"No no no! Say it like this, je m'appelle Simon et j'ai les cheveux noir et les yeux bruns" Lola giggled as Simon tried to speak French. Cheryl sat opposite her daughter at the kitchen table and let a small smile escape her lips as she knew full well that Simon could speak more French than he was letting on to.
"How do I say I love you?" Simon asked after he had repeated his daughter.
"That's easy! J'adore tu" Lola stated and Cheryl smiled at how smart her child was to be switching between languages so effortlessly.
"Okay so see if I get this right, j'adore Lola et Cheryl" Simon said with a slight hesitance. He watched carefully as mother and daughter looked at each other, he could tell they were reading each other's minds and they knew exactly what the other was thinking without even having to speak.
"Aye you got it right, didn't he Mam?" Lola spoke eventually; trying to ignore the fact Simon had said he loved her and her mum. She was trying her hardest to get on with him after her outburst to Cheryl earlier in the week, she hadn't known Simon had heard her but she felt bad for saying she wanted to go home.
Cheryl looked at her daughter then nodded slowly, Kimberley sensed from both Lola and Cheryl's reaction that Simon had took it a step too far too soon, "right enough of this French please, I have no idea what's going on and it's doing my head in. Lollipop try some of this?" she asked trying to divert the awkwardness from the room.
"What is it?" Lola asked as she prodded the food on her aunts' plate with her fork.
"Chez are you trying to tell me you've deprived your daughter of bagels her entire life?" she asked in mock shock. The Geordie merely shrugged her shoulders, "we eat croissants for breakfast, I don't think I've ever even bought bagels while we've been in France. Has Kellie ever had a croissant?" Cheryl asked pointing at Kimberley's daughter.
"Mum what's a cwosunt?" the six year old asked innocently causing Lola to gasp and Cheryl to smirk as if she'd won a mighty battle.
"Kel you've never had one?" Lola asked and the little girl shook her head once more, "next time your mum comes France get her to get you one. I have them for breakfast and they have chocolate in, there well yummy" she giggled.
Simon smiled as he watched his daughter; never would he have imagined his child to be so multi cultural. The little girl knew more about other ways of life than he did at his old age, it shocked him as he knew Cheryl had lived off beans on toast or the occasional McDonalds or Chinese, there was no way in hell she had known what a croissant was until she was in her early twenties. He knew that made Lola's love for other traditions more treasured for her mother as it was something she had never been able to experience when she was growing up.
"Right come on and hurry up eating, we've got to decorate the house" Cheryl reminded Lola and subconsciously Simon too, "I'll go and get the stuff down while you'se finish off"
* * *
Lola ran around the front room throwing bit of pink tinsel at her mother, Cheryl was doing her best she could to get out of the way and ended up jumping on one of the couches. Lola jumped on the one opposite it and threw the tinsel with all her might, Cheryl screamed when it collided with her face and pounced on her daughter to tickle her until she could hardly breathe.
"Are you two going to put any of these decorations up?" Simon joked as he continued to hang baubles on the tree. Lola picked one of her pieces of tinsel up and put it around the tv the best that she could and smiled at her won achievement.
"Mam do we have toys here like at home? You know the ones Rudolph plays with every year and sneaks one in my room?" she asked when she realised that something was missing.
"I don't think so babe, just cos Mam only bought them for you and you weren't born when I lived here" Cheryl explained as she watched her daughters' eyes fill with tears.
Simon felt awful for her, it was the first Christmas she was having away from home and the first one that wasn't just her and her mum and there was stuff missing that Lola obviously found important, "what sort of toys does Rudolph play with?" Simon asked before any tears could physically fall from Lola's brown eyes.
"We have a singing Scooby Doo, and Snoopy, and there's these bears that have scarves on right Mam? And a dog that sings Happy Christmas if you clap, and a reindeer with a flashing nose too" Lola smiled as she remembered the box full of toys from each Christmas. Simon scratched his head, he had hoped it would be simple things he could manage to buy but everything was so specific he knew there wouldn't be a chance he'd find it all before Christmas in just two days.
He bit his lip as he thought of a possible solution to the problems they were facing; he wanted this Christmas to be perfect. It was their first one as a proper family, it would be one that was remembered and he wanted, and needed, everything to be faultless more for his own sake than any one else's. He rushed out of the room and Cheryl heard the front door open, she sighed as she thought of the cold, knee deep snow he's just run into but didn't try to stop him.
The two girls continued to decorate the front room with the varied pink ornaments that Cheryl had bought a decade ago when she had still lived in the house. If there had been anything else hidden away in the loft she would have happily put them up as she thought the pink looked awful and tacky now, but not her surprise Lola loved it so she was happy in that respect even if her home did look like Barbie meets Hannah Montana.
Simon burst back into the front room with a shiver and Cheryl shuddered feeling the cold he'd brought back in with him, "will this do?" he asked Lola as he held up a Minnie Mouse doll dressed in a fluffy white dress with a Santa hat on. He watched as his daughters eyes widened and he saw they glimmered just like her mother's did when she was happy. She jumped up from hanging baubles on the bottom of the tree and took the doll of Simon and hugged it tightly before setting it down in front of the fire place. Cheryl stroked Simon's arm and whispered her thanks in his ear, "what do you say Lollipop?" she asked her daughter.
To both Cheryl and Simon's astonishment the little girl dived at Simon and wrapped her arms around him as tightly as she possibly could, "merci" she grinned without letting go.
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Je m'appelle Simon et j'ai les cheveux noir et les yeux bruns - My name is Simon and I have black hair and brown eyes.
J'adore tu - I love you.
J'adore Lola et Cheryl - I love Lola and Cheryl.
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