Page 127 of The Troublemaker
He paces.“There’s a bin in the bathroom with stuff Penelope said was a must.”
I go to the bathroom while Tanner continues to scream.I hear Easton trying to calm him when I find a container with everything for a sick baby.There’s one of those sucky syringes, a thermometer, and I grab the baby medicine we use when his teething has been really bad.
“Do you think he’s cutting another tooth?”I ask when I return.
Easton’s sitting on the edge of the bed.Tanner is crawling on the bed but getting frustrated and falling face forward, crying, his little fists gripping the comforter.Easton puts his hand on Tanner’s back.
“Let’s take his temperature first.”I search in the bin for the thermometer.
Easton grabs Tanner and flips him over on the bed.“I feel like we’ve been lucky not to have had to do this yet.”
I take out the rectal thermometer and the jelly.
He undoes Tanner’s pajamas and gets his legs out, then opens his diaper, the entire time sighing and acting as though he’d rather take a one hundred mile per hour fastball to the thigh than take his son’s temperature in the butt.
“You got this,” I say, and he quirks an eyebrow at me.
I position Tanner stomach down on the bed and lie by him, face-to-face, placing kisses on his cheek and telling him it will be okay.
“Okay, here it goes.”
I look at Easton and nod, giving him a thumbs-up before pulling my phone out and starting the timer.He practically shuts his eyes as he inserts it, his head rocking back as he holds the thermometer in place and I start the timer.
As Easton looks as though he’s having an internal crisis, Tanner has found a loose thread on the comforter and is pulling at it with complete focus, seemingly unbothered.
The buzzer on my phone goes off, and Easton takes out the thermometer, taking it to the small lamp and reading the temperature.
“One hundred and two,” he says.“He’s definitely got a cold or something.”
“Nothing like it happening in the middle of the night.”I pick up Tanner and grab a diaper and wipe to get him dressed again.
“Do I call the pediatrician?”I hear in Easton’s voice that he wants to.
“Callie?”I suggest since she’s only upstairs.“Or Penelope.”
“Not Foster or Decker?”His eyebrows rise as though he’s implying something.
“Or them, I suppose.”
He laughs.
“I’m just saying, dads are parents too.I’m here with you right now, not hiding in the other room.”
“Technically, you’re the only parent here.I’m only the nanny.”
He tilts his head and gives me an expression to say that’s not true.“We both know you’re more to him than a nanny.”
“Oh really, what am I?”
“You’re Daddy’s girlfriend.”Easton laughs.
Tanner doesn’t like it, so he starts crying again.
I hand Tanner to Easton.“I’m going to look up some stuff online.I feel like the pediatrician is overkill.And I don’t want to wake upFoster and Deckersince they just got back like you.”
Easton smirks, walking him around the room.
I shouldn’t be so hung up on what I’m labeled as in Tanner’s life, I know that.I decide to put that aside and look up what we can do to help him.
