Chapters 26 and 27 by Sofia Hammerstein

Two years ago Stacy visited a newly discovered dimension, with his parents, on an adventurous summer vacation. He was astounded by how the other dimension's technology was decades ahead of his own! During his senior year he applied to Emerson University in the city he had visited. He was excited and hopeful of learning more about their technology as an exchange student, and hopefully bring it back to his own world. (Story set in the Diaper Dimension)

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The Legal Stuff: Exchanged © 2017-2024 By Sofia Hammerstein
 
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
 

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission.
 
 

Chapter 26: Elevated
 

IT MUST HAVE been about a fifteen-minute drive before she pulled into a parking space and came to the door to get me. Fred was right there to grab the diaper bag. I had been about to leave Elena in the car when she said, “Bring your bear with you.”

“Okay,” I told her.

“Did you name her yet?”

I looked up at her and squeezed my bear tighter, “Elena,” I told her.

“What a pretty name for your bear,” she told me with a squeeze as we walked inside.

I looked around the upscale restaurant and noted the name, ‘3lev4t3d’ used leet speak for some reason. ‘Was Elevated already taken? Or does the 343 have some significance?’ I wondered to myself. A man dressed in an expensive suit stood as the Maître’D. “How many tonight?”

“Two plus our little girl here,” Fred said.

“Please follow me,” he said a moment later after fiddling on a computer screen. We were led to a small table with booth benches on either side. I watched as a waitress appeared from the side and placed a very nice-looking wooden high chair next to the table. Amanda put my feet in the appropriate holes and cinched the waist strap down before placing a bib on me. I was still holding onto Elena then when Amanda gently pulled her from my grasp and sat her next to my diaper bag.

“She’s able to behave properly?” The waitress asked nervously while glancing at me.

“Yes, she’s not going to be a disturbance to other guests,” Fred said to her.

“Very good Sir, and Ma’am,” the lady said, and I watched as a basket of bread was placed on the table far out of my reach. Amanda and Fred both munched on pieces in front of me, and I couldn’t help but have my stomach grumble and feel this was unfair. Iced teas were brought for them upon their request, but I remained ignored still other than an occasional pat on the head from Amanda.

“Have you decided?” A waiter appeared and asked about ten minutes later.

“Yes, I’ll have the Veal Parmesan,” Amanda said.

“And I’ll have your New York Steak,” Fred said.

“How would you like that cooked?”

“Medium rare, please,” he told him.

“And which meal would you like your little girl to share?”

“She’ll have the Veal with me,” Amanda said.

“Excellent, ma’am.”

I sat there squirming a bit and thought about begging for a piece of bread or something but thought better of it. Something about Amanda’s earlier warning… and something else just left a niggling in my brain that made me worry. I looked around and noticed only two other babies or Littles present. One seemed to be an actual baby, and the other was a Little. Both seemed to be getting fed from a bowl next to their mothers.

As I continued to look around, Amanda presented a bottle to me and said, “Here, let this take a little bit off of that grumbling stomach.”

I looked at the bottle and knew instantly it was breast milk and began nursing it. It wasn’t as good as straight from the source, but it was still pretty tasty, so I nursed at it without a word. I wondered about the rest of dinner while I sucked at the bottle; something about the restaurant just seemed ‘off.’ About the time I had finished my bottle, they turned up with two delicious-looking plates for Fred and Amanda.

Fred’s steak was one of the tastiest-looking meats I had ever seen cooked. It was also the largest piece of steak I’d ever seen on a plate! I believed I had seen prime rib roasts smaller than the steak on his plate was… It came with a baked potato, and my mouth watered at the sight of it. I looked at Amanda’s plate and saw a nice-looking plate of veal parmesan with pasta covered in a red meat sauce that would make any Italian restaurant proud.

Then I noticed the bowl.

Inside, the bowl looked like a red pasty mush with little bits of white sticking out. The mush had a liquid consistency to it that made my stomach turn. The more I looked, though, it looked like something that had been put through a blender… or was on the bottom of the Little I had just seen on the changing table. My stomach turned as I now understood what she meant about the meal. A baby spoon was pulled out of the diaper bag, and she asked, “Ready to give your din-din a try?”

