ROUTINES
Paige Bueckers x Mom!Reader
Warnings: Child angst? Maybe? Fluff, domestic, crying, tantrums, mentions of autism?
Synopsis: Your very busy life, as a mother and a wife but, you wouldn't want to have it any other way
Monday mornings in the Bueckers household were an Olympic event. Not dramatic. Not tragic. Just full. Shoes gone missing, cereal bowls clinking, cartoon noise overlapping with toothbrush humming, and one too-loud five-year-old trying to find her Very Specific Hair Clip like it was a national emergency.
The alarm went off at 6:30 a.m., but no one moved until 6:42.
Paige groaned into her pillow, arm flopped over Y/N’s waist.
“Tell me it’s Sunday,” she muttered.
Y/N blinked at the ceiling. “Monday.”
“Again?”
“Forever.”
Down the hall, feet hit the floor with a thump. Then came the first voice.
“MOMMY? Where’s my moon shirt?! I had it! It was on the floor for bedtime, and now it’s GONE!”
“Shit,” Y/N whispered.
By 6:47, both moms were vertical. Barely.
Y/N shuffled toward the girls’ rooms with half a hair tie still clinging to her wrist. Paige wandered into the kitchen to start the coffee machine, which groaned in sympathy.
Hazel was awake and already dressed. Kind of. She stood in her closet, holding up two long-sleeved shirts with equal suspicion.
“Tag check,” she said calmly.
Y/N, still bleary-eyed, took them both, flipped them inside out, and started snipping.
Hazel wore the same three shirts in rotation: the green bug-print one, the bluey one that violet keeps stealing and the plain gray one with soft seams. Everything else required negotiation.
“Can I wear the bug one again?” she asked.
Y/N checked it, smelled it. “No offense, babe, but it smells like mud and applesauce.”
Hazel nodded solemnly. “Then the Bluey one.”
Meanwhile, Violet’s door burst open like she was storming the castle. She wore pajama pants and a cape fashioned from a beach towel.
“I CAN’T GO TO SCHOOL WITHOUT MY MOON SHIRT,” she announced to the world. “I WILL PERISH.”
Hazel turned to her. “You say that every Monday.”
“BECAUSE I MIGHT.”
“Girls,” Y/N warned. “We are not doing end-of-days at seven A.M. Find your shoes.”
“I am in my shoes,” Violet said dramatically, lifting her pajamaed foot. “In spirit.”
By 7:15, breakfast was in progress.
Hazel sat quietly at the table, spooning plain yogurt with granola into her mouth, pausing only to tap her fingers against the table in an even rhythm. She liked neutral foods on Monday. Oatmeal if she was in a yellow mood, yogurt if she was in a blue one.
Today was blue.
Violet, however, was chaos in a unicorn hoodie. She demanded banana slices on her waffle, then changed her mind halfway through and asked for them “reconstructed,” which apparently meant separated into a different bowl. Then she cried when her fork had syrup on it. Then she cried harder when Paige used the “syrup fork” to hand her the banana bowl.
Hazel watched her sister sob into her waffle and whispered, “That’s so many tears.”
Y/N crouched to Violet’s level. “Do you want to pick a new fork?”
“I want to go back to bed and wake up in a different week.”
“Same, kid,” Paige muttered from the Keurig.
By 7:37, Y/N was zipping jackets while Violet insisted she could do her own hair, despite never once having done it successfully.
Hazel already had her backpack on, full of items she had packed the night before: a fidget popper, her magnifying glass, her laminated Bug Club field guide, two pencils she sharpened herself, and a snack that included exactly six baby carrots.
Not five. Not seven.
“You ready, Hazey?” Paige asked, crouching to eye-level.
Hazel blinked up at her. “Did you know that female praying mantises sometimes eat their mates?”
“I didn’t.”
“They start at the head.”
“Love that for them.”
Hazel smiled slightly. “I like bugs more than people sometimes.”
“Same,” Paige said.
7:44 a.m. was always the mad dash.
Y/N held out Violet’s shoes like they were fire extinguishers. “Let’s go, Vi. We need to be out the door in two minutes.”
“I need my galaxy hair clip.”
