Klara opened the camera on her smartphone and watched the living room come into focus, the yellowed lights contrasting with the darkness outside. She could see the smooth laminate floor smothered by an assortment of towels and blankets, a white modern-looking couch off to one side, and her naked mother sprawled between the couch and the coffee table, her brown-sugar-and-cream fur on full display and her rich auburn hair sticking to her shoulders. Her moans filled the room, straining but not painful, punctuated by moments of tense silence.

“Alright, sprout,” came a male voice from off-screen, “all set up?”

‘Sprout’. She hated that nickname. “Yes, dad,” Klara replied with a roll of her eyes.

“Hey, you wanna say the intro?”

“Not really,” Klara mumbled shyly. The twelve-year-old kudu calf was embarrassed enough just being here, she didn’t want to say a word more than she had to. She much preferred to stay behind the camera, hidden from as many people as possible.

“Can I say the intro?” Klara’s brother interrupted, raising his hand in the air like he was still in school, “I wanna say the intro!”

Klara sighed audibly. Her little brother Christiaan was obsessed with mom and dad’s cringey little vlog project. Every time one of them pulled out a camera he was right there trying to take center stage. She wished one of those sponsors mom and dad were always talking about would just send him a toy to review already, and then maybe he’d shut up.

“Alright,” their father agreed, “but-”

“Welcome to the Bekker family homestead!” Christiaan blurted, having committed his family’s EweTube introduction to memory, “Where today we’re making a baby!”

“No, kiddo,” the older kudu stifled a laugh, “the baby’s already been made! Mommy just has to push it out!”

Klara sighed again, rolling her eyes this time. Her little brother was such a dummy. She knew where cubs came from, of course, she learned it in school. She even got to watch her brother being born years ago but it never seemed like a big deal; she just assumed it was part of being a big sister.

She didn’t understand why adding this sibling to the family was such a big deal either, but here she was at two o'clock in the morning in her pyjamas, filming the whole process for the stupid family vlog. Were her parents really so desperate that they had to go and add another cub to the family to squeeze content out of?

On the other hand, Klara’s father Raun seemed very, very happy about mom being pregnant again, so Klara wondered if maybe it was a ‘boy’ thing. Her brother, too, was quick to get swept up in their father's enthusiasm when mom was pregnant – he and dad were always rubbing against mom, touching her belly, stuff they weren't doing as much before. And mom kept trying to get her and Christiaan to feel the baby kick, even when the cameras were off. While Klara had to admit it was kinda cool and a little gross to feel her mom’s belly move like some sort of alien, she was really getting uncomfortable with the way her dad was constantly commenting on her mom’s body, using words like "ass" and "tits" that she was told never to repeat.

The more Klara heard her mom's curves being called out, the more self-conscious she got. She was almost thirteen and still flat as a board, having grown up but not out. Her parents assured her that she would start developing more womanly curves eventually, but in the meantime, the nicknames piled up: Her dad called her "sprout", the bullies at school called her "matchstick" because of her wild, reddish-orange hair, and some of the younger boys even started calling her "the skyscraper" because she was so tall and angular.

"Do you remember what the baby's name is going to be?" Raun asked, interrupting Klara’s navel-gazing.

"Uh . . ." Christiaan pondered, putting a finger to his chin, "Jaco, right?"

"Jacobus,” The bull nodded, “after your Oupa. And what if it's a girl?"

"How do you know?" Christiaan countered.

"You'll just have to see!" their dad answered again, trying to avoid having to explain the differences between boys and girls while on camera.

Again, Klara knew the answer but stayed quiet. Her and her brother were both named after her dad's parents, and her parents told her before that the next calf was going to be named after one of her mom's parents to keep the tradition going. That meant either "Jacobus" for her oupa Jaco, or "Leandri" for her ouma Lea.

“Okay, sprout, point the camera at mommy,” Raun instructed while he fiddled with some prenatal vitamin bottles, making sure their labels were facing outwards.

“What’s mommy doing?” Christiaan asked.

“Just . . . giving herself a massage,” their dad answered, “you know how mommy rubs daddy’s back after working in the garden? Just like that!”

