Double the Cuteness
Reni slept through the night without waking once.
He slept so deeply that even after I scooped up Luca—who had popped his eyes open for a moment—and took a full lap around the terrace, Reni was still out cold.
“Luca, should we wake up big brother?”
I set him down beside Reni as I said it. Luca wriggled a little, then settled right back into a comfortable sprawl.
“…No, that wasn’t an invitation for you to go back to sleep too.”
Truthfully, I wanted a little more sleep myself. But I wanted to keep the boys’ mealtimes as consistent as possible. Especially for Reni’s sake.
Watching him carefully yesterday and the day before, I’d noticed how little he ate. He needed good habits. It didn’t seem like he was naturally a light eater—more like recent stress had stolen his appetite. I’d even started fretting about whether I should find a child psychologist.
When I asked about it, the sister told me that when Alicia had gone in for counseling, they’d also had Reni seen by a specialist. What he needed most wasn’t treatment, she said, but a guardian’s warm, loving attention.
“…Reni. Time to wake up and eat breakfast.”
I stroked the back of his hand gently as I woke him. He gave a tiny flinch and stirred. I smoothed his mussed hair with my fingers, and even half-asleep he reached for me; I lifted him into my arms.
“Did our Reni sleep well?”
“…Mm-hmm.”
He rested his head on my shoulder and managed the answer in a voice still thick with sleep.
“Aigoo, so sleepy.”
I scooped up Luca, who was still lounging comfortably, and headed for the terrace so both boys could soak up the morning sun.
“All right. Our Luca—ah-ah.”
“Ah-ah!”
Gulp.
Today, just like always, Luca gobbled down whatever I spoon-fed him like a baby bird.
“Dad, I’m full.”
Reni, on the other hand, left half his plate again.
“….”
Only the second morning of living together. The boy hadn’t fully opened his heart to me yet, so I hated the idea of scolding him if I could help it. Still—just one more spoonful would be nice. With that thought, I picked up the spoon he’d set down.
“Our Reni, just one more bite?”
“Mm….”
Watching him barely manage the less-than-full spoon of yogurt made it clear he really didn’t want it. Even so, I praised him to the skies for eating that much. Then, just in case, I slipped half a walnut into his mouth; he chewed and swallowed that too, looking like he was forcing himself.
“….”
I didn’t want mealtime to become something the child dreaded. Suddenly I remembered something Maria had said on a previous call.
‘At four, kids are right at the age when stubbornness kicks in hard—is he okay?’
Was this a kind of stubbornness too?
“Hmm….”
I made the sound without thinking. Reni eyed me carefully, then picked up one more tiny sunflower seed and ate it. Oops. I quickly stroked his hair.
“No, Dad isn’t trying to scold you. If you don’t want to eat, you don’t have to.”
I lifted him out of the chair and held him close as I spoke. Reni gave a soft, relieved little smile.
I’ll find a way for you to eat well, okay?
I finished the increasingly worrisome breakfast and set the boys down in the living room. Reni sat at the little kids’ table reading a picture book. Luca, determined to copy his big brother, put on a show of “reading” one too. That didn’t last long, so I had to finish cleaning up before the babbling requests to be moved onto the play mat started.
With two kids, shouldn’t it only be twice as busy? Why did it feel three or four times busier?
I packed away the leftovers, ran the dishwasher, and wiped down the counters. The whole time, Luca had been staring at me. Now he called out.
“Auu-ah!”
“Yeah, our Luca—ready for the playroom?”
He grinned and plopped straight into my arms. Seeing that, Reni closed his picture book too.
“Reni.”
He looked up at me.
“If you still want to look at your book, you can keep looking. You don’t have to do whatever Luca wants.”
“…But I’m supposed to play with the baby.”
Maybe Alicia and Kyle had once told him something like, When your little brother is born, big brother has to play with him. The clever boy had remembered. Kind and smart—and because of that, even more anxious about my reaction. I gently stroked his hair as I spoke.
“Of course Luca loves it when you play with him. But you’re still a little kid yourself, Reni. You can do what you want to do.”
“….”
Reni seemed to think it over for a moment, then stood up and nestled right against Luca’s side.
“Theeen… later, will you read me a book, Dad?”
“Shall we? You want to play with the baby right now?”
“Yeah.”
He answered softly and nodded. I scooped him up high, spun him in a full circle right there, and he burst into giggles.
“Then right now we play our hearts out, and later we read with Dad.”
“Yeah!”
While the boys played together, I opened my laptop and knocked out whatever work I could handle quickly.
“Yesterday I made a bed canopy for the kids, so I’ll send you that video.”
I hadn’t had time to shoot anything new these past few days. When I passed along the canopy footage from yesterday and explained the situation, Cassandra answered as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
“Thanks.”
Then she added that if I truly couldn’t find time to film something new, I should at least record the boys and me sleeping at night.
…Wasn’t that a little too low-effort?
When I voiced my concern, Cassandra laughed.
It was something I never would have imagined back when I worked at the company. But listening to Cassandra had never steered me wrong so far, so I agreed and hung up.
