"Oh -- he can walk, John. Let him down for the monkeys, at least. Please?"

John's brows narrowed in confusion as he glanced from his wife to his son. "He hasn't said he wants down," he replied pointedly to his wife while looking over to blond two-year old riding on his arm. The little boy's large brown eyes where fixed on the primates swinging about in the cage before them.

Matilda gave him a look -- the look that indicated he was clearly ignorant of the idiosyncrasies of being a two-year old boy -- and then smiled -- in that sweet motherly fashion -- at their well-behaved son. "Do you want down to see the monkeys, Johnathan?"

To John's surprise, the head of sandy-blond hair immediately bounced in a nod and the tiny hands that had been clinging to the sleeve of his cobalt blue sweater reached out to stretch toward their smiling mother. John swore the two of them were involved in a conspiracy to make him go spare from his own befuddlement over children. Honestly.

Matilda made a sing-song "woo" noise that made the boy giggle as she lifted him from John's hold and set the soles of his tiny polished shoes to the walkway as the caged animals continued to chatter in squawk in their own inane language. John tried to keep his mildly-agitated sigh for being too obvious.

"Matilda?"

John quickly glanced back over his toward the voice an immediately rounded back to give his wife a look of his own. Matilda was still kneeling from when she'd let Johnathan scramble the few steps to brace his little hands on the concrete barrier and look up at the smelly swinging animals in wonderment. Her face, however, broke into a happy wide-eyed look of surprise. "Emmet!"

Taking hold of John's proffered arm, she was hauled to standing once more. She passed a fleeting hand over her son's hair and pressed her palm briefly to her husband's chest, avoiding his eyes as she went to meet the other man's friendly one-armed embrace.

John kept his eyes on his son and moved to be alongside the boy as they quietly watched the barbarous creatures hee-and-haw as they returned curious looks of their own. A vein began to show in the wizard's stiffened neck as he listened to the chatty prattle at his right.

Matilda excitedly inquired about the other man's life before bubbling over in glee over their impending second child when Belby complemented her motherly-glow. His wife had a tendency to hold back the news that would make her burst in hope that others would notice and pry. When the pair's chatter died down just as quickly as it'd began, John saw his wife turn in his peripheral vision and toss a craning glance back toward her boys.

"Johnathan! Come say 'hi' to Marcus, dear!"

John felt tiny limbs wrap around his left shin and glanced down to see wide brown eyes looking up to him in a plea for protection that made all the tension in John's jaw melt away. A crooked smile came to the wizard's lips as he gently cupped the back of the two-year old's head. "I'd rather look at the monkeys, too," John muttered in agreement as a face buried into his leg.