Page 97 of Scoring Chances
Izzy is so beautiful holding her tiny little nugget as she likes to call her.
“Baby Stella,” I coo to the tiny human in my arms. “She’s absolutely beautiful, you guys.”
Ryker hovers next to me like a mama dog watches her puppies. He makes sure everybody washes their hands and holds her gently.
“Can I see her?” Maddie asks.
“Yeah I wanna see baby!” Parker says, now fully awake.
I bend down to show them how little she is.
“Aww, she’s so cute. She looks like a little doll,” Maddie exclaims.
“But she’s not. She’s real,” Ryker says, a little overprotective.
“Tone it down, Goalie-zilla. Nobody’s gonna hurt the nugget,” Izzy insists, taking a sip of the water in her branded Mercy General cup.
“Is that like the Stanley cup for new moms?” I motion toward the giant plastic cup.
Izzy laughs and then regrets it, holding her lower abdomen.
“You’re not supposed to make her laugh,” Joshua says, eyeing Ryker, whose now mama bearing his fiancée.
New dads are so funny to watch. They’re extra cautious. They act like the baby will break if you pick them up the wrong way.
But I know babies. They’re made of the toughest ingredients to withstand all the tumbles and fumbles that childhood provides.
Not to say we shouldn’t be gentle. But I’ve seen my own siblings take quite a few stumbles as babies.
And though a woman who just gave birth needs extra care for sure. She’s also the most powerful being on the planet because who in the world creates an entirely separate human inside their body in less than year and then births that whole human and then welcomes visitors mere minutes later except for a warrior queen?
Which I firmly believe that all mamas are.
Joshua hasn’t asked to hold the baby. He’s watching her from the corner of my shoulder.
“Do you want to hold her?” I ask him.
He looks shocked that I would even ask. “I don’t know.”
I turn to him and tell him, “Here. Make sure you support her head, she doesn’t have the strength to do it yet. And just hold her to your chest. Just like that.” I help position the baby in his arms and he doesn’t move from the position I put him in.
I swear my ovaries explode at the sight of Joshua Hicks holding a newborn baby and smiling down at her. If there’s a poster I need hanging up in my room… it’s this one.
My goodness.
He looks up at me like he notices I’m watching him. And I smile and turn to Izzy to ask about a meal train and what the plan is for when they get home.
She says their stocked on food and shouldn’t need to go grocery shopping again until next year with the amount of things that Ryker has bought to get the house ready for Stella.
Joshua offers to walk me to my car, while the kids wait in the waiting room with Keelan.
We don’t say much as we walk down the hall to the elevators. We wait until a couple exits and he holds the door open for me to walk through.
Once it’s shut behind him he turns to me.
“Did I do something wrong?” he asks, eyes solemn. “Did I not treat you right?”
Those deep blue eyes are watching my every move and I swallow hard. “No,” I whisper.