Small But Loved (Age-Regression)

Chapter Four: Chore Talk

(Chapter idea inspired by @cqimxz Thank you for your chapter suggestion. Feel free to leave more in the comments or on my page!)

Hazel POV:

Stepping out of the car, I grab a sleeping Mila and head inside. I just got off of work and there's a whole bunch of things I need to do. Cook dinner, sweep the floors, tidy up my bedroom, and give Mila a bath. With me working in an office now, I hardly have any time to keep up with the household chores. I'm kind of ashamed to admit that my house is messy.

There's dirty dishes piled up in the sink from this morning, a dirty diaper is laying on the floor beside my bed from one of Mila's late night changes, and I'm not even going to talk about the pile of dirty clothes on our laundry room floor. I'm honestly thinking about hiring a maid at this rate. 

"Kai? I'm home!" I yell throughout the house as I set the diaper bag down.

Mila's still asleep in my arms and snoring away. She fell asleep on the car ride home after refusing to take a nap earlier. My headstrong baby fought it, but the car won. It usually does.

"I'm upstairs with West. I'll be down in a minute." 

"Okay. I'm going to get some cleaning done."

Walking into the living room, I set Mila in her pack-n-play in there, then get to work. Ever since we moved here I've been the sole person to try and keep this house clean. It was fine when I was working from home, but now I need some help. I think I'm going to start assigning chores. I have three other people in this house who can help me. 

Yes, even little Mila is going to help out. There's stuff she can do and is supposed to do, but she usually doesn't. Like cleaning up her toys for example. My girl has so many toys and they tend to scatter around the house. I've stepped on like six different stuffed animals since walking in the door. 

"Kai! Get down here now!" I bellow when I walk into the kitchen and see the complete mess he made out of it.

There's snack food all over the floor and bar, a spilled glass of pop, and an open bag of chips spilling over onto the stove. No way am I cleaning this up. My kids may be spoiled, but they're going to learn to clean up after their messes. 

I can hear two sets of footsteps upstairs. It sounds like their frantic and running. Since Mila is snoring and doesn't show any signs of waking up anytime soon, I head upstairs to see what all the fuss is about. Kai's bedroom door is closed and I don't bother knocking when I enter. It's clear that those two are trying to hide something. 

I'm relived when I open the door and there's no weed smell, but the relief doesn't last long. Kai is rushing to put on his shirt and his pants are unbuckled. West only has a shirt and some underwear on. What stops me in my tracks is the rather large hickeys on the side of my sons neck. 

It's clear as day what they were doing and while I don't mind Kai experimenting, I would rather it not be in my house where my daughter can walk in on it. She's already walked in on Theo and I enough times that we've started locking the door at night. It makes me nervous because if Mila needs me, she can't just walk her chunky self out of her room.

"It's not what it looks like, Mom!" Kai rushes to say. His cheeks are red from embarrassment and I'm feeling the same way at catching them. I'm sure my cheeks are as bright as Kai's right now. 

"It's exactly what it looks like. I'm not mad at you, but we're going to have a conversation with your father when he gets home. For now, I want you to get dressed and go downstairs to clean up your mess," I pause and turn to West saying, "I think it's best that you head home for the night. We have to clean up this house before Theo returns home and I would like the conversation I'm about to have with Kai to be private. This isn't a punishment. You're still welcome in our house, West. We just need a private night."