I made a face, and she whispered, “It’s exactly what I have; it’s just been pureed.” My glare seemed to not affect her as she gathered a spoonful up and said, “Open up for the train Princess.”

I debated not doing so, but I remembered that this mush would be worth two weeks of coffee… ‘Was it worth that?’ I thought to myself.

Amanda gave me a look that can only be given by a mommy… so I opened my mouth, and she smiled at me, “Good girl!”

As the mush landed on my tongue, I had a flashback to the little bit of the disgusting stuff I’d tried from Elena’s meal back home and nearly gagged! Fortunately, this only had the texture in common. The truth was that if you could get past the mushiness of the bite, the flavor was fantastic! With each spoonful, I didn’t have anything to chew, so I just kind of swirled it around my mouth for a moment and swallowed.

“Is that good?” She asked me in a singsong voice.

I shrugged and nodded, “It’s weird.” I said quietly. Somehow the restaurant felt like a place that didn’t want Littles speaking whatsoever.

“The chef here is one of the best in our region… He believes Littles should be fed well… but just that they can’t be trusted not to choke on their food whole,” she told me as she spooned another mouthful of the mush into my mouth.

The texture clashed with the taste so much I just forced myself to pretend I had chewed it to that consistency myself. One spoon at a time, I was given the goop from the bowl until Amanda said, “What a good baby girl, you ate it all!”

I glared at her because I swore the bowl was bigger before. I was still hungry and felt my stomach grumble in complaint. Just as I was about to say something, though, the waiter came back and asked, “Was the meal to everyone’s satisfaction?”

I looked longingly at the eighth of a massive piece of veal that still lay on her plate. “Yes, it was, thank you.” Amanda said before asking, “This is our first time here with our Little. Is it alright if I nurse her here?”

The man laughed, “Of course it’s okay. It’s the natural order of things, and we wouldn’t expect anything less here!”

“Thanks,” Amanda said, somewhat red.

“Would you care for dessert while you provide dessert for your daughter?”

I squirmed in my own embarrassment now. “Please, I’ll have the chocolate dessert you have listed here,” Amanda said.

“I’ll take the slice of cheesecake,” Fred said from the other side.

“Right away! Would you like me to box the rest of that for you?” He asked Amanda looking at the same leftovers I wanted. “Or I can puree it and put it in a jar for your daughter to have for another meal?

“Just box it, please,” she said, “it’ll make a nice snack later after I put her to bed.”

The man took the plate with him back to the back. As soon as he had the plate clear, Amanda unsnapped the buckle at my waist and picked me up. “I know you’re still hungry, sweetie, nurse from me, and I’ll let you have the rest of the leftovers at home later.”

I looked up at her and said, “Thanks.”

She presented me with the fleshy orb, and my mind went to a halt while my mouth did all the thinking I was capable of at that moment. My hunger at least seemed to take a back seat after her first breast had given all it had. I was zoned out from the milk as she burped me and placed me at her other breast.

As I nursed, she must have received her dessert because other than an occasional pet of my hair or pat to my back, her right arm seemed to be on the table. “You have one of the best-behaved Littles I have ever seen come in here,” a deep man’s voice different from the waiter sounded in my ear.

“She is a good girl,” Amanda agreed.

“How did she like her meal?”

“I think she liked the taste of it… but honestly, I don’t normally puree her meals or feed her baby food - so I think the texture was a battle for her.”

“She normally eats solids? Are you sure that’s wise?”

I kept nursing at her breast, trying to contain my embarrassment.

I felt Amanda nod, “We know she needs some care, but we see no reason to rub it in her face by pretending she isn’t a little bit of an adult. Normally I wouldn’t bring her here and subject her to that, but I knew you would be pureeing the same I was eating… I knew it wouldn’t be the disgusting jarred food, at least.”

“You have some interesting views, Madame,” the voice said. “But I can’t deny you have a beautiful and well-behaved Little there. Next time you are here, let them know I said she could have the preschool version of the meal.”

“Umm… thanks,” Amanda said.

