March 29

Let it be. Go with the flow.

It’s finally the weekend, which means I can have at least a few hours to myself. The whole family’s here as well (yes, including Jiyong), so there’s so much to look forward to.

As usual, my day started hearing the kids’ noise early in the morning. Miracle’s shrieking is what woke me up, and Isabella’s yelling woke Jiyong up.

“What’s up with them?” he asks lazily, wrapping his arm around my waist.

I sighed heavily, if this is a petty fight, I’m totally ignoring it because I don’t have enough energy to deal with anything yet. “I don’t know” I answered him.

He buried his face on the crook of my neck after hearing Miracle again, “Can we lock ourselves in here for a day and just let the kids handle themselves?”

If only! I hissed and lightly spanked his arm, “Nope!” I his hair “Let go of me now, please” I felt his lips brushing my neck, making me smile, “As much as I want to just bum around in here with you. I can’t, because we have ducklings to feed and take care of, and those little ducklings are going to move into their new rooms today, remember?” I giggle as he buries his face behind me.

“No!!!”  he whines. I manage to pull myself up and playfully pats his , “Get up now, Dad! You have bed frames to assemble”

“No!!!”

Jiyong and mornings still don’t go well together. It’s just so cute whenever he whines even at forty something years old. “Oh! Also…” I rub his back “You have a lot of boxes to move and drawers to assemble, and you got to do a bit of drilling too and some nailing”

It’s not a big construction, actually, it’s just minor, but because he’s Jiyong, and his body and whole being is not used to this kind of man labor, it sure is going to be a major thing for him.

I’m telling you, today is a big day. Finally, after so many years, the kids will have their own rooms already, and if days ago the team is split (team no move out and team move out), they agreed to separate ways with the condition that they can still sleep over at each other’s room from time to time.

Giving out nine rooms isn’t easy. We need to give up the kids’ playroom (they don’t really go in there anymore), turning it from one big room to three. Danny, Russelle and Gabrielle will live in them. The big boys’ room that they shared all these years will be Darielle’s now. He chose it himself, saying that it’s the most convenient for he doesn’t need to walk down the long hallway just to get to his room. Miracle, our baby, is going to get the second guest room. Jiyong and I decided on this because it’s the one that has a nice view of the pool area. Our dear daughter likes staring outside the big glass window. Karielle will have the third guest room, just next door of Miracle’s. She chose it because it has quite a lot of electric sockets and according to her, she needs them (she got a lot of lamps and light things that teenagers collect these days, I believe they are called moon lamps). DK is getting the big girls’ room, because according to her, the other rooms just spook her. Also, it’s the farthest room from everybody. She wants her peace and serenity. Gabby will have Jiyong’s former office. He already has a new one on the first floor. She chose this room because of the natural light that comes in it every morning. Its big glass windows are now frosted in a shade of red. Isabella, who is the happiest with all this, will have the room nearest ours. She’s the only kid who chose to be on the first floor with us. Well, she’s on the “other wing”, but it’s going to be easy to check on her when we want to.

One more thing that we agreed as a whole family, is we’ll not get help in all of the moving. Aside from the major construction, we’ll help each other in building things like beds and drawers and cabinets. It’s really going to be a challenge, given that none of us are skilled of it, but we’ll figure it out.

“Mum!” of course, the little twins come running to me the moment they saw me. “What’s that smell?” I sniffed them both. Isabella walks to us, arms folded on her chest, “Mum, Miracle went through my perfume collection a while ago and sprayed each one on her”

I can’t help but laugh. My silly little girl smells like the perfume area in the mall, that one aisle that once you walk on it, your nose will have a wild trip.

“You sprayed EACH ONE?” I asked in disbelief and received a proud nod from her. I looked at Isabella who is obviously so pissed at her sister, “That’s a lot! She must’ve spent so much time in your vanity” I told her and she just rolled her eyes.

“Good thing she didn’t break anything, Mum” she shakes her head in frustration and I gave her a hug.

So, this is what the noise is all about.

And my morning continues. Miracle is a handful for I’ve been convincing her to take a bath already to wash off the intense smell on her, but she keeps on refusing. I’ve bribed her by saying that I will buy her a new toy once she takes a bath, but it didn’t work. Isabella and Danny (who even went as far as putting cotton balls in his nose just to not get a whiff of his sister), chased her around the house to force her to bathe but our little girl is as slimy as an eel, she wriggles out easily.

“Is it just me, or I can smell everybody in here” Jiyong woke up at last, and he’s greeted by the smell too. “I can even smell Noona, so strange”

“That’s your youngest daughter, Kwon Jiyong” Gabby told him with sass.

