All My Mother's Rules

Chapter 40: Not a Big Kid Now

 [Author's note: Have a couple of quick story updates. 

The first two chapters of my next book, "Diapers Never Lie," are out now. This novella covers Lisa's backstory.  A link to the story will be in the comments. Please note that this story is listed as mature and is darker in tone, and I've added trigger warnings in the description that you may want to consider before reading. Updates for "Diapers Never Lie" will come once a week on Fridays.

Secondly, I'm changing the update schedule for this story to be every Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday. The reason for this is I'm still working on writing the remainder of the story, and this change will allow me to continue to provide consistent updates without any large gaps between new chapters.]

Any sliver of hope that I might be too big to fit in my little sister's old highchair was dashed the moment I settled into it. Given that I was still able to get into Emilia's toddler-sized pull-ups with ease, it made sense that a toddler chair would have just enough room for me as well, though the leg divider caused my skirt to bunch up uncomfortably underneath my bottom. My feet dangled helplessly in the air. The seat of the highchair was tall enough for a young child to be elevated high enough for a parent to easily feed them. But as a teenager seated in a highchair, that meant my head would now even with my mom, who had a good five or six inches on me.

I dutifully raised my hands in the air so that Mom could bring the eating tray back down and snap it into place in front of me. While I was skinny enough to fit in the highchair, I didn't want to risk any sudden movements. I didn't trust it to remain stable with someone of my height and weight in it. I looked up from the eating tray to where Emilia was seated. She had a regular dining chair with a booster seat strapped on to it. We briefly locked eyes before I turned away again, feeling my cheeks grow warm.

"Emilia, your sister had too many potty accidents yesterday, so she's taking a break from potty training and being a baby today," Mom said, phrasing the situation as if it was somehow my decision to be treated like this. "I need you to be on your best behavior today so you could show Sarah how to be a big girl again."

I blinked away the few tears that had trickled down when I first entered the kitchen and took a long breath to steady myself. No matter how embarrassing or humiliating today was going to be, I just needed to make it through to the end, and I could focus again on finding another solution to my bladder issues.

The highchair wasn't the only baby accessory Mom had gotten out to try.

"Sarah, hold your hair up for a moment while I put this on," Mom said, as she stood next to the highchair with a Winnie-the-Pooh themed bib with Velcro straps in her hand.

I used both hands to grab my hair – I had it loose and not braided at the moment – to get it clear from my neck. Mom stretched the bib as far as she could, but she wasn't able to get the Velcro ends of it to meet at the back of my neck. That provided me with a small measure of relief. At least not every baby item was going to be able to fit me.

The highchair was turned so that I wasn't able to see what Mom was doing behind me in the kitchen, but the smell of toast gave me a hint as to what breakfast was going to be this morning. At least it was going to be finger food. Mom and I had spoon fed cereal to Emilia on numerous occasions. I didn't have any desire to gain firsthand knowledge of how embarrassing that would be.

Mom placed a sippy cup filled to the brim with orange juice on the tray in front of me and handed my sister a training cup that had handles on the sides but no lid. Mom wasn't going to miss any opportunity to make me feel younger than my sister. I sipped the juice without complaint. I tried to be careful with monitoring how much I drank – juice and soda seemed to make me need to pee the most — when I was wearing pull-ups, but with a diaper on it didn't make any difference. I had a suspicion that I would be kept fully hydrated today.