When they were done playing, Jamie took Rosie’s hand, and they returned to the group. “Did you have fun, Rosie,” Jane asked.
“Yes,” she said in her younger voice, “I was the only one who could catch Jamie.” She winked at him.
“I saw. You were so good!”
“I bet you both worked up an appetit...
2022-04-05 22:39:25 +0000 UTC View PostSo what’s in the black mystery bag? Was it worth being well behaved? And let’s be honest with ourselves and all admit together that a person can find being well behaved quite burdensome even though they’re not a brat. Really.
“Daffodil,” Mary said to me Sunday afternoon. We’d attended zoom church, had lunch,...
2022-04-02 21:16:58 +0000 UTC View PostThey decided to walk to the park again, the three of them. Amanda carried an extra set of clothes and Jamie’s sandals in her backpack, along with three liters of water. Jamie already had one next to him in the stroller, and he promised to drink all of it before they left the park.
They were meeting Jane and Rosie near...
2022-04-01 21:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostEveryone slept in late the next morning, Jamie especially. Amanda went to get Jamie out of bed.
“Rise and shine!” Jamie was already awake and sitting upright against the bars in the corner of his crib.
“Morning, Manda. Shouldn’t you be at school?”
“I told them I couldn’t finish orientation.” ...
2022-03-31 15:15:18 +0000 UTC View PostThere’s something weird about being me (besides me). It’s a catch-22: the things I like most and the things I dislike most are different and the same and often on the same day. Like that little black bag. Mary was going to use its contents to discipline me for my less than honest truth, but also to reward me for being a g...
2022-03-28 21:01:00 +0000 UTC View Post“Hey!” Amanda called out as she entered the house. She’d been looking forward to this all day. Daydreaming at school, she pictured walking in the door and Jamie running into her arms. Instead she found her mom and Jamie on the couch. He was resting his head on her chest with his eyes closed, his paci in his mouth, and h...
2022-03-28 01:05:44 +0000 UTC View Post“Leemee lone. I wun sleep.”
“Daphne, it’s time to get up for church. Come on. Up you get,” Her Holiness prodded me.
“I’m tired.”
“We went to bed on time, and literally all you have to do it roll over and watch on the iPad.”
She oversimplifies everything. I’d have to roll over, sit...
2022-03-25 12:01:05 +0000 UTC View Post“Hi, I’m …” Becky’s heart leapt to her throat as her ears were assaulted by Jamie’s unrestrained sobbing.
Her voice filled with alarm, she raised it to be heard. “WHAT’S HAPPENING? WHY IS HE SCREAMING?” Becky didn’t wait for an answer; she dropped her purse and quick-stepped to Jamie’s nursery, pas...
2022-03-24 23:31:29 +0000 UTC View Post“How are you feeling,” Amanda asked Jamie.
“Fine, really.”
“You were better at lying when you got here. Or I’m better at seeing through you. It’s okay to be nervous.”
“It really is fine. It’s just for a day. Not even a whole day.”
“But it’s the first time you won’t be with e...
2022-03-22 22:11:50 +0000 UTC View PostI was asleep when the Rooneys got home, but I don’t think for very long. The sound of the door from the garage to the kitchen woke me up, and I bounced into the kitchen as though I’d been awake the whole time. Parents like the babysitter awake the whole time even when they’re out late. My ability to look awake alert whe...
2022-03-18 21:53:00 +0000 UTC View Post“This was a good idea,” Becky said. Jamie sat upright in his stroller watching the houses pass by. He’d yet to leave the house except by car. Now he was seeing his neighborhood. The size of everything no longer impressed him. The neighborhood had a suburban quality to it, wide lawns and fenced back yards. Occasionally a...
2022-03-18 18:19:57 +0000 UTC View Post“I didn’t do anything,” Katelyn protested. She couldn’t believe she was even having to defend herself, and it was so embarrassing to be scolded like a child in front of Bertie. She was twenty years old!
“I heard you,” her stepmother, Rosemary rejoined. “I heard you calling him names and making fun.”
<... 2022-03-15 01:12:56 +0000 UTC View PostJamie had his morning nap after his bath. Amanda let him sleep longer in case he wanted to be with her and her friends for the afternoon.
“Where’s Becky?”
“You’re just now noticing?”
“Well, I’m good at other things besides noticing.”
“She’s at school for a meeting. She’ll be hom...
2022-03-12 17:16:39 +0000 UTC View Post“Hey,” I said as I woke up to someone stroking my hair. “You been there the whole time?”
“Yeah,” the hair stroker said. “Sandy is going to bring one by and leave it on the doorstep.”
“I don’t have covid,” I told Mary. “But thank you.” I wasn’t short of breath, coughing, wheezing, stuffe...
2022-03-10 12:00:06 +0000 UTC View Post“I need to go to the grocery store this morning. Wanna come,” Amanda asked. Today was the day Jamie could eat soft solids again, and he looked forward to chewing his lunch. “You can help pick out some things for yourself.”
“Yeah! I never thought I’d get tired of pudding, but I’m through with it.” Pudding...