Klara looked at the image through her smartphone. It didn’t look like any massage she’d ever seen. Her mother had one leg up and bent at the knee to give everyone a full view of her private parts and she had one hand wrapped around a pillow near her head while she hesitantly rubbed between her legs with the other. Klara thought she looked almost scared to touch herself, like it was going to hurt, but after a moment her mom let out another moan and started to rub in small circles.

Her dad didn’t seem phased by his wife's struggle. After checking over Klara’s shoulder from behind to make sure she was still recording, the lean-figured kudu bull walked into frame, wearing only a pair or grey boxer shorts with his long red hair tied back in a messy bun. Mindful of his spiraled horns, he got down on all fours to give his wife a kiss on the lips, moaning along with her in unison as the cub visibly shifted in her belly. He reached out for what looked like some sort of lotion, again making sure the label was facing outwards, then put his hand on top of her belly and moved down between her legs to take her hand in his, guiding her fingers in and out and around the opening between her legs while her moans got louder and faster.

Klara felt her ears and cheeks getting hot, and she couldn’t figure out why. It wasn’t her first time seeing her parents naked – they had a thing about not closing doors – but it was weird seeing her mom rubbing herself like that, and weirder still watching her dad crawl around on all fours like an animal, kissing and touching her in places that Klara was told never to let other people touch. Part of her wanted to look away, but she found herself transfixed, eyes flicking between her parents and the recording on her phone's camera.

"You're so bold, Raun," Klara's mother panted as she momentarily broke the embrace, "in front of the calves, really?"

"You started it," Raun replied with a teasing lilt, "Besides, we can always cut this part out of the video. It's not like it's the first time! " He kissed his wife again, pushing his fingers deeper in between her legs until she gasped and pulled his hand away, incidentally giving her cubs a better view as the slit between her legs expanded into a teardrop-shape, revealing something bulging from inside.

"Is that the baby?" Christiaan asked loudly, pointing as he wandered into the camera's view. He was still wearing his pyjamas, a white T-shirt and shorts with red trim, decorated with little trains and railroad tracks. He had his mother’s dark hair and was shorter and stouter by far than his older sister, his pale-furred midriff sticking out slightly under the hem of his shirt. Even her younger brother had more curves than her, Klara lamented.

"It is!" Ruan confirmed, "Wanna see?"

Klara could see the dark, sticky fur peeking out from between her mother's legs – that definitely was the baby, she realized, or at least the top of its head. How big was it, she wondered? How was a whole baby going to squeeze through that tiny opening? And why was it so . . . wet? Was all that water supposed to help it come out? She didn't remember hearing about anything like this in school. Did being born feel like going down a waterslide? How did her mom feel with all that water inside her? Did it feel like she needed to pee all the time?

The calves' mother tried to shuffle into more of a sitting position against her husband. "Don’t be shy,” she gestured between deep breaths, “get as close as you want.”

“But be gentle,” Raun added as Christiaan jumped up onto the couch to look down from above. The little calf tentatively reached down to poke at the emerging mass, then quickly recoiled like he'd touched a hot stove.

"Ew," he grunted, looking at his fingers. His parents laughed. Klara's cheeks continued to burn.

"What about you, sprout?" Raun asked, "want to get some close-ups?"

"I-I-I'm good," Klara stuttered. It felt like she was frozen in place. She was curious, maybe even more than a little, but the way watching all this made her feel feel . . . she couldn't put it into words. She felt like she should have had some sort of urge to shield her eyes, like she'd walked in on someone changing, but the more she stood there the more she realized she was feeling something more complicated, and she wasn't sure what any of it meant.

"You sure?" her dad pressed, "you might not get another chance!"

"It was icky and gross," Christiaan added with an innocent grin as he hopped down from the couch and trotted in front of the camera. Klara scowled. How could her little brother be so . . . irreverent? He was touching their mom's private parts and the baby – their new brother or sister – and he thought it was gross! But she'd seen stuff like this before and didn't care then, so why did seeing him act like that make her blood boil now?

The grown-ups kissed and touched again as Christiaan ran out of frame once more, retreating behind the imaginary line of the camera's view. Raun reached for a bottle and drizzled some more lotion over the underside of his wife's belly, rubbing it in while he gently grabbed the side of her face with his other hand and hungrily kissed her, even as she strained to push. It felt like something that Klara shouldn't be seeing at all, much less recording. But no one else seemed as . . . overwhelmed as she was: her mom and dad were both a little too into it, her brother didn't seem to care, so maybe it really was just her? Was she the weird one?