“Anytime, I hope to see you dine with us again.”

Her breast ran out just then, and I kept nursing for a moment. Finally, she broke my suction and placed me on her shoulder, saying, “He’s gone, Princess.” Then, I let out a burp as she patted my back, and she added. “You seem to have made an impression somehow, though!”

She placed a pacifier in my mouth and then settled me back into the crook for her arm as she reached for another bite of her dessert. “That’s all I can eat, I think, Fred; you ready to go?”

“Sure, sweetheart, see you at home?”

Amanda stood up and moved me to a position against her shoulder where I could just see behind her. A new Little and his family had been seated and had just received their food.

“Matty, you need to eat your din-din,” the woman said to him.

“No, I’m not eating that disgusting ass!”

I just spotted the Little being ripped from the highchair, and his diaper was removed to bare his naked butt to the entire world. Then, I heard the first smacks of a painful spanking as we cleared the dining area. ‘This place is crazy!’

Back at the car, I was feeling sleepy from the breast milk as Amanda checked my diaper. “Hmm… better change you now…” she said before repeating the process of opening my diaper up in a parking lot along a crowded street. It caused my face to turn red, knowing that any stranger who passed by was getting an unrestricted view of my new parts that I had barely seen. However, she didn’t waste time changing me into one of my thicker diapers.

“There, all dry!” She told me, and I just kept nursing the pacifier as she lay me in the carrier, moved my arms into the harness, and decided to take a nap on the way home.

 

BACK HOME I woke as Amanda had just pulled into the garage. I stretched in the seat as much as I could and waited for her to come to get me. “Oh, so you are awake?” She asked as she opened the door.

I nodded, “I don’t seem to be falling in quite as deep of a sleep from your milk every time now.”

“You hungry now?” She asked me.

I shook my head, “I do want to try that meal in a non-pureed form, but I’m pretty full right now.”

“Just let me know later if you get hungry, and we’ll heat that up for you,” she said as she carried me into the kitchen and then set me down on the ground.

“Thanks,” I told her looking up at her face seemingly way above me.

“So…”

“So what?” I asked.

“Want to see if Mommy made the right adapter for the TV to play your video games?” She asked just as Fred came in.

He laughed, “I really am going to have to watch you two; you’re going to feed off of each other!”

“You’re just jealous!” Amanda said.

“Of what?”

“She likes video games and not boring things like football!”

“What?” I asked. “I like football too?”

She looked at me and stuck her tongue out at me, “Traitor,” she muttered and suddenly picked me up. She tickled me mercilessly for a moment before letting up. “So video games?”

I nodded, “Okay.”

She sat me down on the couch and went upstairs to her work area before returning with the two consoles in the bags I had brought them in. “Which one should we try first?” She asked me.

“What kind of games do you like?”

“Shooters?” She asked hesitantly.

“So, you’re okay with me playing them?” I asked hopefully.

“I won’t tell your Granny if you won’t?” She suggested with a smile.

I laughed, “Okay, get it hooked up, and I’ll get the game going.”

I was kind of trapped on the couch with the floor looking a long way down. ‘Real babies manage to climb and jump just fine!’ I reminded myself at the drop, crawled to the edge, and took a leap down. It was almost scary how long I felt like I was in the air on the way down, but I landed safely with an ‘oof.’

“Stacy!” Amanda looked at me, “Are you okay?” She asked worriedly.

“I’m fine; real babies get around just fine when they’re this size,” I told her.

“Not really; when they’re your size, they can usually barely sit up!!!”

“Are we going to play or not?” I asked her as I dug through the consoles bag I brought and found the case of games I brought with me.

She shook her head, “I must be crazy.”

Then I noticed we might have a problem, as the controllers seemed just a smidge larger than back home for my hands but positively tiny for hers. “Umm… we might have a problem,” I said as I held up the controller.

“Nope!” She said as she held up her own controller that looked identical but sized for her hands. “I made one for myself, so no excuses for your butt getting whupped on the game.”

I looked at her like she had grown another head… “Are…?” I started to ask but shook my head and said, “Okay, put this in the disc tray, and we should be good to go.”