“You said you wanted the butterfly one.”
“That was before my waffle betrayal.”
Paige stepped in with her calm-coach voice. “Okay, we’re gonna take three big breaths and pick one clip.”
“I WANT SEVEN.”
Y/N groaned and picked her up, carried her bodily to the car as Violet declared, “This is a violation of my civil rights!”
Hazel trailed behind, narrating to herself. “It’s always more dramatic on Mondays. Maybe because the moon was full last night.”
By 7:51, they were in the car. Somehow.
Hazel sat with her book open, reading about bark beetles. Violet kicked the back of the passenger seat and sang about cats made of lightning.
Y/N adjusted the rearview mirror and looked at her daughters.
Hazel’s sleeves were tugged down over her wrists. Violet had granola in her hair.
She exhaled.
“Do we have everything?” Paige asked, buckling in beside her.
“Hazel’s lunch is labeled. Violet’s form is signed. I packed extra pull-ups for the nap mat.”
“Supermom,” Paige whispered.
“I haven’t even changed.”
“Still hot.”
The drive to school was always quieter than the house. Not quiet, but less loud.
Violet was half-asleep by the time they turned onto the school street, head lolling to one side. Hazel, still focused, traced her finger down a paragraph and whispered, “Did you know some beetles glow in the dark because of bioluminescent bacteria? I bet they have good parties.”
Paige turned in her seat. “You nervous about anything today?”
Hazel didn’t look up. “I don’t like lunch duty with Ms. Barker. She’s loud. Her shoes squeak when she walks.”
“Want me to email your teacher?”
Hazel shook her head. “I’ll just sit on the end of the table.”
Y/N met Paige’s eyes. Another unspoken: she knows how to take care of herself… and I still want to bubble-wrap her.
By 8:07, they were pulling into the drop-off line.
Hazel zipped her bug jacket all the way up. Violet sat up suddenly, wide-eyed.
“Wait. I forgot my nap bunny.”
Y/N turned around. “You haven’t used the bunny in weeks.”
“But today is the day.”
“I’ll drop it off, okay?”
Violet looked betrayed, then sighed deeply like she was forty and about to sue someone. “Fine. But don’t forget. I need her for moral support.”
Hazel leaned over and whispered something to her. Violet nodded.
Paige raised an eyebrow. “What was that?”
“Secret sibling code,” Hazel said simply, then opened her door.
Watching Hazel walk into the building, backpack snug, arms straight at her sides, never failed to squeeze Y/N’s heart.
She still felt like following her in. Like holding her hand until lunch. Like explaining to the loud substitute why Hazel sometimes covers her ears or doesn’t like it when other kids touch her markers.
But she didn’t.
She just waved, and Hazel waved back, and then disappeared inside.
Violet followed, skipping two steps behind her like a miniature shadow, shouting, “WAIT FOR ME, BUG QUEEN!”
Back in the car, Paige reached over and took Y/N’s hand.
“You did good.”
“I didn’t cry this time.”
“You almost did.”
“I miss her already.”
“She’s fine. She’s thriving. And you’re gonna be okay.”
Y/N let herself smile. “Until bedtime.”
“Until bedtime.”
Hazel didn’t really like school. She liked learning. She liked books and facts and tiny plastic beetles she could line up on the edge of her desk like a science exhibit. But school — the parts with chairs that squeaked, hallways that echoed, and teachers who said things like “everyone has to participate” — that was harder.
She didn’t complain, though.
Hazel didn’t really do complaining. She just found ways to work around things that made her feel buzzy or weird or out-of-place.
Her teacher, Ms. Lee, was one of the good ones. She understood that Hazel sometimes needed to sit next to circle time instead of in it. She knew that when Hazel stared out the window for five minutes, she was probably just imagining a bug colony starting a government.
But not everyone got it.
Y/N had gotten the email around 10:12 that morning.
“Hi Y/N, I just wanted to loop you in on a quick recess moment — nothing major, but Hazel didn’t want to join the group game again today, and one of the other moms reached out expressing concern. I assured her we’re working on encouraging inclusion. Happy to chat if you’d like.”