Against her better judgment, Klara took a step closer, and then another. Then she took another and another, closer and closer until she was standing right next to the couch and staring at her parents like a deer in headlights. She tried not to get too close, not wanting them to think she was copying her brother's shamelessness, but it felt like her body was moving on its own, taking her wherever her parents wanted her.

"It's okay, sprout," said her father calmly, "take as long as you need."

Klara buried her face in her phone, trying to look disinterested, like she was just doing what her dad asked. She could still see them on the screen, but somehow avoiding direct eye contact made her feel less exposed. Why was everyone being so normal about this, she thought? She used to be normal too, even her brother's birth wasn’t a major event in her mind. So what changed, she wondered, why couldn't she look away? Why did she feel like she had to hide? Was she breathing funny? Could mom and dad see her breathing funny?

The kudu tween was lost in her own head again as her new sibling continued to emerge little by little, stretching her mother's folds from an oval to a big, round circle around a massive dome of sticky dark fur. Raun’s fingers were persistent – as soon his wife’s hole was fully blocked by the baby's head he started rubbing around the outside, circling the baby's crown with more of the lotion and pausing to push at the exposed nub of flesh at the tip of his wife's lower lips.

"Don't stop!" Klara's mom suddenly gasped, grabbing Raun's wrist and holding his hand in place.

"Elize, you kinky-" Raun was cut off by a sharp gasp as his wife winced and arched her back, her thighs quivering as she gripped the couch for support with her other hand.

Klara could feel the blush on her cheeks and ears deepening as her mother put her hand firmly on the baby's head, the bucking of her hips threatening to jostle it loose. She hoped her family couldn't see the shade of red she could feel herself turning, but thankfully her parents and brother seemed plenty distracted with each other, with Christiaan back in frame and peeking over the back of the couch as their parents continued to touch each other, their fingers intertwined around the baby's crowning head.

"It's coming out!" Christiaan pointed, jumping over the back of the couch and landing on all fours like a dog. The adults didn't even seem to hear him. Elize was panting open-mouthed and struggling to return her husband’s kisses while crown of the baby's head was grew bigger and bigger, and just when Klara thought the baby was going to rip her mom apart from the inside, its entire head appeared with a wet pop. Christiaan cheered. Klara winced.

Elize grunted, rolling her head from side to side, her chest heaving as she tried to catch her breath. Klara thought it sounded like her mom was trying to take the world's biggest poop. She gathered the courage to look up from the screen on her phone, and saw her mom's face twisted in exertion and effort, but not in pain. Maybe it was like taking a really big poop, she mused. As gross as it sounded, she could see how there might be a strange sort of satisfaction to pushing a baby out, or maybe something even more intense!

Ignoring her cubs entirely, Elize took a deep breath and grabbed her husband by the chin, forcefully kissing him on the muzzle and bearing down as hard as she could. The baby's head moved slightly, its wet nose sliding against her inner thigh, but the rest of its body remained inside her. Raun's tail flicked in surprise and he froze up, seemingly unable to decide between embracing his wife or helping the baby. He broke the embrace and reached down to touch the baby's head as soon as Elize paused to catch her breath, but Elize grabbed his wrist and pushed it against her groin right above the baby's shoulder instead. "Focus on me," she insisted in a harsh whisper before the urge to push overwhelmed her again.

Klara couldn't believe her eyes, it didn’t seem real! There was a baby – an actual baby – sticking out of her mom's vagina and everyone else was acting like it was the most normal thing in the world! Her dad hadn't done anything but kiss her and touch her private parts, and her brother was watching the whole thing like a football game!

"Nnngh!" Elize strained through gritted teeth. She took a deep breath and rolled onto her side, reaching down to grip the inside of her knee and pull her leg up to her chest. Raun was practically begging to help but Elize was having none of it, instead burying her face in her husband's chest and letting out a long, guttural moan from deep in her chest. Klara could feel her heart beating in her ears, and she pinned them back instinctively. She could tell her mom was trying to push, but the baby wasn't moving this time. What would happen if the baby got stuck, she wondered? Would they have to call the hospital? Would the hospital send an ambulance? What if the ambulance didn't make it in time? What if-

"Klara, get ready!" Raun interrupted. Klara bleated a panicked apology, realizing she'd momentarily forgotten about filming for a moment. She dutifully held the phone up again, zooming out to try and get as much of her parents in the shot as possible just in time for her mom to let out an exasperated "guh!" as the rest of the baby gushed out onto the towels on the floor.

