Morning, May 15
Cuddy really didn't sleep after House left, not even after she turned off the light and stretched out in the bed. She dozed a little but always roused after a few minutes to look at the bassinet. Emma slept, at least, and watching her daughter sleeping so innocently was completely engrossing for Cuddy
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Eventually he got up. The clock read 7.52am, he was hungry, stiff and in need of a strong cup of coffee. Despite having a shower the night before, he got undressed and had another one simply to loosen his muscles and to make him feel a bit more refreshed. He dressed in jeans, a t-shirt and a grey hoodie, took his medication, grabbed his car keys and something else from his apartment and slipped out the front door.
On his way to the hospital, he stopped by the main street to get a few things. First, he stepped into Starbucks to grab that strong coffee he needed to wake up. Once he'd had a few sips and felt the caffeine hit his system, he was back out on the street and he headed into a cafe that offered all kinds of foods, including breakfast and takeout. For himself, he ordered a roll that was crammed with egg, bacon and fried mushrooms with ketchup. And for Cuddy, he ordered muesli and low fat yoghurt mixed together and a container of mixed fresh fruit. He grabbed her a drink, too - a bottle of freshly squeezed orange juice, and he also picked up some snacks for her to eat throughout the day if she wanted. Some fruit - bananas, apples - and a couple of high fibre muffins.
Once everything was packed in a paper bag for him to take away, he stepped back outside and went to his car. He drove to the hospital, parked up in his spot and grabbed everything, and headed inside. He arrived on the maternity ward and as he walked towards Cuddy's room, he could hear crying that got louder the nearer to the room he approached. He realised that the crying was Emma and he poked his head through the door just as he heard Cuddy say to the baby that she knew how to make noise.
"She doesn't get that from me," he replied, knowing full well how loud he could be. Not that the baby's crying was any indicator of that. A loud, responsive baby was a healthy one. He was still in some kind of state of denial or disbelief or daze that he was a father. He had a feeling he wouldn't be shaking that from him any time soon. He was in a reasonably good mood, though. Disbelief, denial or daze though it may be, he was also on some kind of weird cloud nine. He stepped into the room, closed the door behind him and limped over to the bed.
"Good morning," he greeted both Cuddy and Emma. "How are my two favourite girls?" He held up the paper bag, adding to Cuddy, "Breakfast for two."
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She watched House walk over, smiling when he asked about his two favorite girls. She honestly hadn't known what to expect when he returned to the scene of the crime, as it were. He'd been very supportive all through her labor and he'd been affectionate with Emma but he'd also been a bit dazed by the whole experience. She wasn't sure how he'd be feeling about fatherhood once he had a chance to clear his mind. It appeared either his mind was still clouded or he was warming up to being a daddy.
"Thanks." Her smile brightened even further when he held up breakfast. She didn't know what he'd brought but she was sure it would be fine. He knew her well enough to know the kind of meals she liked. And frankly, she was hungry now and she'd eat just about anything.
"I'm a little busy right now but I'll eat as soon as the boss here is finished." She nodded at him to come closer until she could reach up with her free hand and pull him in for a quick kiss. Emma's fist thumped against Cuddy's breast as if reminding her of what her priority was supposed to be. Cuddy shook her head but settled back to let Emma to feed.
"Did you get some sleep?" she asked House. He didn't look fresh as a daisy but he looked better than he had. He certainly looked better than she did, she was sure. She hadn't showered yet. Her hair was a tousled mess. Her face was puffy and pale. And despite all that, she was smiling.
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"Not a wink," he replied as he put the paper bag on the dinner trolley. He opened it. "Well, maybe a couple of winks. Definitely not forty of them." He glanced over at Cuddy, at her tired and pale face, as he pulled a couple of the bananas out. "You look about ready to hit the town and party for the night."
He quickly unpacked the rest of the bag, gesturing for Cuddy to see the things he'd bought her. He laid them out so she could take whatever she wanted once she was done feeding and then he pulled the chair by her bed closer and sat with a wide spread and a sigh.
He started to unwrap his breakfast. "Oh, I almost forgot," he said. Reaching into his back pocket, he produced the soft, squeaky Pooh bear toy he'd bought a while ago and squeezed it a couple of times at Cuddy. It was for Emma of course, something for Cuddy to play with Emma with.
"Thought I'd bring this along and annoy the crap out of you with it." He squeezed it a couple more times to punctuate his point.
