"Ah! Look Hazel, I think your daddy is home!" I shout, holding Hazel up so she can look out the window. Peaking through the blinds, we saw James' car pull into the driveway, wait for the garage door to open and then pull into his parking spot.

"Let's go get him!" I set Hazel down, rushing down the hallway and into the kitchen. Hazel's tiny feet follow, thumping against the ground as giggles trail behind her. I'm sure she didn't know why we were running, or what was making us so excited, but she was having a blast and that was all that matters.

As soon as the garage door opens, Hazel and I were ready to pounce, taking James down as we overwhelm him with hugs and kisses.

"Whoa, easy now, tigers." James puts his hands up in surrender, kicking his dropped bag to the side. Wrapping us both in a welcoming hug. He leans in, kissing just behind my ear. "I love seeing you get the hang of this motherhood thing. It really looks damn good on you." He whispers, sending a wave of tingles down my whole body.

"Now that you are home, it's time for lunch!" I shout, throwing my hands in the air. Hazel was up from her nap for the day. It was early afternoon, and James was home just in time to have lunch and spend the rest of the day acting like hermits, doing family things together.

"Okay, who are you and what have you done with my wife?" James questions, grabbing his bag off the floor to put it back by the front door. I shrug, shuffling through the fridge to find all the things we need for a salad.

"I googled it earlier and Hazel can have all the things that go into our salad, except for the sunflower seeds, since they are too hard, and the soft parts of the lettuce," I shout from behind the fridge door, working through all the clutter that was from recently going grocery shopping. James puts his hand on my shoulder, pulling me to the side ever so slightly.

"You went grocery shopping and googled safe ways for our child to eat things?" His eyes were nearly crossed with confusion, like his brain was having a meltdown over the information he had seen and heard.

"Yeah, we went grocery shopping yesterday, and today we did a little bit of meal prep for dinner." I point to the counter where the pizza dough for tonight was neatly tucked away, rising until its heart was content.

"We are making homemade pizzas tonight?" James was going to explode if I gave him any more shocking information. I nod, closing the fridge behind me to give him a second to breathe.

"Yes, and we were also going to watch Christmas movies. Hazel hasn't seen many of them and I wanted to make sure she got to see all the classics before this holiday is over. Also, I thought it would be fun to move the couches and build us a little movie watching fort?"

"Now I'm seriously going to have to call your mother and ask her where the hell Nicole went. None of this sounds like you, honey. Are you feeling okay?"

"Will you stop asking me that? I'm feeling fine," I mutter, checking my forehead for a temperature just to appease him. "See, I'm fine."

James places his hand on my forehead as well, double-checking to make sure I wasn't lying. He turns around and does the same to Hazel. Only after he felt satisfied that we were both telling the truth did he head upstairs to change his clothes. In the meantime, Hazel and I started cooking the chicken that would go on top of our salads, and by the time he was back downstairs, it was nearly finished.

"That smells delicious!" He licks his lips, scouring over the pan to see the chicken cooking. I swat him away, and Hazel lets out a giggle. She slowly puts her hands together, tapping her fingers in a 'more' sign. "What do you mean, more?" James nearly shouts, turning as if he was ready to flee from us.

"Oh, you want mommy to swat him more?" I chuckle, grabbing the towel off the stove and flicking it towards James. Hazel cackles, bending over as she laughs as hard as her little body would allow her to. She repeats the sign again. "Sorry sweetheart, I must oblige the toddler. She is our true master after all," I mutter, chasing James with Hazel on my hip, swatting him with the towel until the three of us are out of breath.

After running around for what felt like hours, but in all actuality was only about five minutes, I went to work on taking the chicken off the stove, gathered the plates, and James started putting the salads together. Everyone was breathing heavily, just trying to gather enough air to recover from our little escapades. But everyone was happy, with enormous smiles on their faces. This was the second time this week I'd seen smiles like this, and even my own cheeks hurt from smiling. Nothing could be better than this feeling.

"We need to hit the gym." James finally breaks the silence, setting the plates to the side for me to add the chicken to them. Hazel had a deconstructed salad, so I place the chicken in one of the little cubbies on her purple plate, using the rest of it to lay nicely on the tops of ours, slightly melting the cheese.

"What are you talking about? We are eating salads, aren't we?" I went to swat him again out of the habit I'd just formed in the last few minutes, but not wanting to start another war, I chose not to.

"Salads don't strengthen you, they just make you skinnier." James rolls his eyes.

"I put chicken on it." I nearly growl. I wasn't in love with the idea of going to the gym.