I looked at the patch of wires and the adapter she had assembled, and it looked like something that could have been purchased at the store. The same was true of her controller that looked factory built. When she sat next to me, I watched as hers and mine easily connected to the console wirelessly. “How did you make those?”

“I have a printer upstairs that can make just about anything if I give it the plans to do so. From the plastic all the way down to circuits,” she told me.

“Cool!” I said.

She gave me a sideways squeeze and kissed my head, “So what’s this game?”

In the end, I had settled on the latest Call of Duty game that had come out just before I had packed. I hadn’t played much, but it was similar enough to all of the past titles that the little I had played, I felt confident I could beat the newbie. We settled on a team match at first, and I was more than slightly surprised by how confidently she played. In the end, I won over her in points, but not by as much as I should have.

“Okay, you two, Daddy thinks it’s time for Stacy to have her bath, and Mommy needs to go night-night.” I heard as we had finished another round.

“Huh?” Amanda asked at the same time as me.

“Oh boy… you two are going to have to have some limits set. You’re both way too alike!” he muttered.

I looked at the clock and said, “Oh, we’ve been playing that long?”

Amanda stiffened, “Oops… Sorry, honey,” she told him with a smile. She held her hand out for me to hand her my controller. I watched her place both of them on top of the TV before powering down the PlayStation.

She gathered me up and said, “Good thing you have a thick diapee on! I guess I probably need to go myself before I need those!” She giggled as she tickled my feet and carried me upstairs to the bathroom. Amanda set me down on the floor and pulled the skirt of her dress up, and then removed it all the way, leaving only her underwear on. I watched morbidly as she pulled her panties down and sat down on the toilet and felt jealousy over being able to do so. She didn’t take long to begin sending urine into the toilet bowl, and I had to wonder if she wasn’t joking about nearly having an accident of her own!

“Ahhh,” she said contentedly.

I watched her wipe, flush, then wash her hands before she turned her attention to the bathtub. She turned the nobs and added some bubble bath before turning to me and saying, “Turn around for Mommy.”

I did as she asked, and she undid the buttons that held the back of my dress closed and untied the ribbon at the back as well. I felt her fiddle with my hair for a moment before she used her fingers to get the braids completely loose. While I was still standing, she reached and undid the tapes of my diaper, leaving me now naked. With a quick grab under my arms, she sat me in the tub that was already filling. I noticed that it was fuller than it had been the last time. I watched as Amanda undid her bra and froze as she climbed in the tub with me. She sat down with her back to the wall of the tub, and I found myself picked up and sitting down on her legs that stretched out now.

“Mommy wants to take a bath with you,” she told me with a smile and a touch of my nose.

I was kind of dumbfounded at this point and couldn’t help but have my eyes drawn to look at her body. A couple days before, I was pretty sure that I would have been aroused at this sight, but now I just looked at an adult body and wished I wasn’t as small as I was. She really was pretty, I decided. Before I could really see anything through the bubbles, though, she began washing me from top to bottom. Especially my bottom found itself getting plenty of attention, as she seemed determined to have a clean baby…

She washed my hair gently, and I sat with my hair dripping as she began soaping up her own body and washing. I contented myself with playing with some bath crayons on the side of the tub when she started to go lower on her body. It didn’t mean as much when I had the same parts…

When she was done, she hugged me to her body and said, “I’m so glad you came here!”

“Thanks… I think,” I told Amanda with a smile.

She laughed and squeezed me before turning me in her arms to present me with her breast. “Three times a day, huh?” I asked.

“Please?” she asked.

I sighed, “I’m going to get fat!”

With that thought, I turned my head and latched on to nurse. A few moments later, I felt my bladder lose control and knew I had to have just peed on her. As if to confirm that I heard Fred’s laugh.

I squirmed a bit, but she held me there, saying, “It’s just a little pee; Mommy doesn’t mind,” she said.

I shrugged and kept nursing, hoping that a bit of pee wouldn’t become something else… at least for her sake. As I finished, I was in that drunken state as she rinsed us off one more time and carried me down the hallway to the nursery. I was barely aware of my surroundings as I was diapered and placed in another nightgown. Sometime between the change and the crib, I found myself asleep.