All right—video side handled…
What I actually needed urgently was the second recipe. I hadn’t been in touch with Kelly in quite a while; I needed to come up with something and hand it over soon. My brain refused to turn over properly. Then a clear little thump sounded.
“Waaaaah!”
Luca’s wail followed immediately. I hurried over and found Reni looking up at me with teary eyes too.
“Luca got hit by the ball… I only threw it a little….”
Having a child who could explain things really did make grasping the situation easier. I scooped both of them up at once and soothed them.
“I see. It’s okay, Reni. A bouncy ball isn’t hard. Luca isn’t hurt—he’s just startled.”
A single aggrieved tear finally slipped from Reni’s eye as well.
“Hiiing….”
He’d been trying so hard to play well with his brother, and Luca’s crying had clearly upset him.
“It’s okay, Reni. Things like this happen when you’re playing.”
I explained calmly while walking them around the house, rocking both boys. Luca quieted, and soon so did Reni. I took them straight out to the terrace for water play. I wanted to flip their gloomy moods right away.
Sure enough, the boys were soon shrieking with laughter and splashing. I floated every toy I had—including rubber ducks. Luca was completely absorbed. Reni played along happily for a while, then suddenly launched into questions.
“Daaad, why does the duck float?”
I pressed the duck flat to squeeze the air out as I explained.
“Look, Reni. See how the duck is hollow inside? There’s air in here. Air is lighter than water, so it floats instead of sinking.”
Reni tilted his head. Then, watching the flattened duck puff back up as air rushed in, he asked again.
“Why does the air go inside the duck?”
“Hmm? Ah… air goes into any empty space it finds.”
Clumsy as it was, I thought that was enough for now. Reni’s questions were not finished.
“But why is air lighter than water?”
“Well, you can touch water like this, right? But you can’t touch air, so it doesn’t have a shape… so it’s light.”
“Why?”
“When gravity acts on mass, that becomes weight… um….”
How was I supposed to explain this? I glanced at the boy and chose retreat for the moment.
“How about we water-play now, and later we look it up together in a science picture book?”
“Okay!”
I taught Reni how to play catch with Luca over the water, then straightened my back and looked up at the sky.
Something. Something was coming. The kind of parenting I was going to have to do from now on felt like it would be on a completely different level from anything before.
And unfortunately, my gloomy hunch was right on the money. Even after water play, Reni’s “Why?” assault never stopped. Yes—this wasn’t questions. This was an attack.
It was a little better when he asked about things in the picture books, so I made a point of reading with them whenever I could.
“So the butterfly comes out of the chrysalis like this….”
I was midway through a fairly lovely picture book about a butterfly’s metamorphosis when a text notification chimed. Kelly.
“Ah….”
“Dad, is something wrong?”
Reni’s eyes went round. Apparently my voice had given me away. Sharp little guy. I scrambled for a cover.
“No, nothing like that. Dad just has some work I haven’t finished.”
But Reni’s eyes only got bigger.
“Dad, you work?”
“Of course. Dad has to work to earn money, and with money we can buy our Reni tasty things and toys.”
“But you’re at home.”
Ah—of course a child would misunderstand. Kyle had left for work every morning.
“Dad doesn’t have to go to an office. I can earn money from home.”
“…Wooow.”
Reni gazed up at me with sparkling eyes full of awe.
No, it’s not like that. God just sent me here as a freelancer….
I gave up on correcting the misunderstanding and looked back at my phone. I wanted to give Kelly something substantial, but in the end all I could do was apologize and push the deadline back a week.
This was a real problem.
The second I sat down to catch my breath, more housework swam into view. When the brothers played without issues I could at least exhale for a moment—but inspiration never struck in those moments either. Maybe I really needed to SOS Greg’s mother and ask if she had any secret family techniques.
Somehow another day slipped by in a blur.
Putting the kids to bed, waking them, feeding them, playing with them, bathing them, soothing them, teaching them—carving out time for actual work was genuinely hard. The pressure, the stress, and the impatience would pile up until my head spun… and then I’d watch them grow with my own eyes and feel so proud I could burst.
Luca watched Reni crawling across the play mat after a ball, then his mouth fell open as if something had clicked. At last he started practicing crawling himself. After nothing but army-crawling all this time, watching him try real crawling was both hilarious and impossibly cute.
Luca pushed his upper body fully up, face dead serious, and in that exact posture started wiggling his butt. He’d somehow found the shape, but he had no idea how to actually move forward.
“…Uuung-ah!”
“Daaad. Luca’s getting mad.”
“Yeah, he is. It’s okay. Luca’s trying to learn how to crawl, so it’s hard for him.”
I patted the back of Reni, who was watching his little brother with worried eyes.
“Even if Luca gets grumpy right now, you don’t have to worry about it, Reni. Babies get frustrated the first time they try to crawl—it’s completely normal.”
“Mm….”
He answered well enough, but he still looked bothered. Wanting to help his brother somehow, Reni flattened himself on the floor in front of Luca and began demonstrating how to crawl while explaining with great seriousness.
“Lucaaa… look at big brother? Like this… knees!”
“Uuung-ah!”
…Whether that “explanation” actually landed was anyone’s guess. But one thing was certain: the cuteness had just doubled.