The Kids Grow Up by Trish Hanan (novel24 .TXT) 📖

as he walked into the kitchen. Harry giggled as he lifted a loaf out of the pan and put it on a rack to cool. There were six of them lined up in a neat little row on the table. Jake eyed them and bent over for a deep sniff.
“Oh, man, that smells better than, well, I’ve never smelled anything better. Harry, you drive me wild like this on purpose, I know that you do,” he declared. Harry giggled again. Fran came into the room and laughed.
“You two go ahead, I’ll watch the kids,” she said. Harry picked up a large, square plate and put two loafs on it while Jake grabbed the two pitchers of milk, one white and one green. They rushed to the bedroom before she could change her mind. Jake grinned when he saw the comforter spread out on the floor like a picnic blanket.
“You had this all planned, didn’t you, babe?” he asked. Harry shrugged and started to undress.
“I know what my man likes,” he teased him. Jake grinned and started to undress. When they were both naked they stretched out on the blanket and Harry ripped off a piece of the delicious cake and popped it into Jake’s open mouth. The other man chewed making appreciative noises. Then Harry ripped off a piece for himself and ate it.
“Oh, my, now I know what heaven tastes like,” Jake murmured and Harry giggled.
They ate one loaf slowly like that, ripping off pieces and slowly eating them, kissing in between bites, drinking cold milk, having a naked picnic which Harry always loved. Then they made slow passionate love, licking and sucking, touching every inch over and over. They knew each other’s bodies so well, what one another liked.
Then they at the other loaf and rubbed some of the cake on their bodies and ate it off, laughing at the places they put it and Jake making hungry growling sounds while Harry giggled. Then they made hard frantic love with Jake being so masterful in the way that Harry liked so much and they slept on the floor, wrapped in the blanket for a while until the cries of their children called them to the dining room. Then laughing, they got dressed and went to rescue Fran who was having a time trying to feed two at once.
At one month old the babies still weren’t sleeping all through the night and the boys were at their wits end. Then Harry got the idea of making their last bottle of the night with green milk instead of water and it worked like a charm. The babies slept all night and didn’t wake up until they came back from the barn with the morning milk. It was perfect timing for everyone. They told their friends about it and soon everyone was doing it and Dr. George assured everyone that green milk was very healthy for the babies; it had plenty of vitamins and iron which the little ones needed. Harry was hailed as a hero.
“I guess some things you can’t learn in a book,” he remarked as he put his son in his crib. Jake grinned as he put his daughter in hers. They had solved the dilemma caused by separate hallways by cutting a doorway into their bedroom to the second hall. Now they could easily get to their children.
“You do know that with four more children we’re going to have to add three more bedrooms to the house,” Harry said as they went to the living room. Jake groaned when he saw the architect’s computer out on the coffee table.
“I never thought of that, babe, but you’re right,” he said and they began work. They added four more bedrooms and bathrooms because three was odd to work with and a nice sewing room for Harry and a nice sitting room for Fran so she’d have a place to run and hide when the six kids became too much for her. They decided to make the living and dining rooms larger for the larger family and added windows in the front to open the space.
“Wow, this is a very beautiful house, babe, if I didn’t already live here, I’d want to,” Jake gushed. Harry giggled.
“I’m just picturing all those boys running through the house, you know we need a basketball court out back and maybe a baseball field on the farm for the kids to play on,” he said and Jake nodded, that sounded good to him.
“Harry, what is this room way over here that says Fran’s room?” Fran asked as she looked over the plans. “I don’t want my bedroom moved way over there and look, there’s no bathroom, you expect me to walk way over here and use one of the kid’s bathrooms? That’s not right!” Her voice rose on the last sentence. Harry giggled.
“Fran, that’s not your new bedroom, that’s you new sunroom,” he told her and she looked shocked. He continued. “You bedroom is still your bedroom, we just added a nice little sunroom so that you’ll have a place to run and hide from all the kids when they start plucking your nerves.” Fran laughed and patted his shoulder.
“Well, that’s really nice of you, thanks, sweetie,” she gushed. Harry shrugged.
“It’s your house too, Fran, and I thought that you deserved a special room too. Jake has the study and I’ll have this new sewing room and you get a sunroom,” he informed her. She looked very pleased and went to the kitchen to bake some cookies. Harry laughed and printed out another copy of the plans.


