All My Mother's Rules

Chapter 42: Open Wider

"Open wider."

Mom had taken a seat on the left side of the couch with a pillow propped up against the armrest. I laid down on my back across her lap, with my head propped up and resting against the pillow. I didn't want the bottle she was now holding up to my face with her right hand, but the baby food had made me thirsty.

I hesitated a moment while Mom held the tip of the bottle in front of my lips, but eventually followed her request and opened my mouth. The liquid inside the bottle looked almost indistinguishable from milk, but I was leery about how it would taste. I took my first tentative sip from the bottle. And basically, nothing came out. Just a tiny squirt of warm liquid that tasted like bland, slightly sweetened milk.

The need to quench my thirst overwhelmed my sense of shame at being fed like this. I sucked enthusiastically on the bottle, falling into a steady rhythm as Mom continued to hold the bottle at an increasingly higher angle to ensure that I got every last drop while using her other hand to rub gently on my head. I had no way of knowing exactly how long it took me to finish drinking from the bottle, as I couldn't see any clocks from the angle I was lying at, but it was a lot of effort for how little I had ended up drinking.

"Aww, you did such a good job with your bottle," Mom said when I had emptied it at last.

She set the bottle aside, replaced it right away with the pacifier, and gave my cheeks a gentle pinch.

"I think mommy needs to check if her baby girl needs a diaper change.

I reflexively tried to squeeze my legs together as Mom lifted up the front of my dress, but the diaper was too swollen up now for that to make any difference. She slid her hand underneath my leggings all the way down to the middle of the diaper. I could feel the warmth from the urine as she pressed her hand firmly against the most soaked part of the diaper and gave it a brief squeeze.

"Better get you in a clean diapey quickly. I bet you are going to go potty again soon from that bottle, and I don't think it could hold any more."

I lowered myself from the couch onto the floor, ready to crawl all the way across the house to get changed in the bedroom. By the time I got there, Mom already had all the diaper-changing supplies arranged on the bed.

Mom pulled my dress off over my head and removed my leggings completely as well. Without the leggings to support the diaper, I was finally able to see that it really had gotten right up to the point of leaking. Even the smallest additional accident would have been more than it could handle. I cooperated fully with the ensuing diaper change. Each of the cold baby wipes that Mom ran across my skin felt like a massive relief, even though I knew that it wouldn't be long before the fresh diaper she put me in would be wet. I doubted I'd be able to hold out for an hour, let alone thirty minutes, this time around.

"I have some calls to make for work, so we're going to put you down for a nap until I have that all finished."

I started to roll over to get under the covers of the bed, but Mom held the covers down with her hand.

"Babies sleep in a crib, not a big girl bed."

I looked over at Emilia's crib. It was barely big enough for her to stretch out completely. Our bedroom was too small for anything else. I momentarily forgot what Mom had said about not talking.

"But I'm not going to be able to fit in there," I said, with the pacifier falling to the side of me on the bed.

"Of course you'll fit. Now pick up the pacifier and get in your sister's crib."

I didn't know why I suddenly felt like arguing, or why the crib was the final straw in this day of being babied, but I continued my objections.

"It's hardly big enough, even for Emilia."