Tony Pov

Fortunately the cold Winter nights in jumpers and woolly pyjamas soon turned into Spring days with colourful flowers and it feeling like life had begun again, (like the colours that are in the flowers just makes everything feel alive), (which probably sounds weird to you coming from a 35 year old man, but sue me).

Daisy loved picking the flowers and making bouquets out of them, (and that just made my heart happy, ya know), until she running back over like it was a life of death situation, (I don't know why that was, but sometimes kids have weird priorities and that's ok), it was worth it though to see her smile the biggest smile that I'd seen in a while.

"Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!"
"Yeah Baby"
"Look!, I got you some flowers!"
"Aw, thank you Darling, they're very pretty"
"You can't get ugly flowers though Daddy"
"Of course Baby, you're right, silly me eh?"
"Just a little bit Daddy"

I picked Daisy up and we walked home, (well I walked with Daisy on my hip), as we were on the way home anyway, (wow, so descriptive Tony, anyway I need to chill), the world around us actually seemed to be ok, (though that wasn't going to be the case for very long, though I'll just put a pin on that for now).

"Daddy"
"Yeah Baby"
"Can we have spaghetti for dinner please?"
"Sure we can Sweetheart"
"Thank you"
"You're welcome Baby"

So we continued to walk home, (I really need to stop saying 'we' when it was really just me here), the weather was nice and bright, it also just added to the really nice mood around us, (I make note of the nice weather as it was quite uncommon for the weather to be nice in the UK), (well this was the case before our summers were determined to melt us to death).

"Daddy, why do we have seasons?"
"We have seasons because of the way that the earth moves around the sun Sweetheart"
"Oh, that makes sense Daddy"
"Yeah Baby"
"Yeah!"
"I'm glad Darling"

Anyway we got home, (it was about a 20 minute walk), which meant that I made us some dinner while Daisy did her homework, (as it was a week day), (real descriptive though Tony, it honestly really feels really ironic right now that you're an actual qualified English teacher here), we had dinner, I cleaned up, bathed Daisy and then it was time for me to get Daisy to bed, (not that it was hard for me as she was already so sleepy).

"Alright Darling, it's time for you to go to bed"
"Daddy"
"Yeah Baby"
"Can you read to me please?"
"Sure Baby, what do you want me to read tonight?"
"The Gruffalo please"
"Ok Sweetheart, are you ready?"
"Yeah"
"Ok"

So I read to Daisy, as I always did, (it was the tradition that was held onto for the longest out of all the childhood things that could've stayed), and she fell asleep by the end, (not that the book was actually that long but she was just so tired), though that was probably because she hadn't been sleeping properly for a while now.

So I properly tucked Daisy into bed, quietly left and turned the light off, hoping that Daisy wouldn't have any nightmares for her sake, but knowing that probably wouldn't be the case as she was nightmare prone at this age, (I know most kids are at this age), I then went to do some marking as I needed to do it, (so descriptive Tony).

It was almost midnight, most of my marking had been done, it weirdly quiet considering we lived in London, (I don't know why I remembered that, I just did), when I heard Daisy scream, (which meant that the nightmares were back, not that they went away before this), so I ran to Daisy's room as fast as I could.

"Hey Baby, it's ok, you're ok, we're ok"

That same mantra fell out of my mouth over and over like my life was on the line, (which might sound ridiculous, but it's how I felt at the time), pacing up and down the room but not that fast as I was trying to get Daisy to go back to sleep, you could ask why I wasn't going to ask what the nightmare was about, but I knew what her nightmare was about since it had been the same nightmare for months at this point, it was another 5 minutes before Daisy had stopped crying.

"Hey Baby, you feeling ok?"
"I dunno Daddy"
"That's ok Sweetheart"
"M sorry Daddy"
"Why are you sorry Darling?"
"I woke you up"
"No Baby, I promise you that you didn't wake me, I was still marking stuff"
"Oh, Daddy can I stay with you?"
"Yeah Baby, you can, go to sleep though, ok"
"Ok Daddy"