Total pages in book: 28
Estimated words: 26536 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 133(@200wpm)___ 106(@250wpm)___ 88(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 26536 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 133(@200wpm)___ 106(@250wpm)___ 88(@300wpm)
Each one of them was a girl, too.
We hadn’t gotten pregnant six times because we’d been trying for a boy, though. Rhodes and I had celebrated our gender reveals with our whole hearts, just thrilled to have a healthy pregnancy each time.
He loved being a girl dad, and every single one of our daughters adored their father. They also had him firmly wrapped around their little fingers. Which was why I wasn’t surprised to find him upstairs in the playroom, squished into a tiny chair, with a sparkly tiara on top of his head, surrounded by our daughters at a large, round table.
“My invitation to the tea party must have gotten lost in the mail, huh?”
Seven sets of dark eyes blinked up at me. There was no doubt that our daughters belonged to Rhodes. All you had to do was look at them, and the resemblance was immediately recognizable. Although a few of them were blondes like me. Including our eldest, who jumped out of her chair with an apologetic smile.
“Sorry, Mommy.” Circling the table, she tugged a large teddy bear out of the only chair not occupied by Rhodes or one of our girls. Handing it to Harper, she urged me to sit down. “This was an unplanned tea party. No invites. We didn’t forget about you, I promise.”
“Yeah, the natives were getting restless, so we figured this would settle everyone down before naptime,” Rhodes explained with a sheepish grin.
“Scoot over.” Evelyn—named after Rhodes’s mom—nudged Abigail’s shoulder. “Mommy needs more space than a teddy bear.”
“Cool your jets, bossypants,” Rhodes chided.
She was only eleven months older than Harper, but she took her role as the biggest sister very seriously. Basically, she figured it made her the boss of everyone. Including her dad and me from time to time. Hence her nickname.
“I can squeeze between two of my favorite girls, no problem at all.” I rounded the table, taking the time to press a soft kiss on top of each girls’ head—and one on Rhodes’s lips—before carefully perching on top of the now empty chair. “See?”
“Yay,” Hannah shrieked, clapping her hands. Our three-year-old was at the stage where she was full of energy all of the time. And she only had one volume—loud.
“Would you like English breakfast or chamomile tea, Mommy?” Caroline asked from across the table. At six years old, she was one of our middle kids and was so sweet. She had the biggest gap in age on either side of her, at two years younger than Harper and two years older than Abigail.
“English breakfast, please.”
She pretended to pour from one of the tea pots before handing the cup and saucer to her father. “Could you pass this along to Mommy?”
“Sure thing, kiddo.” Rhodes stretched his arm all the way out and set the faux tea in front of me.
“You want sugaw?” Abigail asked.
I nodded. “Definitely.”
Harper handed me the sugar bowl, part of the giant set the girls had gotten for Christmas last year. With six girls and parents who got roped into tea parties on a regular basis, they had needed service for eight.
After pretending to dump a spoonful of sugar into my cup and stirring it, I took a sip and hummed. “Yum, this is delicious.”
“Our best tea yet,” Evelyn agreed with a nod.
Millie yawned and leaned into her daddy’s side. At two years old, she was the only one in the bunch who didn’t argue about taking a nap. When the three youngest were down, Evelyn and Caroline used that time to play quietly in their rooms while Harper usually read a book.
“I’d love to sit and enjoy this, but we’d better gulp our tea down so we can get ready for rest time,” I suggested.
One thing we’d learned early on was that it was easier not to actually call it nap time. We got less resistance that way, especially from the older girls.
“Aw, but I’s havin’ so much fun.” Abigail sniffled and puffed out her bottom lip in an adorable pout.
“And we’ll have plenty of fun later this afternoon,” I promised. “We’re going to the park to meet some of Evelyn and Harper’s friends, remember?”
She did a little dance in her chair. “Oh yes!”
“You’ll need your rest if you’re going to go up and down the slide eleventy billion times.” Abigail loved the slide more than anything else at the park, which made it the perfect lure to get her to go down for a nap without a fight.
“You heard your mom, girls.” Rhodes got to his feet. “It’s clean-up time.”
When he used his dad voice, our daughters knew better than to argue. They scrambled out of their seats and put everything away in no time at all. Then, while the girls rested, we had a party of our own. But we served orgasms instead of tea.