Y/N had stared at the screen. Read it again. Then slowly set down her tea and muttered, “Encouraging inclusion, my ass.”
She spent the next twenty minutes pacing in front of the laundry basket, muttering things like “Hazel doesn’t need to learn to play tag, Karen, she’s not applying to the NFL” and angrily folding toddler socks while imagining elaborate ways to crash the next PTA meeting.
Paige, mid-practice break, FaceTimed her at the exact wrong moment.
Y/N answered still holding a sock like a weapon.
“Oh no,” Paige said immediately. “Who emailed you.”
“Hazel didn’t play tag at recess and now it’s a thing.”
Paige exhaled. “Did she push someone? Cry? Bite anyone?”
“No. She just didn’t play.”
“…So she sat by the tree again?”
“Probably organizing ants by family structure. But some mom complained.”
Paige rubbed her forehead. “Is this the same mom who brought gluten-free, sugar-free, joy-free cupcakes to last month's birthday party?”
“Yes. And she’s on the PTA.”
Paige sighed. “Want me to call the school?”
“No,” Y/N muttered. “But I do want to launch her Range Rover into the sun.”
At school, Hazel sat on the bench near the edge of the playground, eating her snack with one hand and sketching a picture of a beetle queen with the other.
A couple of kids ran past her, laughing too loudly. One accidentally kicked mulch into her shoe. Hazel didn’t react — just paused to shake the pieces out and went back to drawing.
Violet, on the other hand, was halfway across the playground when she spotted it.
Her sister. Sitting alone.
Again.
She had tried — really tried — to play with the other kindergartners. But their rules were weird and too many of them yelled, and one girl named Olivia told her that Hazel was “weird” and “doesn’t know how to play freeze tag right.”
Violet had pushed her. Not hard. Just enough to make her point.
She was still on a semi-probation from the monkey bars.
But now, seeing Hazel by herself again, Violet stomped over and plopped down next to her in the mulch.
Hazel blinked. “Aren’t you playing with the chalk kids?”
“They’re boring and mean.”
Hazel looked back at her notebook. “You can go if you want.”
“I want to be here.”
Hazel’s shoulders relaxed the tiniest bit.
“I’m drawing a bug army,” she said after a moment. “For the beetle queen.”
“Can I be the butterfly assassin?”
Hazel nodded slowly. “You have to pass the loyalty test.”
“What’s that?”
“You don’t run away when people say I’m weird.”
Violet narrowed her eyes. “I would bite them.”
Hazel smiled. “You’d be a good butterfly assassin.”
Y/N picked the girls up that afternoon like she always did — coffee in hand, anxiety simmering just below the surface, sunglasses on because she’d cried earlier and didn’t want Violet to notice.
She watched as Violet came sprinting out of the building, hair a mess, backpack hanging off one shoulder, yelling, “MOMMMMYYYYY, I DIDN’T CRY DURING REST TIME AND I GOT TWO GOLDFISH.”
Hazel trailed behind at a more even pace, hugging her sketchbook to her chest.
Y/N crouched and opened her arms.
Violet launched into her like a missile.
Hazel leaned into the side of the hug. Not all the way, but enough.
“Hard day?” Y/N asked softly.
Hazel shook her head. “Just noisy.”
“Want to talk about it in the car?”
“Can I talk about bug empires instead?”
“Of course, baby.”
The car ride home was Hazel’s favorite part of the day.
She’d unbuckle, fold her legs on the seat, and rest her notebook in her lap like she was a professor giving a lecture.
“Today I made a list of all the bugs I’d bring to space. Ants, because they’re organized. Beetles, because they’re strong. Moths, because they understand darkness. No wasps.”
“Wasps are jerks,” Violet agreed from the back seat.
Hazel nodded. “Wasps ruin birthday parties.”
Y/N smiled as she drove, listening to her daughters build an imaginary insect space colony while the sun dipped low and the streetlights clicked on one by one.
That night at dinner, Paige was late.
Practice ran long, and Hazel only ate half her pasta before asking to go organize her markers. Violet refused to eat anything that wasn’t shaped like a dinosaur.
Y/N tried not to snap.
She didn’t always succeed.
