Hii I sent the ask for more kbd could you please write them all going on there first family holiday lovely 🤍🫶🏻
love u <3 kbd au —the harrington’s vacation !! mom!reader, 1.5k
This is a good idea, you repeat to each other for weeks. Paying for the flights, making lists, getting Dove her baby passport, packing the suitcases days in advance.
Most of the time you agree with one another. The day you buy Avery and Beth little swimsuits Steve can’t stop smiling, and the nights leading up to it are like Christmas for Avery when she remembers (and Beth when Avery tells her).
But the night before you’re sick to your stomach, and then Steve can’t breathe right at the airport, but you get on your plane, and somehow the girls are good. Dove cries when you land because of the pressure change, but she’s soothed by the time you’re past the gate and into the sunshine.
“Steve,” you say, Dove strapped to your chest, world's heaviest baby bag on your shoulder, “sweetheart, we’re here.”
He holds Beth’s hand, who in turn holds Avery’s hand, trying to pull the world’s biggest suitcase behind you without running over his own foot. “I told you it would be easy.”
Your children look beautiful. Avery wears a sun visor cap and a blue dress with white socks and blue converse, and Bethie wears dungarees and a short sleeve top, little black converse to match her sister but unable to handle the sensory nightmare of a hat. They look ready for the sun, and excited to be somewhere new.
Dove sleeps on your chest. “Easy isn’t the word I’d use,” you mumble, kissing her forehead. “Okay, what’s the next thing? Are we getting the shuttle?”
Steve checks his watch quickly. “It’s another ten minutes,” he says. “Is that okay?” He points at your harness. “Digging into your side?”
“It’s fine.” You bend with your arm behind Dove’s back, turning your smile on your sweethearts where they mill around their dad’s legs. “How do you guys feel now? So happy? I’m so happy we’re not on the plane, we can stretch our tired feet!”
“Yeah, mom!” Avery says.
“Can we have soda?” Bethie asks.
And okay, you promised them treats if they behaved on the plane, but you’re on vacation. It’s allowed.
“Yeah, baby, let’s go find you a coca cola before we get on the big bus!”
You don’t want to pay seventy cents for one can of coke, let alone three dollars for three, but everything will be free when you get to the resort, so what does it matter? Plus, Bethie really, really enjoys it. She beams at the fizzing and begs you to try it like she’s worried you’re missing out.
(It matters. You and Steve are raising three kids on one salary. All inclusive vacations are expensive. They all needed new clothes including you and Steve, clothes and haircuts and mini shampoos. But it genuinely won’t matter if they have a good time, and make good memories.)
“Right,” you say near the shuttle, “Avery, you hold mommy’s hand when we’re outside. Beth, you’ll hold daddy’s. No running, and try to be polite. Deal?”
Avery twines her fingers through yours, little tiny fingers to your fully grown ones. When she looks up at you, she’s practically a hundred percent Steve, his smile, his lovely demeanour, and his attitude too. “Duh, mom. That’s an easy deal.”
Steve ends up carrying Beth onto the shuttle, and off of it again at the resort. She’s in his arms from the lobby to the elevators and into your suite, but she wants promptly to be put down when Steve shows your two girls their room.
“Mom, there’s bears!” She gasps. “It’s Goldilocks!”
A huge storybook mural covers their walls and parts of their ceilings, their single beds outfitted with gossamer curtains on four posters and princess pink sheets. “There’s a castle!” Avery shouts.
“You okay?” Steve asks again.
You’re a little tired from Dove's restlessness the night before, but you’re happy you’re here. You nod without thinking twice about it.
“Okay.” He pulls you toward him. Careful, he unsnaps the buckles of Dove’s harness, loosening the cords that keep her tight to your body before pulling her out. She grizzles at being moved, and he pats her back deftly to settle her before it becomes a big cry. Then he’s cradling her one handed, loosening the straps of the carrier behind your back and taking it off of you with a kindness that softens you for the thousandth time. “There, that’s better. You look like you can breathe again.”