Klara gasped. Christiaan cheered again, jumping up and down on the couch. Raun patted Elize on the shoulder and gave her a congratulatory peck on the cheek while Elize's chest heaved in exhaustion. It was hard for Klara to make heads or tails of her mother's expression – she looked surprised, tired, and happy all at once.

The newborn announced itself with a weak, wet little bleat, drawing Klara's attention. She could see the baby stretching its arms and legs, the umbilical cord trailing back into the drooling crevice between her mother's legs. The baby had dark hair like mom, and Klara could see the same white stripe across the baby’s nose that the whole family had. She could also see the white stripes that climbed up its lower back like a ladder, stopping at the shoulders. 

It looked so . . . naked, Klara thought. It felt almost inappropriate to keep filming and yet she still found herself craning her neck to get a better view, trying not to make it look obvious. Her parents didn't seem in any hurry to pick the baby up or cover it or anything, so maybe it would be alright if she kept looking?

"Where's its peepee?" Christiaan asked loudly, looming over the new baby and pointing.

"Girls don't have peepees," Raun chuckled.

"It's a girl?!" the little bull looked between her mother and his new baby sister. "Does that mean Klara has a hole there, too?"

"Chris!" Klara hissed, looking up from her phone to glare at him before returning her eyes to the screen.

Raun looked at his wife and then back at his now-oldest daughter, motioning her over with a gentle nod while making sure his horns remained out of the way. "Have a look," he beckoned, gently pushing Christiaan back to make room. Klara didn’t need much convincing, her once-tepid curiosity now roused to boiling. Sure enough, this angle gave her a better view of her new sister where she landed on the pile of damp linen. The kudu tween’s eyes traced the small, slimy body, taking in her large ears, rounded head, and the gentle hills of baby fat along her chest, punctuated by two perky nipples. Even her new baby sister had more curves than she did, Klara fumed. The baby had more definition between her legs than Klara had, too – her girl parts were pink and puffy, sticking out from between her legs and glistening like a second set of lips. Klara could even see the 'hole' her little brother was talking about between the folds of hairless skin. She looked back, mentally comparing the gap between the newborn's folds to the hole between her mother's legs where she came from. How big did that hole have to get before it could make a baby? Could this baby have a baby of her own someday? Could she?

Klara looked up at her mom again, as if she could read her mind. She noticed that her mom's nipples were just as stiff as the baby's, sticking out from her heavy breasts like pencil erasers. She was still breathing heavily, but the exhaustion and shock had vanished from her face, replaced by a look that the kudu calf could only define as 'bliss'. It was the same look the calf had when she ate ice cream or got into a hot bath.

"Are you sure it's a girl?" Christiaan asked, "I thought it was gonna be a boy!"

"Pretty sure," Raun laughed, "looks like baby Leandri to me!"

Christiaan pouted. "I wanted a brother," he protested, "can we make another baby, dad?"

Raun was unable to restrain a guffaw, and Klara caught her mother's grin widening out of the corner of her eye. "Maybe someday," Raun replied, ruffling his son's hair, "but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it."

"Are you gonna pick her up?" Klara asked quietly, the camera still focused on her baby sister.

"Wait for your mother," Raun answered, reaching down to gently touch Leandri's hand, smiling proudly as his new baby girl opened her hand and closed it again, wrapping her tiny fist around his finger.

Christiaan took that as an invitation to reach down as well, gently stroking the newborn's side with the back of his hand. "She's still all wet," he commented.

"She's not the only one," Elize huffed under her breath, winking at her husband.

Klara hesitated. At this point it would have seemed weird not to reach out and touch her new sister, everyone else was doing it. She tentatively extended her hand and brushed her fingers against Leandri's torso. Her brother was right, she was wet and kind of sticky, and shockingly warm to the touch. Her short fur was soft and smooth, and Klara briefly imagined herself reaching down between her sister’s legs to touch down there but quickly recoiled before she could follow through. The impulse startled her – Where did that come from?