Chapter Two

Spring came and it was back to the fields again and once again the fields were bigger because of all the new babies. No one complained and everyone laughed.
“How many more children are you two having?” Sissy asked Jan who laughed.
“We’ve decided to stop at ten,” she finally admitted the number everyone wanted to know. Everyone laughed again.
“I’ll be glad once all the babies are born and we’ll know for sure the size of the fields,” Kate complained. Harry laughed.
“Well, you and Barbara contributed your share, now it’s our turn,” he informed her and she made a face. But it was true; all the adults were almost finished, they had one more round to go and then everyone would have contributed their three children by three different men other than their husbands who didn’t count because they had the same DNA as the children they produced. She was going to have a fit when Harry and Jake announced later that year that they were pregnant again. But she and Barb had had one baby a year so she had nothing to say about them doing the same thing.
Once the regular fields were planted, Harry announced that he wanted to plant an extra field or two of corn, barley and potatoes. Jake frowned.
“Why corn, potatoes and barley, babe?” he asked. Harry grinned.
“At the rate these people drink eventually they’re going to drink all the liquor in our store and I figure we should get working on replacing it as soon as possible, especially since whiskey and scotch take about ten years to age,” he told him. Jake grinned and kissed him.
“Old David Marshall isn’t going to like that one little bit,” he teased. Harry giggled.
“He’ll just have to take the recipes I know he got with his liquor store and make his own booze,” he replied with a twinkle in his purple pixie eyes. Jake laughed. All of the kids helped them plant their extra fields and then when Harry chopped down twenty oak trees they helped them make oak barrels to age the liquor in. Then they had to build an extra barn in the woods to store everything in and another to put the stills in. It was Harry who got the idea of making a hundred barrels of each kind of liquor and storing it in a barn for a hundred years. All the kids loved that idea and they sealed it with a lock that said: Don’t open until forty-three fifty-six. They left that for future generations.
Once the crops were planted the young people turned to enjoying themselves and their children. Play groups were formed and everyone took turns having fun. All the old pastimes were brought out, the bikes, the scooters and the mini-cars were all raced around the tracks, now just half of them participated at one time while the other half watched the kids. Sometimes they fought over who got to play with the babies.
Playing with the kids in the park became a favorite thing to do and Harry sometimes would bring his younger siblings with him to give his mothers a break which they loved him for. Jake came with him and brought his and they would have a great time. Especially in the pool where all the kids would splash around and have fun. Harry would make up a big batch of ice cream, green and white and none of the kids minded what color they got as long as they got some.
Then Harry brought out small parks and they built them in every farm so that the kids would have someplace close by to play and everyone loved him once again. Now mothers could just walk out of their houses and walk their kids to the park and play with them. They put pools, tennis courts, basketball courts and baseball diamonds in every farm for the kids to play.
“He’s getting so big, he’s going to be tall like Jake,” Kathleen said one day in June as they were swinging the babies on the little swings in the park by their house. Harry grinned. Jackson was now six months old and had a single tooth and was getting another. Emma was getting one. Both were dressed in cute little short sets with sandals and looked remarkably cute. Stevie and Stephie were cute in matching outfits and both parents beamed.
“He eats like a little horse,” Harry said proudly and they both laughed. Just then April and Joon drove up and climbed out of April’s SUV and walked over, they had been to the doctor’s for checkups. They both smiled and waved. Soon all six babies were swinging and they were all talking. Then they went into the covered gazebo for snacks and let them roll around on blankets. Emma was the bravest and already beginning to stand up on all fours like she was ready to crawl.
“Oh, she’s ready, look at her face, she wants to crawl,” April remarked and they all watched the little girl rock back and forth. Then with a sigh, she collapsed and laughed.
“She’ll go soon, she’s almost ready,” Harry said and laughing he picked her up and kissed her smiling face. “Aren’t you, darling?” he asked and kissed her. Kathleen smiled.
“You don’t call anyone but Jake, honey, do you?” she asked. Harry grinned.
“Of course not, he’s my honey, why would I call anyone else that?” he teased. They all laughed.
“I think it’s cute the way you call him honey and he calls you babe,” Joon told him and Harry blushed.
“The first time he called me babe we were fourteen and I almost died, I was so in love with him,” he