Santa baby

December 2041 - Benjamin Long is 50, Elizabeth Long is 44, Patrick Seiff is 28, Clara Seiff is 23, Christopher and Margaret are 14, Charlotte is 4 (Will Gray is 15).

Next year the child care arrangements will be a lot easier; Charlotte will be in kindergarten during the day, and Christopher and Margaret will watch her after school. But for now Benjamin and Elizabeth do their best to arrange their schedules so that one of them can take care of her.

Christopher likes taking care of his little sister.

He spends a lot of time after school playing with her.

Margaret prefers hanging out with boys to playing with her little sister. She's become friends with Will Gray, the son of a prominent doctor in Bridgeport.

Since her parents work such long hours at the hospital, they have plenty of privacy.

For the most part, Christopher and Margaret do a good job of taking care of themselves and their little sister. Sometimes there are disasters, like when Margaret tried to make macaroni and cheese and set off the smoke alarm. But she and Christopher just took Charlotte outside to wait for the fire department, and everything ended up okay.

*****

Christopher and Margaret would prefer to open presents around noon, but Charlotte wakes up before dawn on Christmas morning. They compromise by agreeing that everyone will be downstairs at 6 AM.

"Oh good, we can start opening presents," Elizabeth says. "Christopher's finally up!"

Charlotte loves her new activity table.

Christopher spends most of the morning playing video games on his new handheld game player.

Margaret gets more clay and paints and a new pottery book about making amphoras.

After lunch, Christopher and Margaret head outside to play in the snow.

"Can you guys call a truce?" Elizabeth asks. "Charlotte would like to play with you two."

So Christopher and Margaret stop throwing snowballs, and the three of them build a snowman in the front yard. Charlotte is too little to help with the top layers, but she has fun watching.

In the afternoon Clara and Patrick come over.

"We have big news," Clara says. "We just found out that I'm pregnant! I'm due in August."

*****

I just downloaded Gumod's Radiance Light System, and it is amazing! I set Christmas morning at 6 AM just to show off the beautiful lighting at dawn. So pretty!