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"Hand me a banana," she told him. She could eat that one-handed while Emma continued to nurse. She decided she didn't want to have to wait for Emma to finish. Seeing the food made her stomach growl. No surprise there--she hadn't eaten since lunch the previous day. "And no," she added quickly before he could twist her words. "That's not a euphemism."
She ate at the banana while House settled down to eat his own breakfast. Her eyebrows rose when he pulled out a toy and squeaked it at her. Even Emma reacted, pausing in her nursing as the new sound caught her interest. Not for long, though. She went right back to nursing as Cuddy shook her head at House.
"As if you needed any assistance in annoying me," she said. It was a cute toy. She'd always had a fondness for Winnie and his pals, ever since she was old enough for her mother to read the stories about the 100 acre wood to her. That was something she'd have to do with Emma--find her favorite childhood books and read them to her. There were so many things she wanted to share with her daughter, she wasn't sure how she'd have time for all of them.
She leaned over to set the banana peel on the bedside table and Emma fussed at the disruption. "Shhh, shhh," Cuddy said quietly. "It's time for you to switch sides anyway." She raised the baby into a sitting position, one hand supporting her wobbly head as she gently burped her. Breast-fed babies didn't tend to swallow as much air as with a bottle, but they weren't burp free by any means. Of course, Emma just fussed because she didn't understand why her breakfast had been interrupted.
"All right, all right," Cuddy said, turning the baby to lie the other way. Cuddy struggled with her for a moment to keep her from latching on incorrectly but after a few seconds the tap was flowing and Emma was sucking away. "She definitely gets her appetite from you," Cuddy teased.
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Part of the reason none of this yet felt real was because, well, as much as the hospital was an every day thing for him, it wasn't a natural surrounding to have a baby in. Reality would truly hit once Cuddy was out of hospital and home. And even then, House was having a hard time picturing what life with a baby was going to be like, even with the baby now right in front of him. Apart from the cuddle or two he'd had with her, he wasn't really sure what to do as a father. Did he just stand by and let Cuddy do most of the work? Did he wait for Cuddy to tell him to do things for the baby?
With a quiet huff, he tried to lay those thoughts aside while taking another bite of his breakfast. At the same time, Cuddy was trying to get the baby to latch onto her other breast while Emma made impatient whining noises.
"I don't make noises like that when I want to be fed," he argued. He then rolled his eyes. "Well, in that case, she gets her fussiness from you." He finished chewing and swallowed his mouthful. He reached over for his coffee, took a few sips and put the cup back down.
"So, what was the night like after I left?"
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"Not bad. She slept quite a bit at least," she said. Her own lack of sleep couldn't be blamed on Emma. Well, it could but not on Emma being awake. She hoped the baby would continue to sleep well at night but she knew she couldn't judge by last night. Birth was an arduous process for the baby as well as the mom and Emma's sleepiness could well have been because of the simple need to recover. Cuddy wouldn't really know what their schedule was going to be like until a couple days had passed and they were at home. Then she'd find out what the 'normal' routine would be.
"I had to get up and nurse her, of course, but otherwise, it was pretty quiet." And speaking of feeding, Emma's nursing had faded off to just the occasional little suck. Cuddy decided that meant she wasn't hungry anymore so she burped her and then laid her on the bed in front of her. She reached for the yogurt House had brought and ate while Emma wiggled and stretched, her limbs occasionally flailing out because she didn't have much control over them just yet.
After a few moments of gobbling down her breakfast, Cuddy leaned over and grabbed Winnie the Pooh. She squeaked it, then held it to the other side and squeaked it again in a very unofficial hearing test. Emma reacted, her eyes moving in a definite albeit somewhat uncoordinated attempt to find the source of the noise. Cuddy brought the toy around and brushed it lightly against Emma's cheek. Emma jerked, one arm thumping against the mattress, but she turned her head toward it.
Smiling, Cuddy continued to play with Emma, glancing over at House every once in a while. She still worried about how he was reacting to all of this, understandably so since he'd been so resistant...when he wasn't being terrified. She really wanted the two of them to get off to a good start. If he bonded with Emma quickly, it would make it easier to deal with everything else.
Cuddy glanced down at a soft but unmistakeable sound issuing from her daughter's diaper. "Oh, goody," she said, giving House a look. "A dirty diaper for Daddy to change."
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He was only teasing but it was possible he could be right, too. Perhaps when the baby was taken home, her true colours would come out, so to speak. Maybe she'd be a good sleeper and easy to get into routine... not that House really had any idea how to 'put' kids into a routine. Or maybe she'd scream the place down from dawn 'til dusk.
