Charlie Williams-Christmas eve

Finally, we arrive at our new house. It's currently eleven o'clock at night and I'm exhausted. It took us 15 minutes of driving in this neighborhood before we finally found our house. There are millions of cars everywhere celebrating Christmas with their families here I'm assuming.

The moving van was already in our driveway. As we climbed out of the car, I said, " I'm going to bed. I'm exhausted." Grabbing Bella I started to walk inside trying to get away from the cold. When I get to my room, I set Bella down on the floor and start taking boxes off my bed. When I finally get all the boxes off my bed, I start rummaging in them trying to find some pajamas to wear to bed. When I find my pajamas I quickly put them on then walk into the adjourning bathroom with my backpack in tow. As I brushed my teeth and went to the bathroom, I thought about what I am going to do tomorrow. Lots of unpacking to do. Not really a very eventful Christmas. Hopefully I'll be able to do some cooking and baking tomorrow though. I'm just ready to get back into a routine and get things back to normal.

December 25th Christmas day

The next day I'm busily unpacking in my room when I hear children's laughter through my window. When I walk over to the window, I see kids of all varying ages playing with different gadgets and toys. Because it's Christmas and I don't really feel like unpacking anymore, I decide to make them cookies.

While looking through my recipe book trying to find what cookies I wanted to make, my sister Gwen comes down the stairs. "What are you making?" She asks.

"I'm going to make cookies for the kids outside." I answered.

I've decided I'm going to make red velvet cookies with white chocolate chips. That's always a favorite for kids. "Well, mom told me to come down and tell you, you need to eat or drink something. Your blood sugars low. She also said there's Apple juice in the fridge and bananas in the cabinet."

Right. My mom always gets super worried about my diabetes. Even though it will alert me when my sugar is low and if it doesn't, I can feel when I'm about to have a hypo episode. "Thanks I'll make sure to eat something" I tell Gwen. Everyone in our family has the app for my glucose monitor but my mom watches it almost obsessively. She's constantly worried I'm going to crash and she'll have to take me to the hospital. I get her concern but I've had diabetes since I was 6 so I'm pretty good at handling it now. Of course, I always will have episodes sometimes but they're few and far between. Which is a good and bad thing because they're usually really fast and intense when they do happen.

A little while later the cookies are done and cooling off and I decide I can probably get one more box unpacked while the cookies are cooling,  so that's what I do.  

Ten minutes later the cookies are cooled down enough so I load them up on a paper plate and slip on my shoes and jacket. As I walk outside, I pull my jacket up a little closer to my face just now realizing how cold it actually is.

 When the kids see me with a plate of cookies, they come running over to me. The younger ones do at least. The older one seems a little more cautious about accepting cookies from a stranger. "Merry Christmas! We just moved in next door and I was wondering if you guys wanted some cookies that I made." They all started nodding their heads and saying yes and please all at the same time. As they were grabbing their cookies, I said, "I'm Charlie. What's your guy's names?" "I'm Adrbenisaauremma" They all said at once. Dumbstruck I stood there and said "wow you're going to have to remind me a few times so I remember ok?" They didn't answer, to busy eating their cookies when the older one spoke up. "Hey guys, why are you eating his cookies? He could have poisoned them." Chuckling I said "I'm Charlie, we just moved in next door and I saw you guys playing and figured you'd want a snack, I promise I'm not trying to poison anyone." 

As he stood there looking at me skeptically, he slowly grabbed a cookie from the plate right as another girl appeared from inside the garage carrying a small child on her hip. As she takes in the scene, she quickly walks faster to us. "Guys why are you eating this random person's cookies he could have poisoned them'' Chuckling at the similarities of her and her brother I repeated my introduction from earlier.

"I'm Charlie. We just moved in next door and I saw you guys playing and figured you'd want a snack, I promise I'm not trying to poison anyone." she took a step closer trying to examine the cookies I assume, but it gave me a better view for admiring her, and she was beautiful.