 
 

Chapter 27: Encounters
 

THE NEXT MORNING, I found myself on the changing table; Amanda was stripping me of a wet diaper. “So, you decided to join us, huh?” She asked me as my eyes fluttered open, and I wiped the sleep from my eyes while trying not to panic.

“What time is it?” I asked as I yawned.

“Eight, you slept really good last night!” She told me with a smile before she grabbed my ankles and I felt my bottom awkwardly held in the air as she pushed my knees towards my face. A cold baby wipe traversed my bottom, and I was sat on a new diaper that I could instantly tell without looking was one of the princess ones.

I sighed, “What are we doing today?” I asked.

“Well, we’ll get breakfast in that tummy of yours first, and then we’re going to go take back the rest of the clothes that don’t fit on that teeny tiny body of yours… Maybe we’ll go find some other pretty outfits too while we’re at it.”

I groaned, “More shopping?”

“What’s wrong with shopping?” She asked me as she dressed me in a romper that barely had parts to call legs; it was so short!

“Besides seeing all of the constant hideous torture that other Littles endure every time I turn around?”

She froze with one hand on my leg and another snapping the crotch of the romper up. “What do you mean?”

I sighed, “It’s like seeing a living nightmare most of the time, you know?” She looked at me, “You’ve been great, and while I spend most of the time truly embarrassed… when you treat me the way you do, you at least still treat me like a human. Some of those poor people,” I shuddered. “I mean the things your sister alone seems to like doing?”

She gathered me in her arms, kissed my forehead, and hugged me, “I hope you realize how lucky you got that we were being honest with you?”

I nodded, “I do.”

“Come on, let’s get some shoes on those feet, and we’ll get you downstairs to your latte.”

I grinned at that, “Thanks.”

I was sat down in the now-familiar high chair, bibbed, and the bottle of hope was sat on the tray in front of me. I quickly nursed about half of it down before paying attention to the bowl of baby cereal she held on a spoon in front of my mouth. I groaned but had a hard time complaining when she was at least acceding to my need for coffee! I took about five bites before guzzling part of the bottle to wash the taste down and repeated until the bottle was empty, but a little bit remained in the bowl.

“Almost done,” she told me as she spooned some of the last of the paste in my mouth.

I sighed, “You do realize this stuff tastes terrible, right?”

“You got your bottle of latte, right?” she asked with the spoon raised next to my mouth.

I nodded nervously.

“Then don’t whine and open up.”

I sighed and finished the last four spoons of the gray mush and craved anything to wash it down. Amanda seemed to understand because she unbuckled me and promptly presented me with her flesh. I just latched on without saying anything and nursed. The mush had left me feeling mostly still hungry for something good to eat, but between the latte bottle and the mush, I slowed before I finished her first breast.

She sighed, “You’re going to make me go pump, huh?”

I looked guiltily up at her briefly before she placed me on her shoulder to burp me, felt my dry diaper, and sat me down in my walker. “Be a good girl while Mommy finishes,” she told me.

She walked over to the kitchen table again, and I watched semi-curiously as she pulled out an electric pump and settled it over her breast. I did feel a little bad she had to do that since it looked uncomfortable. I turned my attention away and looked outside as best I could to see if I could see what was making the motor noise. I could just make out Fred seeming to move about on a riding lawn mower in the front yard through the tall windows. I pushed my feet and the walker along towards the coffee table and could see one of the study guides there. The walker made it really tough to find a way to grab it as it kept the table out of my reach.

She had placed the toys back on the walker, which gave me an idea. Since I knew they popped out, I tried to see if I could get one loose to extend my reach. I tilted a couple of them, and they made noise and wondered if Amanda would now be watching me. I looked over to her, and she seemed intent on switching out a full bag of milk from the pump. Since I had only seen her pump her one breast, I silently wondered just how much each breast gave me when I nursed!

Turning my attention back to the walker toys, I was finally able to pull out one loose! It was a long bead bar that gave me just enough reach that I was able to pull at the book.