Miracle, knowing that once their Dad get a hold of her will most definitely put her in the shower, ran behind me who is sitting in peace beside DK. “No, Dad!” she shrieks, then ran up to the second floor, giving me a mini heart attack because of the speed she’s going.

“What’s up with her?” Jiyong squeezed himself beside me. He almost transferred me to his lap to get my seat.

I laughed first before answering, “She tried on every perfume of Isabella”

His jaw dropped in disbelief, “All of them?”

I laughed again, “Yes!” and he burst out in laughter.

The said perfume collection is no joke. Isabella has a wide variety of it, which she collected ever since she’s a little girl. From the cheapest colognes to some of the most expensive perfumes, she kept everything even when some are now empty bottles. Before packing them all up for their move out, she got a whole wall filled with bottles displayed in their room. Now, because of the move, they are safely placed on the girls’ vanity tables, making it so accessible for their little sister.

“I can’t last this” Karielle, who is beside her little sister during breakfast stood up, grabbed her plate and transferred to the island counter. “She’s ruining my food”

Jiyong and I still can’t get over it. We are laughing again. “This is intense” my husband who is having an allergic reaction to all the scents is having so much fun (he’s been sneezing a lot), “Yaaa baby girl, you really have to take a bath right after breakfast. Your Unnies and Oppas are not happy with your smell anymore. Dad’s nose is clogged”

This is insane!

“Mum’s tastebuds are playing too. I don’t know about you guys, but my pancake tastes as she smells” I told them and they break into hysteric laughter.

Our breakfast is filled with laughter because of our youngest and she’s loving all the attention. These kinds of moments are what I’m always looking forward to.

In the end, Miracle wasn’t able to run away from Jiyong and her brothers anymore. They planned an entrapment operation on her and was caught right away. She kept fighting till the last minute.

“She’s crying buckets in the shower” I informed Jiyong upon entering our room.

He laughed, “That kid really loves to be in trouble. Sometimes I think, she’s craving for it”

I climbed up the bed next to him, “Like father, like daughter”

He playfully pinned me down and started tickling me, “Yeah?”

“YAH!” To our shock, Gabby and DK comes barging in, ruining our moment. “Seriously? You’re having a tickling yucky time here while your children have started their move already” Gabby is sounding more like me as she age and I’m starting to get freaked by it. I swear, if my daughters end up all sounding like me (given that Isabella already sounds like me), I’ll go insane.

“Mood killers!” Jiyong spitted out, making me laugh as he pulls me up to stand. “Why didn’t our door lock? It still locks by itself, right?” he walks to it and tested it. “The sensor’s broken?” he looked at me in confusion and I just shrugged.

DK sighed impatiently, “We know what you’re doing Kwon Jiyong” she gets a hold of her Dad “This is a delaying tactic, and if you think it will work, I hate to break it to you, but it won’t” and he was dragged out of our room.

Gabby grabbed me by the arm too, “Same goes to you, Clara Kwon” she dragged me out as well, “You still have interior designing to do” her pixie voice is giving me chills down my spine.

Our stress started. Think of this, nine kids are moving all at the same time. As much as we want to make it a kid per room, per day, they won’t agree, so we don’t have a choice but to make THE BIG MOVE. And! We’ll try to finish everything up in two freakin’ days, for that’s the only time their Dad and I have.

“I need tools here!” Jiyong shouted from Karielle’s room. He’s been building bed frames and desks for hours now and he still have a drilling job.

“Do you really need this?” I, on the other hand, is hopping from one room to another, helping each kid in their interiors. I’m at Isabella’s right now and we’ve been figuring out what and what not to put in her room for a good thirty minutes already.

“I still want some of my childhood things in here somehow” she keeps on staring at the things on the floor.

“Alright” I sit on the step stool and begin pulling out more things from a big box. In here are random stuff she kept from when she was a little girl, and seeing them one by one after a long time, is making me a bit emotional. “Gosh!” I pulled out a piece of baby clothes, pinned on it are a pair of baby booties. “Your Dad gave this to you as a gift when we were still hiding in New York”

Yes, Isabella knows that I ran away from Jiyong many moons ago. I decided to share it with her one day during a down time in the office.

She got it from me and looked at it with a warm smile on her face. “Is this one of those gifts he randomly bought to give to Aunt Daryl’s “niece” just because he finds me cute?”

I chuckled, “Yes”

During that time, Jiyong knows nothing about Isabella. Only Railey and Daryl knows about her, and they purposely showed him a picture of our baby without telling him who she really is. For some magical reason, he connected with the baby, that he bought her things for Daryl to give her once she