I remember when we decided to include the kids in our music.
The tabloids were full of paparazzi photos of our families. Ayame was 10 and already considered a beauty in the popular press. She had Ethan's green eyes and his slender build. Our agent had rejected all offers to make her a star.
In addition, Nico attracted some attention from child model agencies after he had stopped in front of a paparazzi in Rome and done a series of exaggerated poses that somehow looked quite professional in the photos. He was still only 8 but with the dark Ryder hair and Simon's blue eyes, he was obviously going to grow into a very handsome man.
And he was not shy of the attention. Essentially, he was a dark haired Simon.
Hale and Seb were usually happy to let Nico take the limelight while they held back with Juniper and Elsie. But even they didn't escape scrutiny. Elsie's thick, curly, black hair was a noticeable contrast to Juni's straight brown hair.

One morning I entered the hotel breakfast room to find sneaky paparazzi already in place to get photos of us.

"I think the whole leave us alone until we say it's okay has gone out the window," I mumbled to Selma as we browsed the buffet.

"I know!" She huffed and loaded a plate full of waffles and pancakes for the kids. I filled a deep bowl with fresh fruits and grabbed a few packets of butter to go with the stack of plates Oddball was carrying.

"What do you think we should do?" I asked as we returned to the table dealing out food to the eagerly awaiting kids.
I grabbed a waffle and dolloped a spoonful of fruit on top for both my kids before letting them loose. Selma did the same for her two.

"I don't know... maybe actually put the kids out there? Bring them to an interview?" Selma asked.

I looked at Oddball.

"What do you say, big daddy? How do we satisfy the hungry predators?" I asked with a nod to the nearest camera lens.

"I say we put them into our next video," Oddball shrugged and cut Elsie's pancake into bits.

"Daaaaaad! I can do that myself," Elsie shouted through missing front teeth.

Suddenly I became aware of at least three eager faces grinning towards us.

"In your video? You mean we get to make music?" Nico asked.

"Not a bad idea actually," Ethan shot in from the side where he was trying to move Seb's glass away from the edge of the table before a young elbow sent it flying on to the floor.

We all exchanged a look.

"We have studio time booked in London..." Odd mentioned.

"And Mr. G is in Berlin," I said.

"We could release it in about a month with some luck," Oddball said.

"So what song do we do?" Ethan asked.

I looked at the kids with their unusually quiet attention.

"What do you say?" I asked and saw six faces nodding.

"I know what song to do," Ayame grinned and nodded to the two younger girls.
A second later two toothless six year olds were standing on their seats singing "Shoop-shoop-shoop-shoop" while Ayame was singing the lyrics to Cher's Shoop-Shoop-Song. Even the three boys were in on it drumming on the table and doing silly swimming motions with their hands.

I looked at Aya in question and she stopped singing and started laughing.

"We were browsing Netflix and came across Mermaids the other night. Selma said we could watch it. Crap film, awesome song," she shrugged.

"It's a classic!" Selma laughed.

Ethan was sat there smiling at his daughter before shifting his eyes to mine.

"She has your voice," he whispered softly.

"Oh... I'm not singing. Mum will be. But I'll happily do the strings and help on the shoops," Aya said.

Which meant that we, two weeks later had a cover version of the Shoop-Shoop-Song recorded and were stod in a clean white studio surrounded by our kids with three cameras pointed towards us and our favourite video director happily clapping his hands. The minimalist backdrop was a result of the extremely quick process of this production, but Mr. G. was onboard as soon as we said the kids were going to feature. He wasn't one to back down from a challenge anyway.
So the idea was to throw associations to the Rembrants song for the TV series Friends and the playful vibe of that video.

We had the kids dressed in primary colours. Blue for Simon, red for Oddball and green for Ethan and me. Us adults were dressed in black but I wore a green headband and the guys all had ties to match their respective kids.

For a whole day we were goofing around in front of the camera to the sound of our song on speakers. We illustrated the lyrics by having each of the guys almost kiss me. Oddball licked my cheek, Simon gave me a fishlipped peck and we left Ethan's until last, but hid the actual kiss behind a lot of other activities.
In addition we had a game of suck and blow with a piece of paper that we sent between the long row of us several times. It did not slip my attention that the paper tended to drop somewhere between Seb and Elsie and that they were giggling like crazy every single time. So to make it work, we placed Juni between Hale and Seb and Elsie between Nico and Hale.
Next we had Elsie and Juniper with me dancing in a simple coreographed series of moves to the music while the rest of them were playing the instruments set up behind us.
This was going to be the main part of the video to tie it all together, so while I was dancing around with the two cutie girls, the guys were goofing around with instruments. We had Seb on the drums, Nico on bass and Hale on guitar while Ayame rocked the electric violin we had bought her when she was awarded a young musicians award. I had a blast, skipping and weaving between the guys, occasionally stopping at one of them to playflirt before skipping on.
At the end we were supposed to gather in family groups, but because Oddball was our perpetually single man and I was the guardian of his kids, when Mr. G. wanted us to wave to the camera for the finale, I pulled Oddball to me with Ethan on my other side. Our joined four kids were in front, arranged with Aya and Seb in front of Ethan and Elsie and Hale in front of Odd.

By the time we got to the hotel that night, we had six worn out kids. Even Nico was beat. But Mr. G. was overly enthusiastic so I trusted him to edit it into something useful.
I wasn't disappointed.
The video was playful, fun and showcased the kids perfectly. The suck and blow game was edited to match the rhythm of the music and we came across as a bunch of people who truly enjoyed each other's company. At the end, even Selma was there laughing as Simon was bending her backwards for a kiss before the finale waving shot.