 Maybe even one of the prettiest girls I've ever seen. She had long blonde hair that was straight making it look endlessly long and she had freckles all over her cheeks and nose that complimented those beautiful green eyes that I could get lost in. And she was tiny, so tiny even under all of her snow coat I could see she was skinny. The baby she was carrying on her hip made her look even tinier. "I can even give you the recipe if you want." As I said that, the baby on her hip took the close proximity as an opportunity to try and grab a cookie from the plate I was holding. The girl was quick to move the baby's hand away and step back so the baby couldn't reach. Slowly I took a cookie and broke it up into smaller pieces and gave the baby a piece while the girl whose name I still didn't know, watched me with curiosity 

"I'm Olivia, Olivia Beckham. I never would've guessed you were into little kids. " 

"It's not usually something anyone thinks I'm into, but I've always wanted younger siblings and only got a dog so I have to resort to other peoples siblings, hence the cookies." 

I actually get that question from a lot of people so it didn't surprise me. Many people think because I workout, play basketball and I'm a guy I automatically think kids are annoying little worms.  But I especially love babies and toddlers. They're so adorable I don't know how you couldn't love them. I give the baby another piece that she's reaching for and ask, "How old is she?" Olivia smiles and says "Sofia is almost 1." She then asks, "What kind of family moves in on Christmas eve? And has supplies to bake cookies the very next day?" She's right to question that. Our family's kinda crazy. "The kind that has extremely loved and wanted parents, trust me it wasn't ideal to move in on Christmas eve and we weren't supposed to, but we kept having friends telling us to stay "one more day" I said using air quotes, "Which eventually led to Christmas eve moving-in night. As for the cookie ingredients I love to bake and so we always have ingredients." also because my mom is a little bit crazy about always having food for my diabetes in case I have a really bad hypo really fast. 

"Where did you move from?" she asks. 

"Illinois"

"huh did you like it there? Are you sad to leave your friends?" 

"It was ok, I think I'm going to be happier here though" I said skillfully avoiding her question about my friends.

She shifts the baby higher on her hip and I give the baby the last piece of the cookie she was eating. "So you like to bake huh?" 

"yeah I like to cook more though. I hope to be a chef and own a restaurant one day. But I like baking too. What about you? what do you like to do?" I ask her 

"I dance and help out with my siblings most days, I've never really tried baking and cooking." she says looking shy. Now that she's not worried about her siblings dying, I can tell that the adrenaline has left her body by the way her features and body language has changed. I can see right away that she seems very shy to strangers and gets nervous in their presence. I don't want to make her shy and nervous. I want this gorgeous girl to be herself around me. I want to hear what her laugh sounds like when she's rolling on the floor dying of something funny. I want her to taste all my food and tell me her honest opinion about it. I want to play with her siblings and help her watch them at the same time. I want her to go to the same school as me so I can walk her to her classes and hold her backpack for her. I want her to come to all my basketball games and be my number one supporter. I want to be her number one supporter in whatever she does too. I want to be close to her in a way that no one else is. I want to run to her and gather her up in my arms when I haven't seen her in 2 weeks. I want it all and I want it with her.

"OLLIE! OLLIE! COME SEE MY TRICK!" one of her sisters yells 

taking that as an opportunity, Olivia or ollie quickly walked over to the little girl  who I'd have to guess is around 6 or 7 years old. She had a pink and purple jump rope in her hand ready to start jumping when Olivia-and me following suit went over to her. She quickly shows us her trick and we both start giving her-Aurora I learned, when Sofia starts to whine which turns to crying. 

"I better take her inside. It's getting to be her nap time." she says 

taking my chances, I continue walking with her and ask, "Wait, can I have your number?" 

she stops walking and looks at me, "Umm sure but you do know we live right next to each other right?" 

"Yes but I want to be able to text you too." I say hopefully.

"Ok sure." she answers and I sigh in relief 

I pull out my phone and she quickly tells me her phone number which I send a text to.

"I just texted you so you should have my number as well." I tell her 

she starts to answer when Sofia starts crying again. She calms her down again and then says, "I better get her inside. I'll text you though and maybe see you tomorrow?" 

"For sure." I answer her, then she goes inside.

 And that's all it takes to know that this girl is going to be the beginning of the end for me. I'm going to marry that girl.