“Vi, please. Just one bite that’s not a T-Rex.”
“BUT I ONLY LIKE THE TASTY ONES.”
Hazel blinked at her sister’s outburst, confused and quiet.
“I don’t get why crying is part of dinner,” she said softly.
Y/N closed her eyes. “It’s not, honey. I’m just… tired.”
Hazel nodded and slid a green stegosaurus toward Violet. “This one’s shaped like it has manners.”
Later, once the girls were in bed (or at least in their rooms), Paige came home to find Y/N sitting on the couch, eyes red, holding a bug sketch and a half-empty glass of wine.
Paige didn’t say anything at first. She just sat beside her and waited.
“They want to ‘encourage inclusion,’” Y/N finally muttered.
Paige sighed. “Hazel didn’t even notice, did she?”
“No. But I did.”
Y/N swallowed. “I see the way they look at her. And at me. Like I did something wrong. Like I’m not parenting her right. Like it’s our fault she’d rather talk about moon craters than make bracelets in a group circle.”
Paige leaned her head on Y/N’s shoulder. “Hazel is brilliant. Weird and curious and wild and brilliant. They don’t get to decide who she’s supposed to be.”
Y/N exhaled shakily. “I just want her to be okay.”
“She is.”
Y/N leaned into Paige’s shoulder. “And Violet’s about to punch another child in defense of her sister.”
Paige smiled. “At least we know she’s loyal.”
Hazel didn’t like bubble wrap.
Too loud. Too sudden. Too nothing for five seconds and then popPOPPOP all at once.
But in some metaphorical way, Y/N had wrapped her in it anyway.
Not because she thought Hazel was fragile. But because the world didn’t bend for girls like her. And if it wouldn’t bend, Y/N would pad every corner, kick down every unfair door, and snatch the damn scissors from anyone who dared to pop her daughter’s peace.
It just… got exhausting sometimes.
And Hazel was starting to notice.
Tuesday Morning, 6:58 AM
“I can pack my own lunch,” Hazel said calmly, standing on the step stool in the kitchen.
Y/N blinked. “Oh. Okay, I just thought—”
“I know what I eat.”
“You do,” Y/N said quickly, handing her the carrots. “I just like helping.”
Hazel nodded, grabbing the bento box and carefully lining up each baby carrot like soldiers. “You can help Violet instead. She put cheese in her pocket again.”
From the other room: “NO I DIDN’T.”
Y/N sighed and looked over at Paige, who was nursing her coffee like it was the only thing keeping her upright.
“You’re up early,” Y/N said softly.
“I’m not. I’m just standing with my eyes open.”
7:42 AM – The Dash
Hazel tugged her soft, tagless navy sweatshirt over her head. Violet screamed in the hallway because her socks had “stitches that feel mean.”
“Hazel, can you grab your sister’s shoes while I do her hair?”
Hazel hesitated. “I don’t want to go in there when she’s loud.”
Y/N flinched. “Right. Sorry. I can—”
“I’ll get the shoes,” Paige offered, yawning and already halfway down the hall.
Hazel and Y/N looked at each other, quiet.
“You don’t like when I make you do emotional stuff,” Y/N said gently.
Hazel shook her head. “I like when people tell me what they need. I don’t know what to do when people cry.”
“I don’t always know either.”
Hazel thought for a second, then offered: “That’s okay.”
At School, That Afternoon
Hazel didn’t notice the stares. Or maybe she did, but she had gotten good at filing them away like background noise.
She sat cross-legged near the fence at recess, sorting pebbles by texture — smooth, scratchy, sparkly, chalk-dusty.
Three girls ran by. One of them pointed. “Why is she always doing rock stuff? She’s weird.”
Hazel didn’t flinch. She just adjusted her stack.
But Violet heard it.
From across the yard, mid-tetherball, she heard it.
And stomped.
“HEY!” Violet shouted. “She’s not weird, she’s just INTERESTING!”
Hazel looked up.
The girls laughed. “Your sister’s a rock weirdo.”
Violet opened her mouth to retaliate — and stopped.
She turned, marched toward Hazel, and plopped beside her in the grass.
