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Chapter Thirty Two - June 30

"Noah, NO!"

"Brooke, NO!"

Noah had gone from crawling position to full on crawl in the days following our boating excursion. After that, there was no looking back. Life had officially become a hundred times more hectic. The word 'No' was burned into the backs of my eyeballs.

This morning had started off nice and calm. Noah was sitting on the floor gnawing on his teething ring and Brooke was on the couch eating Cheerios. Both were watching Sesame Street. Liv and I were sitting around the kitchen island enjoying a cinnamon roll for two when Lila began to bark her head off in the yard. We had both looked out the window to see what the fuss was about (a squirrel), and by the time we turned around, there was mayhem. Noah had crawled into the fireplace and was covered with soot; Brooke had lost interest in the TV and was hoisting herself up the back of the couch trying to climb into the fish tank.

Such was life with a six month old and a sixteen month old. And such was the reason for another round of 'No's.'

As parents of a newborn, sometimes when you think of a name, you don't think ahead to how it's going to work when the little one gets older.

Take for example 'Noah.' Liv and I both call him 'No' from time to time and lately Brooke will call him 'NoNo.' Cute, right?

Right. Except that everytime we say 'no' as in 'not good' he just giggles and thinks we're egging him on. After Liv yelled out, he sat down, laughed and smashed a huge hunk of soot into his face. Liv was on it in a second. As I pulled Brooke away from the fish tank, she scooped Noah out of the fireplace.

"Noah, no. That's bad," Liv emphasized. In return, she got a tiny dirty hand on the side of her face and an equally ash-filled kiss.

"Fee! Fee!" Brooke cried right in my ear. I turned to look at the fish tank. Those fish didn't know it, but I had just saved their little fishy lives.

"Do you want to feed the fish?" I asked. I held up a can of food and she nodded. As I showed Brooke the proper feeding technique, I heard the water in the bathroom turn on.

It's funny, but as much as Brooke loves baths, Noah hates them. A loud scream echoed down the hall. Brooke turned her head, her eyes widened. Fun with fish food was quickly forgotten.

"NoNo," she said.

"He's just getting a bath," I explained.

I knew the moment I said the word that I had made a mistake. A look of excitement crossed her face and she began to wiggle in my arms.

Ten minutes later, we had one very grumpy little boy and one very happy little girl in the tub. Liv and I were side by side playing bathtub lifeguards. Brooke took a little plastic cup, filled it with water, and dumped it right over her head.

"Ah," she said happily.

"I'm going to drive over to J's today," I told Liv as she tried to sneak some baby shampoo onto Noah's head. As soon as the stuff hit his head, his hands went up and he began to whine.

"Just checking up?" Liv asked.

"He's interviewing nannies today," I explained. Liv looked over at me with a little smile playing on her lips.

"If anyone can interview a woman, it's you," she teased. I grinned.

"I want to make sure J picks someone for qualifications, not looks," I explained. Liv laughed.

"Here I was thinking it was the other way around."

I shook my head. "That's the last thing he needs right now," I said.

"What, a woman?"

I took a bar of soap out of Brooke's hands. It had been making its way slowly to her mouth.

"No, trouble."

----------------------------------

Two hours later, I stood on AJ's doorstep and rang the bell. I leaned against the doorframe and looked up. There was a giant spiderweb stretched out across my head. I was just squinting up to see if I could get a glimpse of a big fat spider when the door opened. AJ stared out in confusion.

"Well, don't say hi or anything," I teased.

"Hi. What are you doing here?"

I straightened up and breezed past him into the foyer.

"You told me when I talked to you earlier this week you were interviewing nannies today. So here I am."

"I see you are," he said. He closed the door and turned around. "Why?"

I looked at him like he was insane.

"I'm going to help you pick out a nanny."

"I don't need help."

We went back and forth for a few minutes and I explained that he had really bad judgement on women. We were still talking when the doorbell rang.

AJ groaned and motioned towards the living room.

"Sit on the couch and don't try to be helpful."

I grinned, pulled out a notebook and headed towards the living room. I figured I would help him out by taking notes. And if I got bored, I could always draw funny pictures of the interviewees.

The first woman was old. I don't mean old in a generic way. I mean old as in she should have been auditioning for a Depends commercial, not a nanny job. She looked like the female version of the crypt keeper.

The next three were almost as bad. The first one reminded me of the Mexican maid off of Family Guy. I was dying to ask her to say 'lemon pledge.' The next one smelled like she had just come from Oktoberfest. The third one looked like the kid from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory; y'know, the one that had to be stretched out after shrinking himself and was no wider than a sheet of paper.

"I think the next one's going to be the one," I called from the living room as the doorbell rang for the fifth time. I heard AJ snort from the foyer.

On first appearance, the fifth woman didn't seem bad. In fact, she kind of reminded me of the nanny off that one show that takes crazy families and makes them proper. I couldn't help but think that I needed to get me a nanny like that.

"What do you do with a toddler that likes to eat crayons?" I asked. AJ looked over at me, but I ignored him.

"Oh, none of my charges ever did that," she said. "I firmly believe in teaching the right way to do things from the beginning."

The way she said it made it sound like a personal attack. I made a face.

"Yeah, but everyone makes mistakes," I argued.

"My daughter," AJ said hesitatingly. "She has some hearing problems."

I looked over at him in surprise. J hadn't told me anything was wrong the last time we talked on the phone.

"Do you have any experience dealing with things like that?" he continued.

The woman made a remark about 'slow' children and AJ practically flipped his lid. I had never seen someone ushered out of a house so fast in all my life.

Not that I could blame him.

"J?" I called.

"What?"

I got up off the couch, tossed the notebook down, and walked into the hall.

"Is Ally okay?"

AJ scratched at his beard. It was a nervous habit of his. I was surprised he hadn't scratched his skin off by now.

"No," he said quietly. "She's deaf. I have to take her to a specialist and see if there's anything we can do."

When God was handing out bad luck tokens, I think he must have slipped a few extra into AJ's back pocket. I stared at him in disbelief. I tried to keep the pity out of my voice.

"Jesus, J," I said. "I..."

Before I could finish, the doorbell rang for the sixth time. AJ opened the door and looked out in surprise.

"Hi, I'm Molly," a very feminine voice said. "This is Shelby. I'm here for the live-in nanny position."

AJ didn't answer but he took a few steps back. A redhead and her pirate/ballerina/princess mini-me clomped in. The woman looked to be in her late twenties.

I smelled trouble.

As we all sat down, I was ready to jump in and start aiming questions. This woman was too young, too pretty, and already had baggage. She was an automatic no in my book.

Unfortunately, I didn't get to sit in on their interview. AJ's baby monitor went off and he asked me to go upstairs. I was relegated to a double dose of dirty diapers and spit-up. By the time I made my way back downstairs, AJ was closing the front door.

"So, I really liked the third candidate," I said. AJ just looked at me.

"She smelled like sauerkraut," he said.

"Yeah, but once you got past that..."

"I think I'll sleep on it," he said lightly. I didn't like that tone. Something told me he had already made up his mind.

"J, don't do what I know you're going to do," I warned. He started to walk up the stairs. I followed behind him.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"You know exactly what I'm talking about."

He stopped on the next to last step before the landing and turned. His eyes were serious.

"Nick, Ally and Joe are way too important to me. Trust me on this."

He turned back around and I stifled an audible sigh.

AJ always had the best of intentions.

But sometimes his best intentions were wrong.