The next day, Mara woke up with a little headache. She had not slept much through the night. For some reason, little Leo had refused to sleep after waking up. He had peed in his diapers and the discomfort had made him cry out. After Mara had changed the diapers and put him back to bed, she thought he would fall asleep almost immediately, but the young rascal was in a playful mood and wanted his mother to join in or he would make sure that she and the entire neighborhood would have their ears ringing with his cries.
Mara had no choice but to oblige him and they played deep into the night. Each time she felt that he would soon get tired and fall asleep from exhaustion, he only proved that he was ready to keep her up all night. At the end, she was the one who became exhausted and involuntarily dozed off to sleep. When she woke up over an hour later, it was daybreak and her son was very much wide awake. Obviously, he had not slept a wink!
"You'll never cease to baffle me, Leo," she murmured as she took him to go have his bath.
When she returned from bathing herself and the baby, she had to leave him with a toy to distract him and prevent him from crying. Then she went to the kitchen to get food prepared.
"Oh. Good morning, sir," Mara greeted, taken aback by his early presence in the kitchen.
"Please Mara, my name is Leo, in case you've forgotten," Leo said with a smile and Mara couldn't help but smile back albeit shyly. "By the way, thank you very much for yesterday."
"Uhh... you're welcome," she stuttered, wondering what she had done yesterday to deserve any thanks. To avoid any more awkward moments, she quickly reached for the cupboard where the materials for little Leo's food was kept. But Leo stopped her and gave her little Leo's feeding bottle already filled with the baby's breakfast. Mara was surprised. She had no idea he could make baby food. "Th... thank you very much. I appreciate it," she stammered when she finally found her voice.
"The least I could do," Leo responded with a smile which she couldn't help but reflect again as she took the bottle from him.
"Let me go give him his breakfast before he starts crying," she said and hurried out of the kitchen. Her careful avoidance of staring too long into his eyes throughout their conversation was a great feat. The way he looked at her nowadays made her heart skip too many beats and she feared that if she were to look into those captivating eyes of his — eyes that always lit up when he smiled — she would be unable to stop herself from pledging her undying love for him, that was why she had to escape so quickly.
When she got to her room, little Leo was still playing. Would the boy ever get tired?!
"Hey, time for breakfast," she cooed and picked him up to feed him. But as she brought the bottle to his mouth, a thought suddenly occurred to her. This food was prepared by a man who had no children and also had no known experience with feeding babies. Would it be good enough? To answer that question, the best thing to do was to taste it. So, ignoring little Leo's protests and kicking, she put the bottle to her mouth and tasted its contents. Little Leo screeched at the top of his lungs, thinking that she was stealing his food.
"Okay, okay. Relax. Here it comes," she said and put the bottle to his mouth while licking her own lips. The food was not just good, it was also yummy. Where on Earth had Leo learned to make it so nicely? But that was not a big deal. The serious question was, why had she not trusted him?
She suddenly felt so ashamed of herself for tasting the baby food. She could have remembered that Leo loved the baby as much as she did. Even if she didn't see him as such, the baby certainly did see him as family. And the fact that he had woken up so early just to prepare the baby's food was something that should have spoken volumes to her.
"I'm sorry," she mumbled, an indirect apology to him for not trusting and appreciating him well enough. Thank God he would never know about it. Right there and then, she vowed inwardly to have complete faith and trust in him from then onwards.
After little Leo had been fed to his fill and she had dressed him and herself in preparation for the journey to the office, she stepped into Leo's room to say goodbye.
"Oh you're leaving really early today," Leo observed.
"It's because there's nothing to do at home. I might as well go help my boss at the office."
Leo nodded in understanding and then winked at his little namesake. "How do you cope with taking him to work every day?", he asked as he took the happy little rascal from her.
"I manage," Mara shrugged. "He actually grows heavier every day."
"Then you should leave him at home with me, so you don't have to stress yourself so much. "
Mara gasped in gratitude. "I'm so grateful. You will really look after him all day? "
"Of course. It will be my pleasure. And you know we get along just fine. "
"Yes, yes, you do. C... can I take a picture?", Mara asked tentatively, fearing that he would refuse.
"Sure! Fire away."
"Oh thank you," she gushed in heartfelt gratitude and quickly opened the camera app on her phone. She was so much in love with the cute way both Leos were together. It was such a perfect and adorable sight – one she wanted to capture and look at over and over again.
She had never seen her son look happier than he was now and neither had she seen Leo look more handsome then he was now. It was a perfect combination! Anybody would easily take them for father and son and she wished to God that that was the case.
She wasted no time in snapping nearly a dozen shots of them and to her surprise, her son made a new pose for each shot. What a worldly little rascal! There was no question that he was very happy and comfortable with Leo.
After she had taken as many pictures as she could and had picked her favourite – one where both of them had an identical grin – and set it as her phone's background photo, she gave the two most important males in her life a quick hug and went off to work.