Chapter 7 : Stepping up to the Plate

Captain’s Log,

Ruby has really started to worry that in her older age she is no longer attractive. I keep telling her that it isn’t so and that the more children she bares the more beautiful she becomes, but I’m not sure that she believes me any more. I keep finding her looking into the mirror and gussying up. This is frustrating. I know we spend most of our time apart now and seem to rarely see each other anymore, but I thought she trusted me. I think that now as she looks at me she sees the restlessness that I have begun to feel and she worries that I’ll abandon her. Which I might, so maybe she does have a good reason to not trust me.

Now that Leila is a teen she seems to spend even more time with her younger siblings. Especially because she can now help out with Nelly. It seems like Hilda and Maria really adore her too. They look up to her in everything that she does. Luckily Leila rises to their expectations and even exceeds them. We are really lucky to have Leila since all of Ruby’s time is spent with Nelly right now and all of my time is spent elsewhere.

Ruby really does spend all her time to help Nelly with learning all of her toddler skills. Although she wasn’t able to completely follow the tradition, Ruby started teaching Nelly how to walk the morning after she turned into a toddler. After she tired of teaching Nelly her skills don’t really know what else she does in the day. She keeps up the garden, true, but I think she might just sit around other than that.

When Nelly was put to sleep, Ruby changed into her maternity clothes because she knew that she was pregnant for the fifth and last time. She smiled a sadly sweet smile at the thought. We both loved our fourth daughters and she would love more children, but at the same time, they were definitely taking a toll on us both physically and emotionally, and taking a toll on our relationship. It will be nice when all of our children are grown and we don’t have to worry about them anymore.

Nelly seems to be left alone more often than our other three, but it may be that because there are more people around and she gets the same amount of time or attention, but the percentage of people here to attention she gets is less. However she doesn’t mind it in the slightest. She loves to just sit and play with her toy rocket. She’s really followed in Hilda and Leila’s footsteps in that regard. Unfortunately her playful nature doesn’t stop there. She likes to not only play with rockets, but also seems to get into anything and everything. We had to lock the bathroom door because once we found her in the tub filling it with water when she doesn’t even know how to swim. I worry that her reckless nature, that makes her dive into anything with no fear, will get her hurt later in life.

Hilda spends most of her time glued to the TV working out. I can understand wanted to lose a few pounds, but I’m not sure how healthy it is. I had hoped that she’d spend more time outside playing ball since she enjoys the game so much. But she insists that she isn’t just working out because she wants to lose weight, but also because she just likes to be active and move around. She really wants to get fit, not for looks like I had originally thought, but because that’s the healthy thing to do.

Ruby was having another tough pregnancy and started to get bad backaches. I made sure to spend plenty of time giving her massages and making sure that she had the easiest time possible. Although I have started having second thoughts about a fifth child (and life here in general), I know it’s something she really wants and since she puts up with so much from and for me I figure it’s only fair to give her something that she wants even if I don’t really want it. But I would never tell her that, I think it might just break her heart.

Our daughters spent most of the day just hanging out with each other. They didn’t really do anything exciting other than play with each other and build even stronger relationships with each other. I’m glad that they are hanging out with each other, but none of them seem to have any goals in life. I’m worried that they have so little focus. Ruby tried to reassure me by saying that all three of them really were too young to gain a lifetime wish, but I don’t care how young they are. How can you succeed if you don’t know what to do? To deal with my worries I left the house again and headed to the library to study some skills. The library has become a sort of place of refuge for me, for which I am grateful.

Meanwhile, Ruby made sure to spend plenty of time with all of our daughters. She was worried that since I had seemed to take a much smaller interest in them that they would think that their parents no longer cared about them. So she talked to Maria and Leila for a while in the late afternoon.

She also made sure to touch base with Hilda and play some ball with her. I guess it really has become her favorite game. She keeps wanting to play with everyone. Ruby was just happy to spend time with Hilda because she still seems a little left out compared to her two older sisters.

With her mom busy, Leila stepped up to the challenge and took over the care of Nelly for the day. She even finished teaching Nelly how to walk. I’m really happy that Leila is being such a great older sister and I really want to do something special for her soon. I know that I have favored her and I don’t think that it has ever gone to her head; she has become almost a second mom to her younger siblings. Outstanding behavior like that should be rewarded, right? Besides if I can show her how I still care maybe we’ll be able to connect again. I know that I really want to be friends with her again, and I think she wants that too.

After learning how to walk Nelly settled down and played with her blocks for the night. Whenever I see her playing she’s always smiling and I think I hear her singing softly to herself. Although she hasn’t touched the xylophone yet, I think she might be just as talented as Maria when in comes to music.

The next morning Leila pulled out a book that she was supposed to read for class as she watched over all three girls. Last night because of her pregnancy hormones, Ruby got up in the middle of the night to make a couple of plates of waffles so the girls were able to have a real breakfast instead of cake. Almost right after breakfast, the three girls went off to school and I went off to work.

Continuing her early morning, Ruby spent all her time in the garden. It was a relaxing time for her and she really enjoyed it, but at the same time it took her a very long time because our garden has finally has grown very large. Ruby didn’t do much of anything today, she started teaching Nelly how to talk, but then just lazed around watching tv and reading books.

After the girls returned home from school, they settled down to do their homework. Ruby sat with them and helped them when they needed it. It was a really low-key afternoon that had followed a relatively boring day.

The evening was exciting however because near the end of it I was able to finally do something for Leila. She told me that she had been wanting to travel for some time now. We hadn’t been able to afford it until now and couldn’t afford to take the whole family, which might be the best thing anyway.

So in the early evening Leila took off to have her first adventure. She actually seems excited and I’m glad to see that something can draw emotion from her.