“I’ll go and call Layla and give her the news,” Sayla said as she stood up. Then, turning to her niece, who was playing with the dogs, she called, “Want to come in and get a popsicle, Nemi?”
Turning around with a scowl on her face, she shook her hand back and forth in front of her.
“What’s she doing?” Jacinda asked. “I don’t speak small child.”
“She’s trying to shake her finger like when you say no, but she keeps forgetting to raise a finger,” Heidi sighed. “This one’s a bit better than what she was doing before, though.”
That had me intrigued. “What was she doing before?”
Sayla replied for her sister, using only her hand shaking… and her middle finger sticking up in the air.
“Oh, Lordy,” Jacinda chuckled. “I’d be the worst parent ever because that would just make me laugh each time. ‘Oh, baby, I’m not angry. You keep waving that big, bad finger around at people. They probably deserve it.’”
“I thought I’d always be the parent who got the kid who did nothing wrong,” I told them after they’d stopped laughing. “Instead, I got one of Satan’s minions. When Cody was sick, I swear his head would spin on his shoulders while he projectile vomited from side to side.
“Then he went through a phase where he wanted to see where the toilet led, so he shoved some of his toys down it and blocked it solid. There was also the time he told an old woman who snapped at me in the store that she was ‘a mean woman who needed to iron her face.’ I about died when she just gave me the middle finger and stormed off. That was just part of what raising Storm Cody was like.”
“I’m dreading it when Nemi starts talking properly. I caught her yelling ‘suh uf a hits’ when she couldn’t open something the other day. It wasn’t until later, when I stubbed my toe and said son of a bitch that I realized what she’d been saying,” Heidi told us, her shoulders sagging. “I’m such a shit mom.”
“You’re not shit, you’re human,” I corrected her. “Would you prefer her to have no personality? Nothing that makes you think ‘that’s so Nemi,’ and for her to act like a robot?”
“Of course not.”
“Then,” I raised my glass to her, “clinky-clinky on being a human mom and not a mass produced robot. I stopped watching those programs where the woman goes in and helps fix the issues the parents are having with their kids.
“You know, I once told Cody to sit on the naughty step, so he went outside and sat on the curb. When I asked him what he was doing, he said it was technically a step.”
“That’s kind of genius,” Sayla acknowledged, looking surprised.
“What’s more genius is that he’d picked up two bucks on his way out because he knew the ice cream truck was coming.”
I laughed, but I still couldn’t get my head around what he’d done that day. It was crazily intelligent and cunning, and he’d only been six at the time.
“That kid’s a trip,” Jacinda sighed happily. “It’s like going back in time to when I was little.”
Jacinda’s mother was from Sri Lanka, and her dad was around the same color as mine—one shade away from total sunburn just by saying the word ‘sun.’
The first thing I’d thought when I’d met her was that I was scared to shake her hand in case I ‘unperfected her perfection.’ Then she’d opened her mouth, and I knew I was going to keep her in my life no matter what.
“Don’t you have a big family?” Heidi asked her as Nemi finally stopped playing with the dogs and bestowed a loving moment on her mom.
“Only two more kids than this one’s parents had,” she gestured with a thumb at me.
Reaching into her bag for a wipe, Heidi gave Nemi a quick splash ‘n dash. “I thought kids from bigger families had quieter personalities? Your mom’s so soft and gentle, too.”
Jacinda snorted her wine and hacked it up. With her eyes watering, she hit her chest with her fist until she could talk again.
“Where did you get that bullshit? We all take after her.”
Huh, I wasn’t surprised by that information, funnily enough. Alex was kind of the same way—softer around other people, but confident and the definition of an alpha male at home.
Using a sip of wine to clear her throat from her coughing fit, Jacinda said, “So, what we’re doing today is called the cinnamon oil challenge. Women have been saying it works wonders to plump lips up, and because we give honest feedback, we’ve had over a thousand requests from subscribers to try it.”
“Ew,” Sayla whined. “I hate cinnamon.”
“Shut your hoochie mouth,” I hissed. “It’s the best spice and flavor ever, and you wouldn’t hate it if you hadn’t drunk too much of a cinnamon liqueur at a party and thrown your guts up.”