‘The walker is short enough; maybe I can wedge it under the table…’ I thought to myself. I pushed it more towards the table, and sure enough, it slid under. I used the bar to reach and successfully pulled the book onto my lap!

“What are you doing?!?” I heard Amanda ask in a panicked voice next to me.

“Getting my book?” I responded to her and saw how worried her face looked.

“You could hurt yourself!” She told me.

“I’m fine,” I told her…

She pushed the table off the walker and the walker further away. “Don’t do that again! The table might have collapsed the walker!”

I thought about it for a second and thought it unlikely but not impossible, “Sorry… I figured it was sturdier than that.”

She sighed, “I’m going to finish pumping – you behave!”

“Yes, Mommy…” I said in a small, contrite voice.

She turned and walked away, and I resumed my original plan and opened the book up. I decided to skip the sections I had tested well on and went straight to the ‘Basic Reasoning’ section that had been my downfall yesterday. It was essentially an IQ test from what I could gather and forced you to find patterns in letters and shapes that varied from easy to ridiculous. I knew I was above average for intelligence, but some of this stuff felt tough.

I had just made it through a couple of more challenging examples when my belly made a rumble, and I had to groan. I could barely touch the floor with my feet in the walker, and I had a feeling this would feel worse than usual. I was pretty sure there wasn’t going to be an opportunity to get out of it before my body had to do something. Sure enough, a cramp hit, and I tried to pinch off my sphincter! Instead, I just felt liquidly mush enter my diaper. I groaned and just forced it all out.

I sat there in a daze in the messy diaper. The smell began quickly wafting to my nose, making me wince. Even worse, its stickiness was squished to my skin by the seat of the walker. I looked up to Amanda, who was still pumping, and she took note of my face. “Did you make a big poopy for Mommy?”

I felt tears rolling down my eyes from embarrassment but nodded.

“Just give me a few more minutes here, sweetie, and I’ll get you all nice and clean.”

I wanted to complain about it but instead just rolled a few steps closer to her before thinking better of it. Every time I shifted my weight on the ground from one foot to the other to propel myself, it just squished more. I felt gross as it seemed to make its way into my new parts, too, and the light tears down my face began streaming down.

“Oh, it’s okay, baby,” Amanda said, looking at me. She looked down at the pump and switched it off, sealed the bag of milk, and cleaned up the contraption in the sink. I found my eyes gazing on a clock that hung in the kitchen. The hands moved slowly, and every time I looked up, it seemed like it hadn’t moved at all! Finally, Amanda came over to me ten minutes later and lifted me out of the walker. “Let’s go get my poopy Princess all cleaned up,” she soothed.

She did her best to reassure me, “It’s okay, baby,” and seemed to not accept how awful the situation was until we were upstairs and reality hit her. The moment she opened up the diaper, I could see her face grimace, letting me know that even she was a little bit daunted by the mess within it! I counted as she used more wipes than she had before. “Good thing I put you in one of your princess diapers, Stacy; otherwise, I think it would have ruined your pretty romper!”

“It’s disgusting!” I told her as she snapped the romper closed.

“You…”

“Knew what I was getting into… yeah,” I said along. “Can you please not put me in anything that’s going to squish my poop in the mornings?”

She looked thoughtful but nodded, “It is way easier to clean you up if you’re not playing in your poopy diapee.”

“I wasn’t!” I started to say but was interrupted by the pacifier placed in my mouth.

“Now stop being a grouchy-guts and let’s go have a fun mommy-daughter shopping day!”

I said nothing but just nursed the pacifier as she gathered up the usual stuff to take a baby out… ‘At least she’s nice about it,’ I reminded myself.

After a quick ride in my car seat, we arrived at the first baby store we had been to the day that I arrived. I spit out my pacifier while I waited for her to come around. She didn’t say a word but placed it back in a cover and inside my bulging diaper bag. She carried me to a cart, strapped me in, set a blanket behind me like her mother had, and then walked back to the car with it. I watched as she pulled out four boxes of diapers that were too big of a size, a massive pile of outfits, and a pack of the huge bottles that apparently hadn’t been opened.

The store’s doors opened, and an attendant waited by it, “Returns?” The brown-haired In-Betweener asked.