Before she could explore the origins of her intrusive thought, Klara's mother grunted and tried to lift herself up onto her elbows, straining to look over her distended belly. Raun took the hint and pulled his finger out of Leandri's grip and slid his hands behind her head and lower back, lifting her up. Leandri kicked her legs out and squealed in protest, drawing wet, noisy breaths.

"She sounds like a Doeblox wailer" Christiaan giggled. Klara shot her brother another dirty look, but as much as she disliked the interjection she had to agree: 'Wailers' were enemy monsters in a video game she and her brother played, they had a scream attack that froze players in place and lowered their defense. Klara had to admit that her new sister had a similar hold on her, but she still had no idea why.

Raun held baby Leandri in the air, letting her drip onto the towels below. Her slippery fur and constant, awkward movements meant that her father had to constantly adjust his grip, one hand ending up between her legs and blocking her nethers from view. Klara wondered why her father all of a sudden cared about Leandri's modesty after leaving her exposed for so long, and then she wondered why she suddenly cared whether her baby sister's private parts were covered up or not.

"Hello, baby girl!" Elize greeted in a sing-song voice as Raun gently placed the squirming fawn into her arms. Even the older kudu seemed helpless to resist the urge to look down between her baby's legs and confirm what Raun and Christiaan were talking about. Apparently satisfied with what she saw, she turned Leandri around to face the camera, holding her against her chest with one arm. She also must have had trouble holding on, because she had to adjust the baby's position several times with her other hand, reaching between Leandri's legs to hoist her up. Klara could have sworn she saw her mother's fingers lingering against Leandri's private parts, rubbing between the glistening folds of skin.

"You can't tease me like that, honey," Raun reminded his wife with a surprised giggle before lowering his voice, "everyone's watching!" 

"I know," Elize replied knowingly, "isn't it exciting?" 

"We're gonna have to cut that part out too," Raun realized, "but we'll have plenty of time later!"

Elize gestured weakly in agreement, allowing Leandri to slide down slightly as she relaxed back into the edge of the couch.

For the next hour, Leandri was the center of attention. Elize held her close but not too close, maintaining fur-to-fur contact while making sure that the majority of her body was visible for her older calves to touch and look at. Christiaan had a thousand questions and comments about his new status as the big brother, which Klara tried to ignore while she quietly drank in her new sister's features. She had big blue eyes when they weren't squished shut, tiny fingers that reached out to grasp whatever they could get a hold of, and weirdly soft hooves that felt like rubber. What intrigued Klara most was the umbilical cord, trailing from where Leandri's bellybutton should have been. She watched as the strange, rubbery appendage slowly drained and deflated, fading from a rich azure to bone-white over several minutes. She knew from school that that was how babies got air and food inside the womb, and that she no longer needed it now that she was born, but it was fascinating to watch in real time. Klara made sure she got a few close-ups, feeling less awkward now that everyone else was staring too.

Filming became less and less of a priority for Klara as time wore on, now that the main event was over and fatigue was starting to take its toll. It wouldn't be too long until the sun started to come up, Klara realized, but at least they didn't have to go to school tomorrow.  Christiaan poked and prodded at baby Leandri a few more times before snuggling in to his mother's side, leaning over her shoulder to keep an eye on his new sister before he started to nod off. 

"Looks like someone needs to head back to bed," Raun nudged his son.

"Do I have to?" Christiaan whined, "what if we slept here in the living room tonight, like a big sleepover? We could make a couch fort and-"

"Maybe another time," Elize chimed in, trying again to rise to her knees, mindful of the newborn.

"Your mom needs to rest up," Raun added, "it's a lot of work having a baby. Now, let's get you to bed, baby Lea isn't going anywhere and you'll have plenty of time to play with her tomorrow." He turned back to wink at Elize before steering his son towards the living room door, ignoring the protest of it already being tomorrow because it was after midnight.

The wink sent an uneasy tingle up Klara's back. It was another gesture that she wasn’t sure if she was supposed to see or not, and the sensation of intruding on something private returned tenfold. "I'm gonna . . . go to bed too," she mumbled, looking down at her phone. The memory for the video ran out a while ago, but she knew she had plenty of material for her parents to edit down and post online, even without their fancy cloud backup storage.

