house isn't big enough for that. They're just going to have to get it together."

Aria stood and listened to Marcus as he spoke about his ex wife. She understood his thinking and didn't think less of him for it Taking his hand in her own she spoke softly to him " I understand and would not expect you to not care about her, she's in the right place to get help and I don't care that your paying for her in fact I think its admirable, but if you need help with anything for her treatment , I'll help too" she said then chuckled " not that is an issue right now." she added hoping he understood her better too that she didn't hold Evelyn against him but understood he would always have some love for her being she had been his wife for so many years and had children with him.

Ruby looked at Angus and chuckled as he spoke of buying a second play pen , she nodded she agreed " oh that's defiantly not happening" she said as she looked at the girls. " well I think next time they throw a fit about each other I say leave them to it, they have to sort out whose boss between the pair of them some time" she said placing the two halves of the toy beside her a she finished stuffing what filling they had managed to get back into it.

"I'm glad you're okay with it, and I appreciate that you wouldn't mind helping out. I don't know if my kids would be. My parents know, of course, and I've set a trust fund aside that has enough money in it to keep her set for care for several years if anything happened to me. I set that up years and years ago because of the sort of work that I do, and I'm going to just keep it in place. Things are tough these days for young people to even begin to eke out a living on the wages they make, and I don't expect them to have to try to add the additional financial strain of taking care of their mother.

"I did see her room while Jeffrey as patching Angus. I need to get her some clothes. She tends to not be able to keep track of material things at all. The only things she's not lost over all these years is her engagement ring and her wedding ring. She desperately needs toiletry, underwear and bras and some new clothes. Jeffrey is so high up in the mountains that it can get cool there year round, but she needs things for all seasons. Not a big wardrobe though. The staff does laundry in her building about once a week, so I need to just get her some things for cold weather and for warm weather, and some pajamas and some exercise clothes and some sneakers, maybe some boots for cold weather. As she gets better, she could use good brands of toiletries and a little bit of costume jewelry. She's not able to be safe with those things right now, but hopefully that will come back soon. You get it, I'm sure. I might just call Clive unless you and Ruby wouldn't mind buying some things. I know you were thinking of shopping for Diamond anyway."

"We could maybe leave them to their own devices, so long as we're right there to make sure they don't actually hurt each other," Angus said. He was looking down at the babies and sighed. He got up and snatched up Caprice. "What do you have in your mouth now, you little hellion?" He opened her mouth and retrieved one of the squirrel's black button eyes. He handed the slobbery button to Ruby as Caprice shrieked out in rage that he had taken her 'snack.'

"Do make sure that thing has it's other eye, would you?" Angus asked Ruby. "If not, we're going to have to hunt it."

Aria listened and smiled to him as he spoke " that's a good idea " she said then she heard him talk about Evelyn not having anything in regards clothing for the climate "yeah, we can do that " she said smiling to him" give me something to do and I'm very sure Ruby will help as well" she told him " I'll contact Jeffery and get her sizes and get everything you just listed sent to her, but I'm guessing it will be down to Jeffery to decide when she gets them." she told him. " and I agree she's family, so we take care of our own." she moved closer to him and went on her tip toes gently kissing his cheek " She's back to being safe tonight, so you come in when you want, I'm getting a bit cold out here" she said and then rubbed her arms.

Ruby nodded then watched as Angus pulled out a plastic eye from Caprices mouth " oh for.." she picked up the toys and turned it around " yep its got the other eye" she said showing him it was still attached if by a thread " guess that makes this toy unsuitable for babies" she said as she took the soggy eye from Angus. Picking up the destroyed toy she walked to the bin and tossed it into it to make sure it would never be touched by their hands.

"I know her sizes by heart," Marcus said. "You don't need to get them from Jeffrey. I'll give them to you, along with her favorite styles and colors. She likes warm colors rather than cool colors. She's not usually a blue or green person, unless its teal. She's into bright colors, reds, pinks, and corals and yellows. And, when she's on her meds, she likes tans, taupes, cream colors, and browns too. She likes bohemian styles--sort of an eccentric gypsy look. Broomstick skirts, peasant blouses, shawls, hats. She loves hats. She has always been a lover of the bohemian look, even before she became ill."

Angus finished his sandwich and then headed to the kitchen to decide what to fix for supper. He finally decided on roasting a couple whole chickens and roasting a couple sheet pans of vegetables. He decided on a blend of root vegetables--potatoes, onions, carrots, beets, and parsnips. It didn't take him long to clean the vegetables and cut them into chunks and put them on a couple sheet pans with salt and pepper and herbs, all tossed in olive oil. He prepared the chickens, and he put it all in the ovens to cook. He had a chicken and a sheet pan of vegetables in each of the twin ovens they had. He decided to cook them a bit slower, on a lower temperature so they would, hopefully, still stay moist.

The next thing he did was to put a homemade French vanilla ice cream in the countertop freezer to blend, and he mixed up a big batch of shortbread and rolled them out and cut them into rounds and pressed colorful sprinkles into the tops. It gave him four sheets of round shortbread cookies, and he took them over to see if he could use Simone's oven, and she was happy to bake them for him. he invited Edward and Simone for supper, and they accepted. When he came back, the freezer had finished running, so he put the ice cream into a freezer container and put it in the freezer to harden a bit more. He didn't want it overly hard, but it needed to be a bit firmer.

By then, Marcus had spent enough time outside, and he came in.

"What am I smelling?" Marcus said.

"Probably the vegetables I'm roasting for supper. The chicken hasn't been on long enough to smell yet," Angus said.

Aria listened to Marcus and made a mental note of all he had spoke about " got it" she said " I'll need shoes size and other sizes too " she asked hoping he understood she meant bra sizes and other things. Seeing him head inside she nodded and followed closely beside him as they entered she smelled something wonderful and smiled as Marcus asked Angus what was cooking " yeah smells wonderful" she added.

Ruby watched as Angus headed to the kitchen to cook something for supper she saw him cut up some veg into chunks and put them in the oven on trays. She also saw the ice cream and how he made cookies with sprinkles, now she was some what interested in what he was going to do with the two things.

"Yep. I know all her sizes," Marcus said. "This is not the first time I've had to buy her almost all new things, so by now, I know all that by heart."

"Well, supper is in the oven, except the cookies. Simone's baking those next door for me. I ran out of oven space," Angus said. "The nice part is there isn't much to clean up. Two roasting pans and eight sheet pans. That's it--at least til we get to the plates and such."

"Eight sheet pans? Are you cooking for an army?" Marcus asked.

"Pretty much. Six adults and our bottomless 4 teens," Angus replied. "And I think we could cut some of the chicken and vegetables into small diced bits to give to the babies. They're doing pretty well on finger foods, so I see no reason why we shouldn't let them try more table foods now. It has to be healthier for them than relying on pureed foods, and I think it will cut down on those diaper blowouts if their food isn't all so pureed."

"That will definitely help," Marcus laughed. "We didn't spend much time in pureed foods either for that very reason. As soon as they had teeth, we were on with the finger foods. And it looks to me like Caprice has maybe six teeth and working on number seven. She is a trifle ahead of schedule, I think, but she's been ahead all along. I was looking at Diamond the other day, and she has three fully grown teeth and a fourth that is still coming in. But that's definite progress. She only had two teeth when we got her. The extra nutrition has definitely helped."