Page 31 of A Very Miller-Cooper Life

“Yeah, sure.” I looked around the room for any signs of my parents. “Where are grandma and grandpa?”

“Grandma is cleaning our dirty clothes and grandpa is pooping,” Olivia said matter-of-factly.

Nana threw her hands in the air. “No secrets in this house anymore.”

When my dad walked into the kitchen a few seconds later, we all started to laugh. “Get everything out okay?” I asked when he gave us all a questioning look.

“All right. Who told?” My dad pointed at Ronan. “Was it you? I bet it was you!”

Ronan quickly pointed his own finger at Olivia. “No, it was Livvy.”

My dad nodded. “That would have been my next guess.”

Ronan clawed at my dad’s legs the same way he had done to mine. “Let’s show Mommy and Mama how I throw football.”

“You got it.” My dad scooped Ronan into his arms and carried him through the kitchen and out the back door.

Reagan and I followed, holding Olivia and Carter respectively. We watched as my dad stood close to Ronan and threw him the football, which he awkwardly caught with both hands. When he “threw” it back to my dad it only went about a foot, so my dad had to lean forward to grab it, almost losing his balance in the process.

“So much better than Uncle Jamie,” Reagan said as she held her phone out in front of her, clearly taking a video to send to him.

We watched them throw the ball back and forth a few more times before Olivia huffed. “I’m bored.”

“Hi, bored. I’m Mom.” I cringed as soon as the words were out of my mouth.Holy shit. When did I get so old that I started to say things my mother said to me?

I couldn’t even blame Olivia for the way she wrinkled her eyebrows at me in obvious judgment. “Not funny.” She pointed out toward the lake. “I want to swim.”

“In the lake?” I asked with a cough, remembering the activities that had taken place there last night.

Olivia nodded. “Grandma said we could if you said it’s okay. She saidyouswam in it.”

“I did. Not that long ago, actually.” I shared a secret smile with Reagan who winked back at me.

“Can we please?” Carter brought her hands together in a praying motion and hit me with the widest, most adorable, puppy dog eyes. There was no way I could say no.

“Fine. But you have to wear your bathing suits and your swimmies.”

All three of the kids high-fived then ran inside. I pointed in the direction they had just run in. “I guess we should go help them, huh?”

“I suppose they need us.”

After spending the next fifteen minutes wrestling with our kids to get their bathing suits on and putting our own on as well, we headed back out to the lake, this time to do some much different activities than the night prior.

Reagan took turns throwing the kids into the water while I entertained whichever two weren’t being thrown at the moment. When they got bored of that, we tried to teach them Marco Polo, but that only lasted about five minutes since Olivia and Ronan got in a fight after she accused him of cheating. Once we were able to break up the fight, they finally seemed content to just swim around, so Reagan and I got out and sat by the edge watching them.

“Would you rather spend every night like last night or every day like today?” Reagan asked as we watched them splash each other. “You can only have one or the other. Not both.”

“Is that supposed to be hard? Obviously today. You know I love our alone time, but nothing compares to this.”

“I know.” Reagan leaned over and kissed my cheek. “I already knew what you were going to say. I just wanted to hear you say it.”

“You wanted to hear me say that I would choose watching our children try to kill each other over ever having sex with you again?”

“Yes. That’s exactly what I wanted.” She put her arm around my shoulder and pulled me close to her. “Lucky for us, we get both.”

“Yes. Lucky us.”

I knew my luck had run out as soon as I heard my mother’s voice behind us. “Charlotte, why are you letting your children play in that dirty lake?”

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