Happy birthday times (Stephie, Thomas, Marie, James, Katya)
Stephie woke up gently in the morning and gave herself a few minutes of lying there, watching Thomas sleep, before she thought about moving. She'd slept so deeply and so well - if not for all that long- and everything felt warm and soft and good.
Yesterday, she'd planned to set an alarm to wake herself up but Thomas had been far too distracting last night, so that went out the window, but luckily she'd woken up anyway. Thanks, universe she thought, genuinely meaning it. There had been rough patches lately but sometimes the world was really good to her. She gave the arm stretched across her a light kiss and carefully shifted out from underneath it so she could get up and gather some clothes, then a shower. The coffee was brewing in the kitchen when Marie poked her head around the door.
"Birthday!" she said, grinning, and Stephie heaved her up into her arms for a hug. Marie hugged back tightly then leaned herself backward, arms out, so Stephie would tip her upside down and lower her down onto her hands. Marie enjoyed being upside down.
"Spot on, gingernut. Are you wearing James's trousers?"
"They're my favourite," Marie said, standing on her hands with her feet against Stephie's stomach. Stephie nodded, fair enough.
"I'm going to make waffle batter," Stephie told her, and Marie's upside down face lit up. "And once that's ready I'm going to take coffee upstairs to Thomas. Do you want to see if the others want to do presents in bed?"
"I have the best present!" Marie said, which Stephie took as a firm agreement of the plan. Marie had been working on something in her bedroom for days and had not allowed any of them in, and Stephie could tell she was thoroughly enjoying keeping it a secret. She dropped obscure hints while she and Stephie made up the batter, trying to get Stephie to guess and obviously getting more and more pleased with herself for every failed guess till she was giggling so hard Stephie couldn't understand a word she said.
"Okay, batter's done," Stephie said, sliding it away into the fridge to hang out and giving Marie a high five.
"It's time," Marie whispered, her glee a little terrifying. "It's time it's time it's time." And she rushed off to gather her siblings and the present.
She did try to rush the entire way on her hands, though, falling to her feet every few steps and needing to relaunch her feet up into the air. "Be careful on the stairs," Stephie warned, watching her with two cups of coffee in her hands as Marie hit the stairs and tried to decide how to tackle it upside down. She had the most intense expression on her face and Stephie wished she had a free hand to film it.
"I'll just go backwards," Marie decided, which seemed reasonable till Stephie realised that 'backwards' meant 'crawling up the stairs with her stomach in the air and her head dangling between her shoulders.
"You're the stuff of nightmares," Stephie told her.
"I know!" said Marie proudly, and Stephie laughed and followed her up the stairs.
Once on the landing, instead of going back to hand walking, Marie started doing forward rolls all the way to James's room, and since there was less chance of her falling down the stairs now, Stephie peeled off back into the bedroom she shared with Thomas and set the cups lightly on the bedside table. "Hey," she said softly, lying down beside him and placing a kiss on his forehead. "Good morning, gorgeous."