"How about this? Instead of going to the gym, we continue to have fun as a family like that, and I think that will help keep both of us in shape? Don't you think that will be enough?"

"I guess that will have to do." I smile, placing my plate down at the table. Helping Hazel into her booster seat, we all went to work on our lunch, enjoying every last bite of it.

•••●•••

"Here, move the couch this way." James points at the loveseat at the opposite end of the living room.

"I don't know if I can get over there?" I search the floor, trying to find a path that would take me around all the pillows and blankets we had pulled from every room. Oh, what a mess we had made!

"Are you sure you can't get over here?" James pauses for a moment, looking at the floor. "Maybe if you jump over to that pillow?" He points at a blue pillow we had taken from Hazel's rocking chair. No pillow was safe when you needed everything you could get to build the most comfortable living room fort known to man.

"I'll clothesline myself with the blanket if I try jumping over there."

Hazel knew the best route to take to get over to her father, though. She jumps to her knees, crawling through tunnels of blankets, and a maze of pillows, effortlessly making her way across the room. James and I looked at each other, confused at how she made it look so easy.

"Okay, so you just have to do that." He mutters, chuckling to himself lightly.

"That's easy for you to say. You didn't see what she had to go through underneath this blanket over here." I smile, trying to inch my body closer to the ground without knocking the blanket we had propped up on the dining room chair.

"Oh, you can do it. Don't be shy." He smiles. Of course, he would egg me on. He needed my help to move the couch. Without me, he wouldn't be able to do it. Knowing that was true, I had to get over to him. I couldn't let this blanket fort be a failure because I couldn't climb over some pillows.

Once I was crouching, I got a better look at how Hazel had made it across. She had started on her way back, showing me the trail she took, and as soon as she had done so, it was all very clear. I got onto my hands and knees, dodging obstacles that were used to hold the blankets in the air, and trying to crawl around the pillows still scattered in a pile on the floor. The problem, though, was I was looking at everything like an adult. I needed to shut the logic side of my brain off and allow myself to just be a kid. If I could do that, I could dominate this fort just as easily as Hazel had. Hazel crawls back over to me, almost as if she wanted to show me the way. I smile and copy her every move as we head back over to James.

She leads me through twists and turns, pushing pillows that had fallen into her path. She was the master of the fort now. Before I knew it, though, we were at the other side.

"You did it!" James shouts, throwing his hands above his head. As he does so, the blanket he was holding with the couch crumbles, pulling all of the other blankets down with it. Knocking the dining chair over collapsing everything we had been working on for the last hour and a half. "Oh no!"

"James, you were supposed to be holding that," I mutter, taking a step back to assess our damage. "Maybe that's a good thing that we found out how easily our fort could have been destroyed, though. We might have gotten a little zealous and we need to build it better."

James shook his head, gathering all the blankets and placing them in a pile.

"Yeah, I think you are right. We need to think about this a little more seriously and simplify it. We might have been getting too crazy. Especially if we want Hazel to be able to play underneath it and have it not collapse while we are watching the movie."

I look at the pile James was making. He was trying to organize everything so perfectly that we would know exactly where to grab a pillow, or exactly where to grab a blanket from. He was trying to make this into an adult activity.

"You are taking away all the creative freedom of this." I point to the piles. Hazel must have been itching to destroy them because she kept walking circles around the stacks.

"What are you talking about?" Before either of us could stop her, Hazel dove into the piles, mixing them up and tossing pillows around the room.

"Here, let's move the couches while she sets us up for success with our building materials." I chuckle.

James grabs his side of the loveseat and I take the other, moving it towards the middle of the room so we could use it as one wall of our fort. The other couch needed to move away from the wall just slightly. I grab the vacuum so I can clean up the crumbs from under the couch while James grabs more of the dining chairs. Before we knew it we had everything set up. Hazel jumped happily underneath her now sturdy roof, enjoying the pillows scattered around the floor.

"This looks amazing." I smile, grabbing James' hand.

"It really does, doesn't it? We have outdone ourselves again."

"Now all we need to do is pick a movie and get this movie party started."

"Don't forget, we need popcorn and lots of other snacks. You can't forget the snacks." James whines.

"I won't forget the snacks, but what are we going to watch?"

"Oh, don't get me started, we have to watch the best Christmas movie there was." James beams, his face glowing with excitement.

"A Christmas Story!" I shout.

"Okay, now you are going to start another fight." James winks, both of us bolting towards the kitchen at the same time to grab our weapons.