"Alright, sweetheart," her mom replied, leaning over with a grunt to give her daughter a peck on the forehead, "want to give your new sister a kiss too?" The way she asked made it seem routine, just like kissing her mom goodnight, but it made the tween pause. She looked down at her new sister, her dark matted hair, her wet nose, and her glistening lips that strained into a grimace before opening into a thin little mewl. Klara swallowed and then quickly bent over to kiss her sister on the forehead before turning around and walking quickly down the hall to her bedroom, closing the door behind her.

Assured of privacy, Klara smacked her lips and wiped her muzzle on her sleeve. Her new sister was still damp, and the remnants of whatever birth-slime coated her lingered on the tween’s tongue. It was pungent and vaguely sour, almost tangy. She briefly wondered how it would taste to kiss her on the lips, then shook her head rapidly, her large ears flapping against the side of her head as she tried to banish the thought.

The kudu girl felt like she was missing something. All these intrusive thoughts and feelings had to come from somewhere, she reasoned, what was it about her sister’s appearance that had the whole family feeling strange? She sat on her bed, plugged her phone in, and played the video from the beginning. She watched her mom 'massage' herself again until her dad took over, kissing her on the lips and rubbing between her mom's legs to continue from where she left off. The blush returned to Klara's face as she let the video play. She picked up little details she missed when seeing her sister's birth live, like her mom's legs shaking as her dad dug in with his fingers, or the gasp her mom made and the way her eyes rolled back when Leandri came sliding out. She started looking at other places, too, like at the bulge between her dad's legs when he was kissing mom. She knew it happened to boys when they got excited – it happened to boys in her class sometimes and they usually got all embarrassed about it but it never lasted long.

Klara shuffled her thighs together. She was feeling warm and tingly down there, almost itchy, but she kept the video playing until she could see her new sister in her entirety. She stared unabashedly between Leandri's legs now that she wasn't being watched, tracing her eyes up and down her wet, glistening bits in all their untouched glory. She paused the video and moved the slider to a point where she could see her mother's private parts as well, and the moment where her mother had her hand between Leandri's legs. Maybe she was giving baby Leandri a massage too, she thought, but the more she stared the more it seemed like something else was going on. She looked and looked until her phone went idle and she found herself staring at herself instead, reflected in the black screen.

With a grunt, Klara pulled up her nightshirt and shuffled out of her loose pyjama bottoms, using her phone as a mirror. She was familiar with her own body down there, at least on an academic level, and she knew all the ‘proper’ words for things: labia, vulva, vagina, clitoris, urethra, and so on. But her own private parts looked nothing like her mom's or her sister's in the video, they just looked like a letter "V" with a line through it. They weren’t red or puffy or wet or anything, they were just folds of skin between her legs where her fur didn't grow. Klara reached down to check. Maybe they were a little slick, she admitted to herself as she slid her fingers along the sensitive skin. A small shiver rolled up her back as she turned her phone back on and started the video from where her dad was touching her mom between her legs, just before the baby came out. She wondered how it felt to have something so big wedged so deep up there, and she pushed the tip of her finger inside her own slit to feel.

It was a lot wetter inside, Klara realized, feeling the tip of her finger against the inside of her folds. She’d never done this before. It felt weird, and it made her all tingly, but her finger was only so big and could only push so deep before it got uncomfortable. She added a second finger, seeing if she could stretch wider and maybe that was the part that was supposed to feel good, but it just felt awkward and painful. The difference between her own fingers inside her and Leandri’s entire body inside her mother . . . it just wasn't possible! She rewound the video and played it again, trying to mimic the motions that her mom made when she was giving herself that strange massage. She could feel something welling up inside her as she rubbed along her slit. It felt good, like scratching an itch, but the more she rubbed the stronger the itch got, and the more she found herself thinking about her new little sister and those glistening folds, so perfect and exposed. Driven by feelings she couldn't quite name, she turned her phone back on and scrolled through the video until she found a frame where Leandri was front and center. She wasn't even trying to fight the feelings now, she was enraptured by that brand-new glistening body and its gentle, rolling curves. She kept rubbing, faster and faster, moving her fingers in little circles just like her mom did, but before long the sensation plateaued and she felt like rubbing any more wasn't going to give her that release she craved. 

Maybe just looking at images and videos wasn't enough, she thought. She needed to get her eyes on the real thing, maybe even touch those pristine private parts in ways she wasn't ready for earlier. She might even be able to get some help with that special massage her parents seemed to be so good at!