Page 13 of A Little Christmas Wish

He smiled. “All right. But you need protein, too. So I’ll scramble some eggs.”

“Protein-schmotein, Daddy,” she said.

He tapped her nose. “Enough of that. Or someone can spend some time in the corner instead of helping.”

“Sorry, Daddy!”

Fifteen minutes later, he had their lunch ready. He had scrambled eggs, toast, and orange juice. Sure, it was more breakfast than lunch but it worked.

He’d created a smiley face out of the fruit she’d chosen and put some scrambled eggs in a bowl for her.

After putting the food on the table, he turned to lift her off the counter and carried her over and sat her down at the large wooden table.

Then he grabbed a bib from a special, locked cupboard in the side cabinet. Ink had wondered if the boys might ask what was in the cupboard, but they never had.

The bib had an elephant on it and he knew it helped put her in a Little mindset. He also grabbed out some special cutlery. It was smaller and lighter than normal cutlery.

“There you go, baby,” he said as he pushed her chair in. “Eat up.”

She ate the berries first like he knew she would. He also knew that she’d leave the eggs until they were cold and gross.

So he grabbed the bowl and forked some up to feed to her. She blushed slightly but took the eggs delicately off the fork.

“Good girl,” he praised her. She’d had so little praise in her life that he liked to give her as much as he could.

And she seemed to soak it in like a flower needing water.

Okay, now he was just getting poetic.

“Enough, Daddy, I’m full. Can I go play?” she asked.

“No, you need to wash up and then it’s nap time.”

She sighed. “Daddy, you’ve got such an obsession with naps. Maybe you need to have a nap while I go play?”

“That would be nice,” he said as he wet a cloth and returned to where she sat.

Crouching, he wiped her hands, then her face.

“All right, it’s settled,” she told him. “You nap while I play.”

“No, it’s not settled. Because I’m not the Little girl, you are.”

“Daddies need naps too. Hmm, perhaps I should get you a T-shirt saying that. Or maybe, ‘Daddies can be cranky-pants without their nappy-naps.’”

He groaned. “That was terrible. Don’t you dare get me that.”

She giggled. Ink lifted her up onto his hip once more and carried her to her playroom which was on the ground floor. All of their bedrooms were upstairs.

Betsy held on tight, nearly strangling him.

“Button, you want to ease up on your hold?”

“But I just loves you sooo much,” she told him as he stopped in front of her playroom and grabbed the key to unlock it.

“That’s good, baby. Because I love you, too. However, your love might just be cutting off my air.”

“Oops. Sorry, Daddy.” She loosened her hold on him as he opened the door and carried her inside.

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