“What’s that one?” she asked, pointing to a black stone.
Hazel passed it to her. “Volcanic.”
“What’s it do?”
“It exists. That’s kind of enough.”
Violet nodded. “Then I’m a volcanic rock too.”
After School
Y/N was already parked in the pickup line when she saw Hazel coming out, her hood up, her arms crossed over her Bug Club binder.
Violet followed behind, bouncing as usual, waving at anyone who looked her way.
When they got in the car, Hazel climbed into her seat, buckled up, and stared out the window.
Y/N didn’t ask “how was school?” — she knew better.
Instead, she tried, “Did you know turtles can breathe through their butts?”
Hazel blinked. “Cloacal respiration. Old news.”
From the back: “YOU SAID BUTT,” Violet squealed.
Y/N smirked. “Hazel, anything on your mind?”
Hazel shrugged. “I didn’t cry. So it wasn’t a bad day.”
Y/N exhaled softly. Paige’s words from the night before echoed: She’s not broken. You don’t need to fix it before she tells you there’s a problem.
“Okay,” Y/N said, “Let’s go home and make dino nuggets.”
“I want the ones shaped like herbivores,” Hazel whispered.
“Copy that.”
Later That Night
The girls were in bed — or near it — and Y/N stood in the laundry room folding tiny socks and smaller leggings with military precision.
Paige walked in holding a juice pouch.
“She said thanks for not asking,” Paige said gently.
Y/N paused. “Hazel?”
“Yeah. I tucked her in and she said, ‘I like when Mommy doesn’t make me talk about hard things before bed.’”
Y/N laughed under her breath, hands on her hips.
“I’m trying so hard not to mess this up,” she said.
Paige set the juice down and hugged her from behind.
“You’re not messing it up. You’re showing up. That’s the job.”
Y/N leaned back against her. “Sometimes I just want to bubble-wrap her.”
“She wouldn’t let you,” Paige said. “And Vi would just pop every square out of spite.”
That Weekend
They didn’t go to any parties. Violet was invited to one, but she refused to go without Hazel.
“Why would I want to play dress-up with someone who doesn’t like my sister?” she said, arms crossed, rainbow clip in her hair.
So instead, they played in the backyard.
Hazel lined up tiny army men with insect wings glued to their backs. Violet acted out dramatic soap operas with grass clippings and dandelions.
Y/N sat in the doorway, coffee in hand, watching them just… be.
Not fixed. Not polished. Not trying to be anything they weren’t.
Just Hazel. Just Violet.
And that was enough.
Hazel didn’t like the new hallway tile.
It was too shiny. It squeaked under shoes in a way that made her shoulders tense, and it made the lights feel brighter somehow. On Monday morning, she stood in the entryway of her school and refused to take one more step.
“It’s the same hallway,” Y/N had said gently, crouched beside her. “They just cleaned the floors.”
“It’s louder,” Hazel whispered, eyes on the tiles. “And slippery. I can feel it.”
“Want to walk next to me?” Paige offered, giving her a little room. “We’ll go slow.”
Hazel didn’t answer, but she did start moving — carefully, like each step needed approval from her nervous system.
Violet, meanwhile, had already bolted halfway down the hall and was yelling something about art class and glitter glue.
Y/N watched Hazel's slow progress, then looked at Paige, her jaw tight.
“I should’ve emailed the school. Asked about the maintenance schedule.”
“Babe,” Paige said gently. “It’s just waxed tile.”
“It’s not just waxed tile to her.”
That afternoon, Y/N walked around Target with an abandoned grocery list in one hand and a cart full of soft-seam leggings, cotton undershirts, and exactly three backup pairs of Hazel’s favorite socks.
She didn’t realize how much she was overdoing it until she found herself comparing the thread count on pillowcases like Hazel was planning to move into the linen aisle.
She called Paige while sitting in the cart herself, phone balanced on her knee.
“I’m spiraling.”
“I figured.”
“She hated the floor this morning.”
“I know. But she still went.”
Y/N closed her eyes, pressing her fingers to her temple. “What if next time it’s too much? What if it’s a fire drill or a different sub or someone bumps her the wrong way and I’m not there?”
