Baa Atoll, Maldives | Tuesday

[defenderofdesmoines]

Annie could kind of get used to this, maybe.

Like, obviously, she could not, considering that the whole reason she was currently stretched out on a lounger next to her own private pool in her own private villa with their own private swath of jungle nearby was because she was less than three months out from giving birth to twins, and she was about to never be able to even think about going on a vacation again, probably. Like. She knew this.

But all the same, after a few days here, Annie had finally relaxed into being on vacation. She didn't even miss the opportunity to, like, take a machete to that swath of jungle -- partly because, you know, pregnant, but also because the vibe here kind of encouraged her to actually relax.

Which was probably the point, right? Getting pedicures and massages (check and check), eating well for the babies (check and like jeez, the food here), and...chilling out with her phone and a virgin pina colada that had shown up in an amazingly brief window after she'd ordered it from room service.

And like, maybe once the kids were old enough, they'd go on a machete vacation with them! That was a fun little daydream, in the meantime.

[for the husband and nfb for distance, natch!]

Comments

[knife_bender]

They were totally going to take the kids on machete trips in the future.

Diego didn't go on a solo adventure because 1. That'd be a dick move and 2. He didn't want to do anything without Annie anyway. So he took to relaxing alongside with her and even got a (clear polished) pedicure.

"Anything interesting happening in the world?"

[defenderofdesmoines]

"This puppy figured out how to take this horse for a walk," Annie told him, turning her phone to show him the TikTok of...exactly that: a little dog leading a horse around by a rope.

Look, vacation was not about staying on top of the actual news. The news was a huge bummer right now!

[knife_bender]

"Wow, breaking news," Diego said, taking a sip of his own (alcoholic) drink. "I bet that dog is gonna be famous."

[defenderofdesmoines]

"Maybe in the earlier days of the internet, before every cute animal got its own agent," Annie said speculatively, lifting her sunglasses to peer a little closer at her screen before replacing them and leaning back with a sigh. "Though also, like, maybe the horse should get some credit here, too? It seems like a team effort?"

Were horses smart? Annie had no idea. She knew so little about horses. She was so unprepared to have a daughter, God.

[knife_bender]

If Barbie taught us anything, it's Ben that's going to have the horse obsession.

"You think the horse would get jealous of a dog's fame?" Diego asked.

[defenderofdesmoines]

"I mean, I wouldn't blame the horse if he did," Annie replied, actually giving that some thought. "But the horse might also, like, welcome the escape from the spotlight. Let the dog deal with all the press conferences and GMA appearances while the horse...you know, chills and eats hay."

No one here was maybe casually identifying with this horse scenario or anything. Especially not Annie, who took a sip from her (delicious, if virginal) drink practically on cue there.

[knife_bender]

"Hay in this case being a pina colada," he teased. "I can understand that. Let the dog handle all that fame bullshit."

[defenderofdesmoines]

"Dog's probably better at it, anyway," Annie decided, smiling at him as she plucked off the garnish of her drink to snack on. "I'm so glad we got out of that whole scene when we did."

Namely, before their twins could become the most famous unborn children on the planet.

[knife_bender]

"Me too," he said, leaning back into his chair. "I'm glad we got off the island for a bit too. Even if it was to another island."

[defenderofdesmoines]

"An islandier one." Annie, that statement was nonsensical no matter how many times you insisted upon it. "But yeah, I know what you mean. Kinda nice just having a little time to ourselves, by ourselves."

Without the obligation of having to work one whole day a week, you know?

[knife_bender]

"Before the madness starts," he said, reaching for her hand. "Starting to feel really real now, isn't it?"

[defenderofdesmoines]

"Uncomfortably real at times," Annie replied with a light smile, twining her fingers with his and giving her stomach a little glance. The twins had mostly been quiet today, but that had been less the case last night. (Though, like, if you had to deal with your twins dancing on your internal organs in tandem, in utero, there were worse places to suffer such a fate.) "Do you think we're ready?"

Annie felt like the answer was both a strong yes, and also a strong, 'We'll never be ready.'

[knife_bender]

"Like ready for anything? No, absolutely not," he said with a laugh. "But we're good at thinking on our feet."

[defenderofdesmoines]

"Well, hopefully they won't do anything too exciting at first, anyway," Annie offered, lifting a brow over her sunglasses. "We have a lot of time to prepare ourselves for what thinking on our feet looks like with, like, mobile children."

Privately, though, she was not sure she was really ready for the whole, like, birth part? But like -- look, she'd been shot with multiple .50-caliber rounds. She'd had several bigger, badder Supes hand her ass right to her. Childbirth? She probably didn't need to worry. Pff.

[knife_bender]

"Yeah the first couple months are just going to be eat, crap, sleep, repeat, right?" he said. "...well maybe not so much on the sleeping."

[defenderofdesmoines]

"The trick, apparently," Annie told him with a cocked finger that spoke to how she'd read a few things and thus was now clearly an expert, "is to sleep when they sleep. Or so I hear."

Probably worked better with single babies who didn't have a screaming infant sibling to wake them up.

"But that's also, like, a couple hours at a time." Whatever, Annie loved to nap! And honestly, that wasn't that different from how she'd try to catch sleep here and there when she was really working hard on The Seven last year. (You know, when she'd been the most stressed she'd ever been in her whole life, nbd.)

[knife_bender]

"Okay but what if they have opposite schedules?" Diego asked. "What if one is always asleep while the other is awake and vice versa?"

[defenderofdesmoines]

"We decide their schedules for them," Annie replied. "Like, it's not like they're taking meetings or hanging out with friends. We have to kinda...train them to sleep when we want them to, I think? And at the same time."

Annie did at least understand that this would likely be something of a process.

[knife_bender]

"Training, right. We can manage that." After all, they had both been in different forms of training their entire lives basically. "Could be fun, even."

Trying to keep a baby awake did have comedy potential.

[defenderofdesmoines]

Oh, sure, who didn't love a game of Don't Let the Baby Sleep?

"And I'll be able to have coffee again," Annie noted, with a slightly dreamy sigh. "So that'll probably help."

Though she didn't miss it so much at the moment, as evidenced by her happy little sip of pina colada, followed by what was unmistakably a spot of brainfreeze, oof.

[knife_bender]

"Put your tongue on the roof of your mouth," Diego suggested. "I googled it once while drinking a slushee, totally works."

[defenderofdesmoines]

A moment passed as Annie did as instructed, and she blinked in surprise. "Oh my God, it does totally work. That's amazing."

And now that hand of his was getting a squeeze. "My hero." As always, even if it was just passing on googled tips.

[knife_bender]

"It's what I do," he said with a grin. "Also I've been trying to up my useful tips game so I can impart them like a wise father in a couple years."

[defenderofdesmoines]

"You're gonna be able to get a lot of mileage out of, like, 'Your nose is still in the middle of your face,' and, 'That's called a squirrel,' for a couple years, I think," Annie advised, her smile turning sort of soft and fond all the same because that was a really freaking cute image.

[knife_bender]

"Extra years to build up my fatherly advice repertoire." And it would totally be advice and not, like, orders like it had been from his dad.

"Kids giving you any trouble yet today?"