Punishment

Whenever all six of my children are in front me, I really have to stop and wonder once again why I went ahead and slept with another man. The signs of a new pregnant haven't shown yet, but I can feel them coming. I know it will only be a matter of days before my stomach starts to pull a little more tightly against my clothes. I miss the times when I only had Elioviel to take care of. I can't forget that it was my goal to fill the house up though. I've definitely reached that goal. I just hope I can keep my sanity throughout all of this.

The recent birthdays we had should make things a little easier of me. My two current oldest girls had their birthdays. Niphredil's came along first. Unfortunately, life seems to be singling her out, and not in the good way. She is perhaps the unluckiest child I've ever seen. All these little bad events keep happening to her. One day it's a ball hitting her in the head, the next her new toy breaking, or a bee coming up to sting her. Niphredil does seem to have such a personality as to take all these little punches and roll through them effortlessly. She also finds activities that she really enjoys such as cooking in the toy oven.

Then we have Raradia. I thought I now had three teenagers to help me balance out the three younger children. That is what I should naturally think. However, Raradia tried to push me to add more stressors to my life. She wanted to adopt a cat for she is absolutely obsessed with them. Zuri eventually grew on me, but I've never been fond of cats. Kosa is the lone exception to the new rule I made up for our household- no cats allowed.

Raradia, obviously, was displeased. I told her to ask Ricardo to buy one for her, but for him to keep it at his house. I was surprised when Raradia did ask and Ricardo went along with the idea eagerly. Now this means that Raradia is rarely home since she's playing with her cat over at her father's house. It's either that or she's busy writing whenever she is home.

My pregnancy did finally show itself, and brought with it intenser than normal cravings. I truly had a hard time stopping myself from eating. I never felt full even for a moment. The idea that I might be carrying multiples came into my mind, and I really do need to know ahead of time I am. I went to the hospital to get a scan. I told the nurse not to tell me the gender for I still wanted that to be a surprise, but simply for him to tell me if I was having more than one child. We checked twice just to confirm that I really was only having one. My cravings were merely being weird for this pregnancy.

I am not the only who has trouble stopping when it comes to eating. All too often I find Niphredil licking down finished plates like a ravenous animal when she thinks no one is looking. It's a bit disconcerting to watch my sweet-looking daughter behave in such a way. Scraps of food fly everywhere when she licks a plate. I swear I feed this child. I've told her each time to stop, but she continues despite my best attempts to make her understand she can grab a healthy snack instead if she's still hungry.

It's natural that twins really are harder to take care of than a single child. It's unavoidable really. I'm loving having the experience of raising different gendered twins though. It's interesting to watch how their relationship grows and changes compared to that of my same gendered multiples. As of right now, Elvaran and Analinde are inseparable. Their personalities are rather similar as well.

Milmarion was nearly late for school one day. He was downstairs and not paying attention to the time when the bus arrived. I don't know why neither Noril, Raradia, or Niphredil thought to alert him. They got on the bus and left without him. Milmarion rushed up at the last minute panicking. I told him he was just going to have to drive to school instead. Since there was problems with our black car he had to take the pink one instead. Milmarion complained loudly as he rushed out the door, but he had no choice. I didn't have to bother reprimanding him for being careless when he returned after school ended. The teasing he got from his friends for driving that car to school was punishment enough.

The following week there were more punishments to hand out though. The first one was not to a child of mine.

Niphredil brought over her friend Mike Harding, who apparently has no connection to the Randy Harding I slept with that brought about my pregnancy. Mike wanted to use our costume chest to dress up. Niphredil told him he could use it, but she wanted to play another game so she went outside. None of the rest of us were paying attention to Mike. That is, until Noril heard loud smashing sounds coming out of the nursery. Mike was pounding our dollhouse to pieces.

Noril gave Mike a good yelling. Mike's parents came over when I called them. They gave him an even worse earful after they promised to replace the dollhouse. When Niphredil came back from school the next day she said Mike had been mean to her as if it was somehow her fault he had gotten in trouble. She wasn't friends with him anymore.

You would think Noril would have learned from Mike's actions that you never damage another's property for no reason, or even if there is a reason for that matter. There are other ways to approach problems. In this case, Noril didn't even have the smallest excuse for his choice. He just wanted to be rebellious. He snuck out in the middle of the night to egg the rich Alto household.

Mr. Alto caught Noril and had him brought home by the police, but he thankfully didn't press any kind of charges.

Noril seemed not to care at all. He held no guilt in his heart. He thought what he had done was funny, and fought against every punishment I gave him. It didn't make me feel any better when said some nasty things to me when I kept trying to talk to him to show him the gravity of his actions. When Milmarion, Raradia, and Niphredil tried to defend me he went off at them too. A couple days passed and Noril's attitude didn't change or improve. I had no idea what I was supposed to do.

We were arguing one day over Noril refusing again to do his punishment. I was so stressed. I had been in awful pain for days because of my late pregnancy, Elvaran and Analinde had been particularly fussy, and word had come that I had lost more of my children back in Aurora Skies. Everything Noril threw at my was too much for me to keep my composure. I don't even remember what he said that set me off, but the next thing I knew was that I was smacking him against the cheek as hard as I could.

Given how many centuries of training I've had in the fighting arts, the slap was hard indeed.

Noril was more shocked than truly hurt though. I barely noticed. I was in even worse shock. I've always sworn since I was little to never hurt my children physically. To this day I still feel fear whenever I think of the times naneth swatted my hands raw when I did something bad. It's my job to protect my children no matter how infuriating they can be. In a desperate attempt to stop my swelling tears, I covered my face with my hands. It did little. I was so ashamed, so upset with myself. I apologized to Noril through my tears.

I was waiting for him to say that he hated me. As much as I regretted it, my slap did bring my normal Noril back. He wrapped his arms around me to comfort me. He apologized over and over, telling me he deserved what I'd done. He had needed it. I had done nothing wrong. I eventually stopped crying though I continued to feel horrible. Noril gave a final apology. He promised to do all his punishments without any further complaints or trouble. He left me with one more hug before heading off to bed.

It took a little while for things to feel comfortable between us all as they once had. I gave birth to my new son during that time. I was excited to finally have Delenmir born. There's eight of us now in this house. I figure this is the point where I slow down just for a little. Seven children is more than enough for me to handle.

I suppose "a little too much to handle" is a better phasing to use. None of my children are allowed to use the bathroom connected to my bedroom. It's nice to have one just for myself for once. I need the privacy being surrounded by so many others. One of my children snuck into my bathroom though. Not only did they sneak in, they also set a trap on the sink.

Neither Milmarion, Noril, Raradia, nor Niphredil confessed to the crime. I punished all of them then by making a strong vinegar salad for them to eat for dinner that night......