Life was busy in the Straight household. Even though she was on maternity leave again for her second pregnancy, Sophie was determined not to let motherhood prevent her from pursuing her dream career as a star athlete.
She was a frequent visitor at the Harris' gym and when she couldn't go out to the gym, she would spend her evenings with Elsa watching as she kept fit on her home exercise bike.
She had a tendency to overdo it given her condition. Her husband was beginning to be concerned about her health and the safety of the baby.
After collapsing as she got off the exercise bike and falling asleep in the middle of dinner, Christopher made her promise to take it easy for the rest of her pregnancy. She wasn't thrilled about the idea, but for her own good and for the well-being of the baby she agreed. She spent her freetime over the next few weeks watching sports on TV, longing for the day when she could be a part of the action again.
Christopher kept up with the majority of the housework. Since he was a stay-at-home dad while Sophie, he took on those responsibilities naturally. Now that Sophie was home too, he kept up the responsibilities so she could rest and focus on her pregnancy. One to take his role seriously, he was appalled to find a roach infestation in the backyard from a pile of rotting garbage that didn't make it into the garbage can. Sophie offered to come outside and help him get rid of them, but he immediately sent her back inside and called an exterminator. The last thing she needed in her condition was a case of the flu.
Life with a toddler and a little one on the way, didn't leave much time for friends, but somehow friends seemed to invite themselves over anyway. Rich made himself at home, borrowing the Straight's computer to look up information about movie showings, hoping to take his wife out on a date before their baby arrived. (And broke the computer in the process...)
It was nice to spend sometime with another guy and bond over video games.
Christopher felt like an old pro when it came to fatherhood and was eager to share advice with Rich who was soon to be a first time dad.
Life wasn't as carefree as it was when they were younger, but Rich could still do the old college cheer as well as he ever could.
Sophie was in a rotten mood. She'd had sharp pains in her back all day and she couldn't get comfortable. She wasn't thrilled to see Rich in her house at that moment. After a harsh greeting, she started to feel bad for snapping at him and instead congratulated him on his wife's pregnancy.
After awhile, Tosha stopped by, looking for her husband. Unlike Sophie, she seemed in good spirits and acted like pregnancy agreed with her. Christopher could see Sophie was not in a good mood, so he tried to make her feel better with a backrub. Apparently he rubbed her the wrong way. Not feeling well, she didn't even want to be touched.
Wondering if some light exercise would help, Sophie headed up to their home office/gym and hopped on the exercise bike. No sooner than she had gotten on, she felt a sharp pain in her abdomen and called out in pain.
First on the scene, Tosha was shocked to see that Sophie's water had broken and she was in labor!
That night the Straights welcomed their second daughter into the world. Elsa had been the spitting image of her father, but Sydni favored her mother.
As soon as she was able, Sophie was back on her exercise bike. If she wanted to keep up with her career, she knew she had to get back in shape as soon as possible.
She wondered why she had to be the one to put her body through the struggles of pregnancy. Why did nature leave that up to the woman? Maybe in most families that worked out for the best, but not in theirs when Sophie was the breadwinner and Christopher was better with the children. She wanted a large family as much as he Christopher did, but she also wanted her career as an athlete just as much. She wondered if it was too much to try to have it all or would she have to chose between her two dreams.
Christopher jumped in as primary caregiver of both girls while Sophie jumped into training for her career.
They were both constantly exhausted.
And they still had friends dropping in now and then uninvited.
One would hope their visits would be to see the new baby or to offer a helping hand, but that didn't seem to be the case.
Neither Sophie or Christopher seemed to mind unexpected guests, but they were too busy to socialize. As long as they entertained themselves it wasn't a problem.
However, their friends needed to realize their house wasn't the party place that it used to be. They would have to get used to the smell of dirty diapers now and again if they were going to be frequent visitors.
The best moments, these days were the rare peaceful ones like these when both of the girls and mom and dad were able to catch some sleep.
ROS - Sophie Straight becomes addicted to . . . exercise. (I wasn't sure how I was going to impliment this one. Maybe I should have been specific like exercise X hours for X days. It made a lot of sense for Sophie - could not have been a better match. In fact she was hopping on that bike herself as much as I directed her to.)