Steve puts his hand flat on your chest and rubs a line with his thumb. “That’s a nice smile,” he adds.
Okay, you think. Goner, total goner, you cover his hand with yours. From the girls’ bedroom you can hear the squeal of bed springs being jumped on and the zipper on someone’s mini backpack. “Can we have fruit snacks?” Avery shouts.
Steve’s hand moves to your neck, your face. He rubs your jawline with the tip of his thumb. “Do they have fruit snacks at the buffet?”
“They promised they’d have everything at the buffet.”
You sound exuberant. You are. It’s nice to be touched sweetly, and to be somewhere cool. This is the life you’d dreamed of making with him, and at the same time, you never could’ve summoned this image of him.
You can’t wait for him to take his shirt off by the pool. You’re gonna take a whole disposable’s worth of photos.
“You have nice arms,” you say, feigning absentmindedness.
“Thank you.” He’s looking at you funny. It reminds you of when you first started dating, he’d get these weird moments of smiling and not telling you what it is that’s so funny, which would always inspire insecurity, but has since been explained to be awe rather than disdain. He pulls Dove closer to his neck and more toward his side, offering his empty arm to you for a hug. “You have nice everything,” he says, kissing you quickly on the temple.
“We’re actually on vacation.”
It always seemed too daunting. The more kids you had, the scarier it seemed. But one day Avery must’ve seen a commercial on TV or heard it from one of the little girls at the park, and she’d strolled up to you to ask you about vacations and the beach and aeroplanes. You’d taken her and Beth to Lake Michigan a bunch of times, but nothing feels quite like this.
“Let’s hope it really feels like one,” Steve says.
“Especially for you,” you say.
Stay at home dad-ing is exhausting. You can’t imagine he wants to be the one in charge here too. You’re determined to pull your weight, even if he isn’t keen to let you, plans for secret lie-ins and well-researched playtime clubs at the resorts recreation centres. You’re not delusional, you know you can’t do this without him. Or perhaps you could, but you’d enjoy yourself a lot less. Either way, you’re wanting to have fun too, so he can take Dove from you and wrap his arm around you like he’s the one in charge for now. It feels nice to be doted on, better when he starts his fretting.
“Do you want to get changed before we take them down for dinner?” He backs away enough to see your face but not too much as to steal the warmth of his chest where it kisses your arm. “Showers? You need something to drink. Where’s the mini fridge?”
“Remember what we talked about?” you broach carefully. You have no intentions of patronising him, but it’s unfortunate he’s forgotten already. “Relax, honey. That’s what we said we were gonna do this week. You don’t have to make sure everyone is one hundred percent all the time. If I need something, I’ll tell you.”
“What sort of marriage do you think this is?” he asks, smiling playfully, his warm eyes betraying how happy he is even through his worry and facade.
“One where you kiss me like you miss me all the time,” you say.
“Oh, is that so?” He ducks down and aligns your lips, the corded muscle of his arm lean where it presses to your softer back. “What do you do?”
“Kiss back.”
He laughs into your lips, a smile pressed firmly to a smile.
“Daddy, can you help me ‘i my shoes?” Bethie asks.
Steve breathes in deep as you part, hugging you tight to his side. “Where are you gonna go without shoes?” he asks her, genuinely curious.
“To bed.”
“You want a nap?”
Bethie nods tiredly. “Planes are hard.”
“Yeah, bub, planes are tough. You don’t wanna go have dinner first?”
She shakes her head tiredly. It’s the first hurdle of your vacation, but it’s not a terribly hard one to navigate.
“There’s gotta be some sort of snack in the fridge, right?” he asks.
Family nap time commences just as soon as Avery’s eaten her fill of mini sandwiches. You sleep like a baby under Steve’s arm, at least until the real baby rouses for another bottle.
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