A Whole Hand

                                    

                                          
August 12th 2021- Rory's POV-
It was Tori's 5th birthday and I was woken up very early by her climbing onto bed with me and Logan. 
"Happy birthday, baby"  
"I'm 5" 
"I know" 
"That's a whole hand" 
I just hugged her tight and kissed her forehead. 
That morning we had breakfast as a family, and Tori chose what we ate. After breakfast we headed out to the pool and slowly throughout the day people started arriving. Joan and Frank, Finn and Rosemary, Colin and Steph, Juliet and Ethan. I did invite Nathan too, but I wasn't sure if he was coming.   
I asked Tori how she wanted to spend her birthday at the vineyard and she said 'pool'. So we spent the day outside. We ate lots of snacks, and swam, and jumped on the trampoline that was out there, it was great and Tori was having a blast. 
I was sitting in the shade with the babies, Stephanie, Rosemary, Ellie, and Honor. 
"By the way, I think your Cameron's teacher this year" Stephanie said. Cameron was 7 and going into second grade, so it was possible. 
"That'll be interesting" Honor said 
"Just tell me if he's a total asshole" Rosemary said 
I chuckled. "Ok" 
"Can I give them this?" Ellie asked. She was holding bread. 
"Go for it" I said. "I don't knows if they'll actually eat it though. That night just play with it, but you can give it to them. 
"Mommy!" Tori ran over to me. 
"Come here baby" I said and she sat on my lap. 
"How's the birthday girl?" Stephanie asked 
"Good!" Tori said. 
"You know what? I think you're growing up too fast and need to slow down" 
Tori giggled. 
"You want some watermelon?" I asked. She nodded. 
Just then Logan appeared. "How are my girls doing?" 
"I don't like it" Tori said. She was talking about the watermelon. 
"Don't spit it out" I said. "If it's in your mouth, swallow it" 
"Really?!" Logan asked with the biggest smile on his face. 
I laughed. "Shut up" 
"I second that" Stephanie said. "No dirty innuendos in front of the kids" 
"Or in front of anybody" I said. "I would prefer if what happens in our bedroom stayed there" 
"Sorry" he kissed the top of my head. 
"Daddy, the watermelon tastes bad" Tori said. I have no idea what she was talking about, we were all eating the watermelon and it was fine. 
"You don't have to eat it" 
—— 
We were all sitting around, eating birthday cake. Nathan didn't come up and I never heard from him. I found out later that he'd been arrested for a parole violation. I really wanted Tori to be able to know him, but enough was enough. She was now at an age where she'd remember him going in and out of her life and I didn't want that for her, so I decided that unless she asked to see him, he wasn't allowed to see her anymore. 
"Tori, do you know what the first time I met you, you threw up on me?" Gigi asked 
"Yuck" Tori said 
"Yeah, I didn't hold you again for a while" Gigi said 
"Do you know that I was there when you were born" mom said.
Tori shook her head. I think she probably did but just didn't remember. 
"You were so small, and so beautiful, and you weren't crying which made your mom worry that you couldn't breathe" she said. "And that was after she was in labor for over 24 hours" 
"Ouch" Stephanie chuckled
"Yeah" I said. From the time my water broke until Tori was born, 29 hours passed. "7 minutes longer it would've been 30 hours" 
"I think Rory wins the award for the longest labor out of all of us" Honor said
"I don't know" mom said. "Anyone here have 31 hours?" 
"What did you do the whole time?" Juliet asked 
"I was a wonderful DJ" mom said 
"She made me listen to 'Push it' by salt N pepper like 20 times" I said
"That's hilarious" Carly said 
"It's ridiculous" grandma said 
"I wanna know Rory's favorite Tori moment" Honor said 
"All of them" I said. "I couldn't pick one if I wanted to" I nudged Logan. "Do you have one?" 
"I might" he said. He definitely did and I was pretty sure I know what it was. 
"That means yes!" Tori said "what it is?" 
"My favorite Tori moment is the first time you ever called me daddy" Logan said 
"Why?" Tori asked. She knew that Logan adopted her, but I don't thing that she was old enough to fully understand what it meant. 
"It just is" 
—— 
Logan's POV- 
It was around 1am that night, I went to put my arm around Rory only to find that she wasn't in bed. I left the room and found Rory sitting on the couch, looking at her phone. "Ace, what are you doing?" 
She held her phone out, showing me a picture of Tori when she was probably only 2 or 3 months old. "She's growing up too fast"  
"I know" 
"You know, the first few months I was so tired, and so stressed out that I didn't know what I was doing, but among all the advice I got, only one thing really stuck. Take pictures" she said. She definitely took a lot of pictures of the kids. "That's what Paris said. 'Take pictures, because you're gonna want to be able to look back at how much she's grown'. And she was right" 
"It's nice that we can look back" I said. "Although 1 in the morning might not be the best time for that. Why don't you come back to bed?" 
"You know what? I'm really not that tired" she said. "I'll come soon" 
"Do you mind if I go back to sleep?" I asked her
"Of course not" 
"Ok" I leaned over to kiss her. "I love you" 
"Love you too"