“Yes,” Amanda answered.

“Go over to customer service there,” she instructed us.

“Thanks,” Amanda said and pushed the cart to a line, several people, long. I looked down behind me as much as I could and saw one Little with a monkey-shaped child harness on him so he couldn’t run away. He only wore a shirt and the harness, so you could easily see the brown and drooping diaper that was definitely in need of a change.

The Little looked up at me and seemed to concentrate for a moment on me. I waved at the boy, looking shocked before waving back at me. His ‘mommy’ turned and faced us, “Oh my god, she is so adorable!”

“Thanks,” Amanda said, “So is yours,” she added politely.

“Not like your little girl… hmm… maybe that’s what we should do?”

I gulped as a look came into her eyes, and she looked at her Little. The man opened his mouth in a smile, and I had knots in my stomach twist as I realized all of his teeth had been removed. She picked him up and said, “Can you say hi to the baby girl?”

He waved, and I think he tried to say hi, but something was wrong, and I could see the look of frustration on his face. I watched as he put his head on her shoulder as hard as he could, and a fist flew. A quick swat to his bottom was apparently all she felt necessary to remind him not to do that. “Don’t do that, baby boy. I’m not in the mood!”

He whimpered, and she told Amanda, “You know her smile is adorable, but take those teeth out, and I guarantee it’s a lot easier on you.”

“Umm… thanks for the advice,” Amanda said as thankfully the crazy lady was next and taken up at the register. She sat her Little down on the counter, and I mouthed, ‘Sorry’ to him. He smiled at me before plunking his thumb in his mouth.

I felt Amanda kiss the top of my head, “Don’t worry, no matter how much bad parenting advice I get, I’m not going to do any of that.”

“Thank you,” I told her quietly.

“Next!” A shrill voice called, and Amanda pushed us forward a little way down the counter from where the boy sat. I looked at a lady that looked disheveled and generally like an angry woman no one wanted to piss off.

“What can I do for you?” she asked Amanda as we approached.

“Well, I planned for adopting a little girl… just not one as little as she ended up being,” Amanda said with a smile.

The lady paused for a moment, and her angry demeanor changed, “Oh, I see what you mean; she’s adorable, though! Did you catch her trying to play grownup?” She said the last part to me in as demeaning a baby voice as I could imagine.

“Something like that,” Amanda agreed.

“I’m surprised no one caught her right at her high school graduation…” the lady said. “Anyway, I’m guessing you want to return these items. Do you have a receipt?”

I sat there as they then talked without involving me at all. Amanda had receipts for most everything but a couple items. “If you want, you can just exchange those diapees for the right size?” She suggested.

“Sure, it’s not like they’ll go to waste!” Amanda said with a smile and tickled my side.

I grew impatient with all of this and remembered her first warning. Deciding discretion was the better part of valor; I stuck my thumb in my mouth to keep myself from saying something I shouldn’t. Apparently, that must have been the right thing to do because it earned me a small hug.

“How long have you had her?”

“About a week now?”

“What did you do to get her to take to her thumb so willingly?” She asked as we waited for another employee to grab the right-sized diapers to swap them out. “Hypnosis? Just spanking her?”

I sensed Amanda growing kind of annoyed too as she told her the truth, “Honestly, I told her the first time we went into a store that if she felt like she couldn’t keep herself from saying something, we’d regret to put her thumb in her mouth. So I told her if I sensed it coming, I’d put her paci in her mouth,” She smiled at me. “Want your paci?”

I nodded and accepted the pacifier without saying anything.

“Well, if you want to keep it a secret, I understand. The method if you patent it is probably worth a fortune!” the woman said as a tall guy made it up to where we were, somehow balancing all four new boxes in his arms. “So, with the diapers exchanged… the rest means we’ll put three-hundred-and-forty back on your card?”

“Please,” Amanda said and quickly signed the receipt to accept it back to the account.

She pushed me and the diapers back out to the car and gave me a solid hug. “Sorry, sweetie…”

“This is what I meant… I have a little bit of a reason to hate shopping, right?”

Amanda gave me a small smile, “I guess a little one.”

 

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