The Harsh life

Epilogue

Amara- set 7 years after the 'now' chapters
One thing about babies is that they're loud. Really loud.

It's Luca's 6th birthday today and as much as I had to wake up early with Gio to decorate, I didn't anticipate waking up at 4am to feed our newest addition to the family, Gabriella.

So currently we have our oldest, Luca who is also Gio's heir to the Italian mafia.

Then we have Penelope who is 4 and then Elijah who is 3 and Gabbie who is 5 months.

We're having one more, when Gabbie is about 9 months we're going to adopt.

We had our first three through surrogacy, then I actually carried Gabbie to term which we were never planning on doing. We weren't even trying to get pregnant, it just happened and it's so much easier not to stress about being pregnant when you already have 3 kids.

"I'll get her." Gio tells me, getting up.

"What time is it?" I yawn, rolling over to check my phone.

4:04am

I roll back over to attempt to get more sleep but I already know what Gabbie is after.

I get up after Gio and head into Gabbie's room. Gio is holding her and rocking her but she's reaching out for me.

Since Gabbie was the only child I gave birth to, it was my only time to try breast feeding and so I did.

"Bring her back to bed." Gio tells me as I take Gabbie from him. I lie her down in one arm and take my boob out to feed her with the other.

"What's the point?" I ask Gio, there isn't any. He's waking up in an hour to go to the gym and then once he's finished we've got to start preparing for Luca's birthday.

"If we do Luca's prep now then you might be able to get in like an hour or so after." He says.

I lean into him, I'm really tired.

"Do you think Luca will enjoy his birthday?" I ask Gio like he has all the answers.

"He will, I know it." Gio reassures me.

So Luca is into fast cars, we don't know which parent he got it from, probably both.

I take Gio's hand and head downstairs to the kitchen whilst still carrying a feeding Gabbie.

When we get downstairs I hand her to Gio to burp her whilst I gather Luca's presents.

Thankfully, they're all already wrapped.

I place them neatly in the living room before grabbing the decorations.

A bunch of the decorations are for outside because Luca is a summer baby so his party will be outside.

I take them to the back door as Gio puts Gabbie back to bed.

Once he comes back down, he has one of his jumpers for me. I put it on and slip on some shoes left by the back door.

We head outside to set up a 'podium' like in formula one races whilst Gio sets up the car themed bouncy castle and then the inflatable slide.

We'll bring out the balloons and party hats later but for now that's it.

I head back into the living room where I start decorating with balloons.

I blow up a lot of happy birthday and car balloons, which was awful.

I blew them up and Gio tied them up.

Gio baked Luca's birthday cake yesterday and decorated it last night when he got home, he put a whole lot of effort into it.