There was a pause on the other end.
“You’re not supposed to be there, Y/N. That’s the whole point.”
“I don’t like the point.”
“I know.”
Hazel had always needed just enough control over her environment to feel safe.
And Y/N had always been the type to build a moat around her daughters’ comfort. She could see it — the way Hazel stood a little too close to the wall in crowded places, the way she tugged her sleeves down when she got overwhelmed, the way her eyes flicked sideways when someone tried to hug her without asking.
And the way she never, ever asked for help. Not even when it would’ve made things easier.
So Y/N did it for her.
She emailed the teachers. Sent notes in the lunchbox. Researched noise-canceling headphones until her browser thought she was hard of hearing. There was nothing she wouldn’t do.
But Hazel wasn’t five anymore.
She was seven — whip-smart, quietly funny, obsessed with moon phases, and the self-appointed captain of something she called the "Bug Defense League." And she was starting to notice the way her mom hovered just a little too much.
One night, after dinner, Hazel sat on the floor in the living room, sorting plastic insects by species. Violet was in the kitchen doing… something with tape and construction paper and a banana, which Y/N had decided to ignore for the moment.
Y/N crouched beside Hazel.
“Hey, you want me to print out that new list of bugs you told me about?”
Hazel didn’t look up. “I already made it.”
“Oh. Okay. That’s great.”
A beat of silence.
“Mom?”
“Yeah, bug?”
“You don’t have to check on me every time I’m quiet.”
Y/N froze a little. “I just want to make sure you’re okay.”
“I am okay. I just like it better when no one talks for a while.”
It wasn’t said with attitude. It wasn’t a dramatic moment. Just a quiet boundary.
And Y/N heard it. Really heard it.
She nodded, sat beside Hazel for a moment longer, then stood up — hands at her sides, not reaching to fix her shirt or wipe marker off her cheek. Just… letting her be.
Later that night, Paige walked in from practice to find the house quiet — suspiciously so.
“Everyone alive?” she called out.
“Emotionally?” Y/N answered from the couch. “Barely.”
Paige chuckled, dropped her bag, and kicked off her sneakers. “Who cracked today?”
“Me. Hazel set a boundary and I actually respected it.”
“Proud of you.”
Y/N flopped her head back against the couch cushions. “I feel like I’ve been parenting with bubble wrap for seven years. And now I have to take it off. And I hate it.”
“It’s not gone,” Paige said, sitting beside her. “It’s just… thinning.”
“Violet’s going to need it, too. She’s been extra lately.”
“She’s five,” Paige said. “She’s always extra.”
Y/N laughed, exhausted. “I think she ate half a glue stick this morning.”
“As long as it was gluten-free.”
The next day, the girls had a half-day at school, which was code for “you’ll get nothing done and still feel like you ran a marathon.”
Y/N picked them up at noon, and before Hazel was even buckled into her booster seat, she was deep into a monologue about ancient trilobites and how they might have been the earliest evidence of molting.
Violet interrupted her mid-sentence to declare, “I PEED A LITTLE DURING NAP TIME BUT I BLAMED EMILY.”
Hazel blinked. “You lied?”
“I saved myself.”
“Do you want to wash your hands again?” Y/N asked, already passing back sanitizer.
“No,” Violet said proudly. “I want chocolate milk.”
Hazel looked at her sister like she was a Rubik’s cube.
“I don’t understand you.”
“That’s okay,” Violet shrugged. “I understand me.”
That weekend, Hazel decided she wanted to try leggings again. The last time hadn’t gone well — the seams were too tight, the fabric too loud (her word), and she had cried for forty-five minutes afterward without really explaining why.
But this time, she said she was ready to try again.
So Y/N brought out the softest pair she could find, and Paige made it a whole thing — a Legging Ceremony. They lit a candle, which Violet tried to blow out three times, and put on spa music while Hazel slowly stepped into the cotton like it was lava.
And when she didn’t cry — when she sat down and said, “It’s not my favorite, but it’s okay,” — Y/N had to walk out of the room to breathe for a second.
Paige followed her.
“She didn’t scream,” Y/N whispered, stunned.
“She’s growing.”