We happily released the single and video as a fun side project for the tour. What we didn't anticipate was the backlash shitstorm of criticism that followed. Suddenly we were declared anti feminist because the two girls were dancing and not doing much while the boys were shown playing instruments and therefore portrayed as capable.
In every country, in every interview we had to carefully explain that Elsie and Juniper did not have any interest in instruments and therefore were not pushed. Elsie had turned out to have an amazing understanding of maths while Juniper was more athletic. With Hale, we had the feeling he was doing music because that's what the other two boys were doing, but we had never pushed the kids into anything.
Rhea was remarkable at tailoring their lessons and at our last submission of the home school packet, the score was really good for all six. We were not worried about their education or their abilities.

We finished a really tough interview where we again had to defend why the girls were "decorative" when Simon huffed heavily.

"We need to do something. They are saying the song is sexist," he sighed.

"We need to mix it up," I said.

"How?" Oddball asked.

"How do you huys feel about going in drag?" I asked.

"Drag?" Oddball laughed.

I was picturing him in a blonde wig and heels.

"Yeah. I'm kinda thinking we need to make you guys the decoration," I shrugged.

"I'd rather go nude!" Simon grinned.

"You've been wanting to get nude on stage for fifteen years!" I teased.

"I'd be plenty decorative in my undies," he grinned back.

Ethan looked at me with a wide smile.

"You can't get me in a dress. No way!" He laughed.

"You'd be cute... long black wig and you'd look like your sister," I replied.

"Dina? Please don't tell her that!" Oddball laughed.

"Well... we have to do something!" Simon said.

"Fine... Izzy? Can you handle the drums on shoop?" Oddball asked.

"Yeah. Why?" I asked.

"I'll do the vocals. In drag. Simon does his nude thing. We dress Ethan in.... well.. he can't get much prettier so a slick of make up? And hide you at the drums," Oddball grinned.

"Oy!" Ethan objected to being called pretty.

"But you are pretty!" I grinned.

He raised an eyebrow.

"And you give me pretty babies that grow into pretty people," I smirked.

"Have you given up on that third baby yet?" Simon asked with a frown.

"Nope. I want one that looks like Izzy," Ethan smiled.

"Oh. Cos having two Ethan clones isn't enough," Simon teased.

"What will you do if the next one is another Ethan tho?" Oddball asked.

"Have another one. And another one. Until one of them looks like my beautiful wife," Ethan replied in mischief.

Simon shook his head.

"You know it might not happen, right? You've been trying for four years," he said.

"And the doctor said we're both fine and it's probably just stress related. So when we get to Bankok, we really just need a spa weekend and we should be good to go," Ethan grinned.

"Mud bath sex?" Simon asked with a scrunched up nose before his face eased up.

"Do you think Selma would be up for that?" He continued.

"Dude! Still my sister!" Ethan said in disgust.

"Dude! Your sister and I have two kids together! And there is a reason why our hotel room is set away from yours," Simon grinned.

"You won't be in a few days. Once we hit Singapore we have a shared eight bedroom suite," Oddball laughed.

Ethan and I exchanged a look, both grinning like maniacs.

"Room next to theirs?" I asked.

"You've got it!" Ethan nodded.

"What?" Simon frowned.

"You know... ovulation and stuff?" Ethan grinned.

"Ovulation? What? For fucks sakes! Why can't you just have sex for fun?" Simon huffed.

"Who says we're not having fun?" I grinned.

"I have a room next to yours now.... It doesn't sound like boredom..." Oddball laughed.

We got to Japan before we could address the whole controversy around the family video. Thankfully Tokyo was full og cosplay shops and costumes and suddenly I was on stage in the middle of a gig wasting a few minutes on some random chit chat with the audience.
It was one of my things. I would always ask some of our fans who they were and how far they had travelled. Sometimes I took somg requests. Our usual setlist was limited to our most popular songs plus a selection from the most recent album, so sometimes a fan would ask for a song that we rarely played live. Often the fans had a special memory connected to that song.
These little talks had given us an image of closeness to the fans.
I was asking a girl if she had a favourite song when the crowd burst into a mix of catcalls, laughter and cheers. I turned to see my three, usually very masculine bandmates dressed up in female manga-looking maid costumes with poofy miniskirts with lace petticoats and pastel coloured wigs. Complete with knee high white stockings and black patent heels.
I burst into laughter.

"You guys are adorable!" I said into the microphone as I noticed they even wore make up.

Oddball grinned and came up to me to grab the microphone out of my hand.

"Get to the drums," he chuckled as the other two slung their instruments into place.
I stopped for a second in front of Ethan in a baby blue dress and matching hair. Simon was in pink and Odd in lilac.

My beautiful husband looked downright perfect.

"You are just the cutest little thing ever!" I laughed.

"I'm not little, and you know it," he whispered softly with a teasing grin.

"I love you so much," I whispered back and kissed him.

To my surprise I heard a whooping cheer the moment our lips met. I pulled away and saw a close up of us on the big screen to the left of the stage.

"Oh screw it!" Ethan laughed and gave them what they were cheering for, making my knees week and my body shivering.

"I love you too," he whispered once we'd ended the kiss and I left him to sit at the drums.

"Well... if that wasn't weird in that outfit...," Oddball laughed into the microphone.

"It does however give a nice intro to our most recent single. Do you believe in love's true kiss?" Oddball asked the crowd and received a cheer.

"Do you believe you can know if someone loves you from the way they kiss you?" He asked again and got another cheer.

"Okay then. Let's see if you can sing Shoop-Shoop with me!" Oddball said and owned the crowd as we played a slightly giggly and very screwed up version of the song.

***
What did you think of this chapter?
Are you getting any wiser?
Please hit the star and comment!
I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Teaser:
After the fight. Are they going to sort things out? A girls night with her best friends might be just the thing Izzy needs.