While Cuddy set the baby down to eat her food, he worked his way through the rest of his roll and sipping his coffee in between. He was two bites away from finishing his breakfast when Emma made an announcement that something had dislodged.
"Oh, goody!" he echoed Cuddy with mock excitement. "Just what I've been looking forward to all morning!" He took another bite of his roll but as he chewed, he heard another noise coming from Emma's diaper, followed by a grizzle from her. It took only seconds for her grizzling to escalate into something louder.
He dropped the remainder of the roll into the bag it had come to and scrunched it up. Tossing it onto the dinner trolley, he stood and stepped over to the bed. Emma was getting more and more worked up by the second, her hands clutched into fists and her face twisted up unhappily. He looked around, wondering where on earth he could change her diaper. More than that, how on earth to change her diaper.
Leaning down, he awkwardly scooped her up in his hands and he looked more than a little lost while he limped away with her flailing and crying. He carried her over to the changing table and lay her on it. It was ridiculous he felt intimidated by a tiny baby but in all honesty, he didn't know how to do this. After a few aborted attempts at wondering where to start, he pried the tabs off her diaper.
"That looks tasty." he said dryly at the mound of dark green meconium awaiting him. Of course, he realised now that he hadn't gotten anything set up to clean her with. Everything was over by Cuddy's bedside and he was all the way over here with a screaming baby.
"This was well planned out," he added aloud to himself, a little frazzled by how out of his depths he felt. Her increasingly unhappy cries weren't doing anything to ease the situation, either. He put a hand on her belly to hold her stable and safely on the changing table and stretched his other arm out to reach for a fresh diaper... which was too far out of his reach. So were the wipes. So was everything he needed.
He threw Cuddy a somewhat uncomfortable, helpless look. "A little help?"
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She honestly thought it would be good for him to try it himself, and to find out getting it wrong wasn't the end of the world. Sometimes he got so uptight about failing at any or all aspects of fatherhood she worried he'd talk himself out of even trying. He needed to see that minor mistakes were common and they weren't going to hurt anything, least of all Emma.
Smiling, she set the juice aside and got the wipes and a diaper. "Don't worry," she told him. "At home, all the diapering supplies are on the shelf of the changing table. You won't have to worry about gathering things together." She pulled out a wet wipe and handed it to him, then leaned over and caught Emma's arm as it jerked around.
"Shh, honey. Daddy will have you feeling better in just a moment." Emma wasn't overly impressed by Cuddy's promise. She kept fussing but she did dial it down a notch, her attention at least partly distracted by Cuddy talking to her. She kept kicking her legs, though, which only made House's job more difficult.
Cuddy took the soiled diaper and used wipe and disposed of them. She went into the bathroom to wash her hands, leaving House to deal with the new diaper on his own. "Just remember to fold it down in the front so it won't rub against her umbilical cord," she reminded him as she returned to the changing table.
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It took a fair bit of wiping to get it off, too. For a start, House just had no idea how one wiped a baby's butt. The only thing he did know was to wipe from front to back, not back to front. Otherwise, he wiped and wiped... and wiped, and he didn't seem to be getting anywhere. The baby's kicking only made it more difficult.
"This stuff is like..." He trailed off to wipe some more poo from her bottom, though it was smearing rather than actually coming off. Meconium was very thick in sustance. It had a tar-like consistency. "You could lay bricks with this stuff."
At last, he seemed to have most of it off. As he dumped the diaper and the wipes in Cuddy's hands, he said, "I feel like the missing scene from that movie, Three Men And A Baby." He looked back down to Emma while Cuddy went to the bathroom. Emma was a lot happier now. Kicking her legs in an uncoordinated fashion, jerking her arms about, eyes wide open.
"You may have won this round but don't think I know how to step up my game." The baby replied with another jerky kick, her head shaking as her ended up on her mouth, automatically startling her rooting reflex. Of course, he wasn't done yet. He still had phase two of Operation: Diapering to get through, and that was the actual diapering part.
He picked the diaper up and opened it just as Cuddy reemerged and told him to avoid the umbilical cord. "I know that," he said. He went to slip the diaper under the baby but found it a lot harder than it looked. A couple of times, he tried to wedge it under her but she was kicking too much and he was just too uncertain of what he was doing.