“She’s brave.”
“She’s ours.”
That night, both girls climbed into Hazel’s bed like usual. It was only supposed to be a quick cuddle — five minutes, tops — but somehow Violet fell asleep upside down, Hazel started whispering about Martian beetles, and neither mom had the heart to move them.
Y/N stood in the doorway, arms crossed, watching them.
“They’re gonna be fine,” Paige said, wrapping an arm around her waist.
Y/N leaned into her.
“I just hope the world is ready for them.”
Paige smiled.
That Night
The girls were finally asleep.
Probably.
Hazel had curled herself into a tight comma under her weighted blanket, her Bug Club binder tucked beside her pillow like a bedtime story. Violet had passed out upside down again, one foot sticking through the safety rail, her unicorn nightlight casting shadows across the wall that she’d almost certainly insist were haunted by morning.
Y/N stood in the hallway just outside their rooms, staring.
Not doing anything. Just standing there. Listening to the soft sound of Hazel’s sound machine—rainstorm setting, always—and the faint thrum of Violet’s sleepy humming, like her brain was still half-playing tag in her dreams.
She didn’t move until Paige came up behind her, barefoot and quiet, holding two mugs of tea.
“One’s just water with honey,” Paige said. “We’re out of actual tea. Or maybe I just didn’t want to boil a second pot.”
Y/N took it without looking. “Water with honey sounds fake, but I’ll drink it.”
They leaned against the wall together, shoulder to shoulder, facing down the hallway like the world might throw one more thing at them before bed.
For once, it didn’t.
“I almost cried again,” Y/N said softly.
“When?”
“Today. When Hazel let me braid her hair without flinching.”
Paige looked over. “That was a big one.”
“She didn’t say thank you. She just… handed me the brush like it was normal.”
“It is normal. For her.”
Y/N sipped her tea-water-whatever. “She’s figuring herself out faster than I figured her out.”
“You figured her out fine.”
“I thought she was just sensitive for the first year. I didn’t know.”
“You didn’t need to know right away. You just had to love her.”
“I still don’t always get it right.”
“Who does?”
Y/N let out a breath. She didn’t realize she’d been holding it since dinner. Since that tiny, silent moment when Hazel had let her tuck the blanket a little tighter, when Violet had whispered “night, bug queen” before immediately asking if worms had teeth.
They didn’t always say thank you.
But they didn’t pull away either.
And that was something.
Y/N stepped into the girls’ room once more before bed. She adjusted the curtain just slightly, just enough to block the streetlight from hitting Hazel’s face. She picked up a crayon from the rug and tucked it back into the box. She kissed Violet’s forehead—still slightly sticky with whatever she’d snuck from the pantry.
She didn’t say anything.
She didn’t need to.
Back in their bedroom, Paige was already half-asleep, arm flung across the pillow, hair still damp from a rushed shower.
Y/N crawled in beside her and didn’t even flinch when a single LEGO piece stabbed the bottom of her foot on the way in.
It was just part of it. The mess. The noise. The endless string of small, sharp things you stepped on that reminded you you were still inside a life you made on purpose.
And god, what a life.
Paige murmured something without opening her eyes. “Did you double-check Hazel’s note for the bug fair?”
“I did.”
“She’s bringing mealworms, right?”
“Alive.”
“Of course.”
A long silence stretched between them, warm and comfortable.
Y/N closed her eyes.
She didn’t know what tomorrow’s morning would be. If Hazel would be in a gray mood. If Violet would refuse socks again. If she’d get another email from a mom who didn’t get it. If Paige would have to run out mid-breakfast for practice.
She didn’t know.
But she knew that she’d handle it.
Not perfectly. Not all at once. Not without raising her voice or forgetting to sign something or burning a bagel or crying in the laundry room.
But she’d handle it.
Because this wasn’t a story about fixing her kids.
It was a story about showing up.
About loving them so loudly and so quietly, at the same time, that they never once wondered if they were too much.
About being the person who said, every single day, “You don’t have to change. I’ve got you. Just grow.”
And so they did.
Bit by bit. Bug by bug. Tantrum by tantrum.
They grew.
And so did she.
Right there with them.