2022-03-09 23:57:17 +0000 UTC View Post“Honey, you can’t keep doing this.” Tish watched Cheryl bag up another departure’s belongings. She was out cold in the waiting area, ready for her trip.
“What? I’m not doing anything.”
“O, so you’re not sitting in your office with the door closed 7 hours a day? And you didn’t lose ten pounds in...
2022-03-08 13:12:43 +0000 UTC View PostWe left the town I grew up in and drove about thirty minutes. I grew up in the suburbs, so all that means is we took the highway part-way around the city. Not my first time to that part of town but a place I rarely went to growing up. In other words, where I probably wouldn’t know anybody. I hadn’t lived in my hometown fo...
2022-03-06 18:45:54 +0000 UTC View Post
“You’re handsome when you’re cleaned up,” I complimented him. It was sincere too. He’s not hot beach bod guy, but he’s got a definite boyish charm with the baby face and slender frame. The thick bedtime diaper bulge in his pajamas made him look even more slender and small. I could see his diaper bulge earlier when...
2022-03-04 12:01:02 +0000 UTC View PostWhen they got back home, they emptied out the car into the driveway to shake out the sand before putting things away.
“Why don’t you go wait in your room while we take care of this. You look a little overheated,” Becky said. He did feel flushed. He wasn’t sunburnt, but he had a glow, felt more than seen. The sun...
2022-03-03 12:00:04 +0000 UTC View Post
“Let’s get you into a fresh diaper,” I told Gordy as the twenty-year-old stood awkwardly wrapped in a towel. “Which one do you wanna wear?”
“Those are for bedtime,” he said and pointed sheepishly to the thickest diaper under his changing table. I never thought about daytime diapers versus nighttime ones be...
2022-03-02 00:42:19 +0000 UTC View PostI was expecting Sara to have laid out a pullup for me, but instead I found a sweater, leggings, fuzzy socks, and panties. Granted, they were my unicorn panties, but I could live with that. Even more shocking when I got downstairs was Mary – ahem, Sara – had two bowls, milk, and several choices of cereal on the table.
<... 2022-02-28 03:07:22 +0000 UTC View PostWhen Jamie had tired himself, he allowed the current to wash him back in, surfing the waves that carried him and bracing for the ones that broke over him. When he was close to them, he righted himself and swam lazily back to Amanda and Becky. A small crowd had gathered on the beach.
“Here,” Amanda shouted when he wa...
2022-02-26 23:04:08 +0000 UTC View Post
It’s not like I was looking. It was just there, suddenly and without warning (as befits a twenty-year-old boy’s control over that appendage). Thank goodness he couldn’t see me seeing it thanks to the perfectly timed nose blowing on his part.
The male plumbing system is a two-in-one deal. All I knew about Gordy’s...
2022-02-24 12:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostEvery year, Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday until it’s over, and then Christmas takes the top spot. Since we usually don’t travel for Christmas, our tradition is Christmas Eve at Mary’s brother’s house, Christmas morning just the two of us (and church, unless we went on Christmas Eve), and Christmas dinner at her ...
2022-02-22 12:01:01 +0000 UTC View PostJamie didn’t know what to say or how to act with a regressed little, nor was he sure what about a regressed little made him so uncomfortable.
Perhaps it was the notion that while he could very clearly see the difference between a regressed little and himself, many and maybe even most bigs would see him as being essent...
2022-02-21 12:00:04 +0000 UTC View Post
See the attached drawing by JuiceBox (patreon.com/juiceboxart; @JuiceBox_Art on Twitter).
___________________________
We make mistakes in life. I am certainly not immune. As a for instance, I put Mary in charge and gave her full disciplinary control. ...
2022-02-20 13:56:09 +0000 UTC View PostChristmas Eve, the night of the extended family Christmas party. The halls are bedecked. The mood is jolly. Uncle Joseph is lording over the hot toddy pot lest anyone other than himself venture to suggest they know how to make them. My mom won’t stop hosting and actually eat some of the food she cooked. Dad is holding court...
2022-02-19 12:01:00 +0000 UTC View Post“What are we doing today,” Jamie asked after his breakfast of pureed fruit. It felt good to be back on something other than liquids, though he really liked the formula. Still, he missed chewing, something he’d never even thought of before, and that was still several weeks away.
“I don’t know yet,” Becky repl...
2022-02-17 18:00:05 +0000 UTC View Post
Gordy wasn’t in any hurry to get off my lap, which was for the best. If he had stood up, he’d probably have gotten the floor and me a wet. At least that sort of answered the mystery of whether he constantly dribbles or empties himself all at once. He just laid draped over my lap having himself a cry, and I let him. What w...
2022-02-16 12:00:05 +0000 UTC View Post“I can’t believe you did that,” I told my wife because I couldn’t believe she’d do that. I mean, honestly, get some manners, Mary!
“You can, too, believe I did that,” was her astute if not very clever response because, well, yes, I can believe she’d smack me on the butt in the airport. More than once (ma...
2022-02-14 23:01:01 +0000 UTC View Post