Eventually, he managed to get the diaper under her bottom by gingerly grasping one of her ankles and lifting her on a weird angle. He glanced over at Cuddy, positive she was laughing at him by now. Returning to Emma, he folded the crotch over, untaped the tabs and fastened them... around the back instead of the front, not realising that the diaper was on backwards. The diaper was loose, crooked and badly put on, but it was on all the same.
"Operation: Diapering complete." He leaned over to look at Emma, frowning challengingly (in a playful way) at her. She stared up at him with a fascinated frown, her lips pursed in a tiny 'o'. "I won that round. You may try to trick me by looking cute but just so you know, you can't outsmart Dad."
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She had to press her hand over her mouth, though, when he held the baby up by one foot. It looked like he was picking up a mutant frog or something, and Cuddy couldn't suppress a smile. He wasn't hurting Emma; she was seemed happy now that he'd cleaned her. He simply wasn't doing things as easily or efficiently as he could be. Again, she refrained from correcting him, though. Her instinct was to step in and fix his errors but she didn't want him to feel like she was criticizing him.
She stared at the final result, a diaper that gapped and drooped and would leak all over the next time Emma urinated. She watched him declare his victory while she silently debated leaving it alone and taking the consequences. Her fingers were twitching with the need to get that diaper fixed securely, though, so after allowing him a moment to savor his victory, she reached for the diaper.
"Not bad for a first time," she said, a hint of amusement in her tone. "There's just one small problem which could lead to a leakage issue." She pulled the tabs loose and slid the diaper out, flipping it over. She grasped both Emma's ankles with one hand and lifted her butt, sliding the diaper under her, right side up this time. She'd done plenty of diapering over the years--babysitting as a teenager, caring for her nieces--so that was one aspect of baby care she was very comfortable with.
"The side with the tabs is always the back," she explained, fastening the diaper securely below the stump of her umbilical cord. "Don't worry if you forget. Emma certainly isn't going to care which way her diaper is on. In fact, she'd probably prefer no diaper at all. Diapers are for our benefit, not hers."
Emma was content now, belly full and bottom clean. Cuddy grasped one of her flailing feet and leaned to kiss her little toes. Then she looked up at House again. "And now that she's fed and changed, you can play with her for a few minutes while I take a shower, right?" She ran a hand through the mess of her hair and gave him a pleading look. "Seriously, I need a shower."
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"Fine, I get it. You're better at this than I am," he said with a dramatic roll of his eyes. He perked up then. "All the more reason to leave diaper duty up to you." Like he'd get away with that and he knew he wouldn't. He watched Cuddy kiss Emma's foot, meeting her eyes when she said about having a shower.
He shrugged again and waved to the shower. "The kid's been de-stinked. Only fair you get your turn." Once Cuddy had left for the bathroom again, he turned back down to Emma. She was contentedly looking in the direction of the window, her fingers spread wide while she jerked her arms about. He carefully scooped her up. "Guess it's just you and me for a little while he told her."
Carrying her over to the seat by Cuddy's bed, he sat down and got Emma adjusted until he had her sitting on his thigh. He supported the back of her head with one hand and had a firm grip around her back and under one arm with the other. He studied her for a while. She pulled all sorts of faces that newborns pulled, from squinting her eyes to opening her mouth wide and moving her tongue in a sucking manner. Her arms moved about without any direction, her little fingers closing into fists every now and again.
He was a dad, he thought to himself for the hundredth time. Yet, hundredth time though it seemed, it still didn't seem any more real or credulous. This was his daughter. His flesh and blood. It was too crazy to fathom. This tiny, vulnerable, little creature was his daughter. Amazing how something so small and innocent could be so threatening and scary.
She made a noise, a kind of gurgling sound. House pulled his face into a look of intrigue. "Really?" he replied. "I didn't know that." She was definitely alert. He had her close enough to him on his thigh that she would be able to see his face this close. Her eyes remained on him when he spoke.
Emma made another noise, a quiet grunt. "Well, duh," House replied. "Everybody knows that. Even me." Her fingers fanned out as she moved her arms outwards again and House rolled his eyes. "You caught a fish that big? Tell another lie while you're at it."
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Satisfied he wasn't too intimidated by dealing with Emma, Cuddy leaned in and gave him a kiss on the cheek. She gathered her toiletry bag and clean panties and nightgown--her own--and headed into the bathroom. She got the water running in the shower and yanked the hospital gown off. She made the mistake, then, of looking down at herself. Her abdomen...sagged. All that stretched out skin and muscle hung there like a deflated hot air balloon. She knew it was normal to look like that just after giving birth but it was still freaky to see herself looking that way.
She resolutely raised her eyes. She wasn't going to look at it, she wasn't going to think about it. A lot of the sagginess would take care of itself as the overtaxed tissues recovered. And the rest, well, she'd be doing some exercises when she got home. But that was for later. Right then, it was all about getting clean and then spending some more time with Emma and House.
The hot shower did wonders to perk her up. It didn't erase the fatigue by any means but it eased some of the muscle aches. And just feeling clean again was a psychological boost. By the time she'd washed her hair and given herself a brisk scrub, she was feeling pretty good. She toweled off and dressed, her skin a pleasant pink from the heat of the water. She combed out her wet hair but didn't bother doing anything with it. Nor did she bother with make-up. She was as vain as the next woman but this was one day she figured she had a free pass to not look her best.
She walked out of the bathroom feeling far more comfortable than when she'd gone in. A smile softened her face as she saw House talking to Emma. His ability to be a little silly was going to go a long way to helping him bond with the baby. Some men would feel strange or self-conscious talking to a baby. Maybe House felt that way, too, but he was doing it and that's what counted.
She walked over and leaned over to drop a kiss on his head, then crouched down beside the chair. "Hey, Sweetie," she murmured, grasping Emma's hand and letting her curl her fingers around Cuddy's. Emma's eyes moved, trying to locate the source of Cuddy's voice as she gave a jerky squeeze with her hand. "Daddy telling you stories? Hmm? Or are you telling him how it's going to be now? You telling him who's boss?"
Cuddy smiled up at House, knowing no matter how much he might protest the point, Emma was going to be something of the boss now. Her needs would have to take priority. That didn't mean Cuddy could ignore House's needs, especially with him just out of the hospital. She shouldn't ignore her own needs either but the fact was, Emma was going to be center of attention for the time being.
Just then, a brisk rap on the door led to Wilson poking his head in and glancing around warily. "Is it safe to come in?"
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He definitely didn't have the automatic and natural affection that Cuddy had. The soft, adoring way she spoke to the baby, the adoring touches, how clearly in love she was with the baby - she was a lot better at it than he was. He wasn't sure what to do, besides looking at the baby and talking at her. Cuddling and touching and kisses and all that adoration stuff: he felt, well, awkward with those sorts of things. Perhaps that was a job best left up to Cuddy.
"If she is the boss, I'm going to have a hard time believing anything she tells me. She was just telling me a bunch of old fishermen tales." Just as he said that, Emma's arms moved outwards again, the hand which wasn't clinging onto Cuddy's spreading open wide. House nodded to the baby. "See? Not even a day old and she's already learning how to manipulate."
At the knock, House looked up quickly to see Wilson poking his head in. Well, great. As if he didn't already feel self-conscious enough. "The kid loaded the room with trip wires last night while Cuddy was asleep," he answered Wilson's question. "Might want to rethink that 'can I come in'."
"I'll take it that means..." Wilson wasn't sure what that meant. Either it was House's backwards way of telling him the coast was clear or it was House's way of telling him to get lost. This whole House the Dad thing was as foreign to Wilson as it no doubt was to House.
Wilson opened the door and stepped in. "Well, whatever it means, I'll take my chances." In his arm, he was carrying an oversize stuffed yellow duck. He also had a bunch of flowers clutched in that same hand, for Cuddy.
"For me?" House asked with mock surprise about the flowers. "You really shouldn't have."
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Cuddy had seen enough manipulation from her nieces and nephew to know manipulation made up a significant part of their interactions with their parents. Sometimes they didn't even bother with subtlety...and it still worked. Of course, if she were honest with herself, she'd been no slouch at manipulating her parents, too.
At least Emma's manipulations were reflexive rather than deliberate, for the moment. She responded positively to pleasant attention, which in turn encouraged the people around her to continue to pay attention to her. It was manipulation but at a primal level. That would change soon enough, though. Given she was House's daughter, she'd probably become a real master manipulator at an early age.
She was grinning at House's reaction to Emma, though. Sure, the baby had no idea what he was saying or why he was saying it or why he was even there. He was there, though, and her little mind was curious about this big, deep-voiced creature who was creating such interesting sounds and movement. There really were no rules for how he bonded to her--as long as he kept interacting with her in a positive way, they'd be fine.
Cuddy got to her feet and let out a deep laugh when she saw the duck under Wilson's arm. "For god's sake, Wilson, that's twice as big as she is," she said.
Wilson shrugged, looking slightly embarrassed as he sat the duck on the foot of the bed. Maybe he had gone a little overboard with the duck but then again, how often did your best friend have a baby? Actually, in House's case, the fact it had happened even once was damn near a miracle.
He gave Cuddy a gentle hug, afraid to hold her too tightly in case she wasn't feeling too hot after going through labor. He stepped back and rolled his eyes at House. "The flowers are for Emma. The duck's for you," he said dryly.
Cuddy set the flowers on the bedside stand. She'd put them in water later. Right now, she wanted to show off her daughter. She took hold of Wilson's arm and pulled him closer to House. She looked down at Emma, whose gaze was still fixed on House.
"Emma, meet your Uncle Wilson."
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Wilson quickly cleared his throat, both to non-verbally tell House to shut up and because he should have known House would make some ridiculous link to that. Just like he should always know every time House had a party that it led to Wilson doing something irresponsible and embarrassing, the duck incident being a prime example. The duck he'd brought, however, was a toy, plain and simple. Something fun for the baby to stare at and play with when she got older. Trust House to twist it into something, well, incriminating, like he'd said.
Letting Cuddy pull him, he stopped by House's side with his hands in his pockets and he looked down at baby Emma. She was so small, especially so in House's giant hands. More than that was the fact House was holding her. Not that Wilson doubted House would but again, seeing House in the role of dad was going to take some getting used to.
"Uncle Wilson?" Wilson echoed. He glanced at Cuddy with his brows raised.
"See?" House replied. "Told you he wouldn't like it."
"Who said anything about me not liking it?"
House squinted at him. "You like it?"
Wilson shrugged. It wasn't a title he was expecting but he secretly did like it. At least he wasn't feeling excluded, and the kid probably would see him enough times to think of him as an uncle or some family member. He darted his eyes to Emma, who now had an eye screwed shut with her mouth wide open, some dribble seeping out of the corner of it.
"She's a cutie," he said to Cuddy. His lips quirked into a brief smile at the yawn Emma suddenly screwed her face into. Her fists then batted jerkily in the air and she squirmed in House's hands. Wilson looked over at Cuddy. "Your parents know they're grandparents yet?"
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She smiled proudly as Wilson looked at Emma. Her expression quickly turned to chagrin when he asked about her parents. "God, no," she groaned. It had been too late at night to call after Emma was born and she'd been busy ever since waking up that morning. She simply hadn't had a chance to call. Worse, she'd even forgotten she needed to call...and she wasn't ever going to admit that to her mother.
"Mom is going to kill me," she muttered, looking around for her purse. She didn't sound too worried, though. The good thing about having this kind of news to share was that her mother would be too happy about the baby to complain about the delay in notification.
She located her cell phone and speed-dialed her parent's home, glancing over at House. She knew her parents would want to visit and soon, and she knew he wouldn't be happy about that. Too bad. She wasn't going to Emma from her grandparents. The fact House was keeping his own parents out of the picture only made Cuddy more determined that Emma have time with the Cuddy side of the family.
"Dad?" she said into the phone, puzzled when her father answered. He didn't like talking on the phone, didn't like talking much at all, so he only answered the phone when her mother wasn't home. Since her parents were a time zone behind New Jersey, she'd expected her mother to be home yet this time of morning.
Her dad explained Carol was out at the beauty parlor, getting her hair done. He seemed to think that's all Cuddy would want to know and nearly hung up before she could yelp at him to wait. She quickly told him about Emma, a smile blooming on her face when she heard his low, happy laugh.
"That's wonderful news, Lisa. Mazel tov," he said.
"Thanks, Dad."
"But I think I'm going to wait until your mother gets home to tell her," her dad continued. "That'll give me about another half hour of peace before she starts notifying the entire western hemisphere."
Cuddy laughed. "Which means I've got about another half hour of peace, too."
"Best make the most of it," her dad agreed. "I'm sure we'll be talking to you again later. In the meantime, give that baby a hug from me."
"I'll give her two," Cuddy promised. "Bye, Dad."
"Love you," her dad said before disconnecting.
Cuddy turned back to House, Emma and Wilson with a big smile on her weary face. "Well, Dad is thrilled. And Mom doesn't know yet so the world is safe from the 'Attack of the Grandma' for a while longer."
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