Janice hated being treated this way. It was so humiliating.
When dinner was done, John and Denise cleared the table and cleaned up the dishes while Janice sat in her high chair watching.
John gave her a baby’s rattle to play with.
When everything was done, John removed the metal feeding tray.
Lifting her under the arms, John lifted her off the high chair’s seat and sat her on the floor.
Denise picked up her hands, lifting her to her feet.
Janice could not understand why she had trouble walking.
She did not realize that she, while at the Baby Hospital had been programmed to respond like a toddler.
Throughout her stay, as she slept, she had been sleeping learning to be a baby once again, forgetting adult things to do such as walking and talking.
Even reading and writing now does not enter her thoughts now.
Holding Janice, Denise led her to a chair, sitting down and helping Janice sit on her lap.
John looked at the couple.
He smiled. It was quite a sight seeing a grown woman, dressed as baby-sitting on the lap of a girl a foot smaller.
Denise held onto her aunt tight.
Standing in front of his infantile wife, John said,
“Janice, Dee, and I have been talking”.
“What you need is not an aunt, but a mommy”.
Smiling, he continued,
“So from now on, Dee is no longer your Auntie, she going to be your Mommy”.
Janice was horrified. Denise was going to be her mommy?
A person of younger years mothering a woman in her 30s?
This was so humiliating, the worst yet.
“Nooooo,” cried Janice, “No Ma-Ma. Me no want Ma-Ma, Da-da!”
she had been conditioned to call john Da-da.
Squeezing Janice’s cheeks hard, Denise cooed,
“That’s right, little baby. From now on, Im your mommy”.
Sitting Janice on the floor,
“Daddy’s goin to take baby to the nursery and put her in her crib.
Swatting her diaper bottom, Denise sent her on her way.
Janice looked at the kitchen clock, it was only 5:47.
Janice crawled, for she was to unstable to walk, following john to her nursery room.
Once there, john lowered the side rail, lifted her up under the arms and laid her in her crib.
Looking at her husband, Janice cried,
“Me no wanta go bed, Da-da. To eaw-wee”.
“Its not to early, Janice. Remember how you use to put me to bed at 10 in the morning?”
questioned john.
“This is for being a naughty baby. Maybe tomorrow you’ll be better behaved”.
Sitting her up, he removed her tee shirt.
Grabbing the waistband of the plastic pants, john felt her diapers.
“You’re wet”, he said,
“But I think I won’t change you until maybe your 2 o’clock feeding”.
Janice started to wail,
“Waaaaa, me wanta be changed Da-da!”
John ignored her and laid out her cotton doctor Dentons.
Slowly and carefully, he inserted her feet into the footie section, pulling the pajamas up her legs, over her diapers.
Then he inserted her arms into the sleeves, pulling them up her arms.
Finally, he pulled the zipper up from the bottom all the way up to her neck.
Now if Janice thought she could simply unzip the pajamas, she was wrong.
Attached to the sleeves were mittens, thick so that she was unable to grab anything.
She was helpless.
Turning her onto her stomach, john strapped her down using a Velcro strap.
She was unable to turn over.
Taking the large serving spoon, he poured out a large amount of Castor Oil, pinching Janice’s nose, shoved it into her mouth.
“I’ve decide that with ever meal, so baby o gets a tummy ache, Jannie gonna get a spoonful of Caster Oil”
Tars rolled down her cheeks.
She did not want Caster Oil, she hated it.
Sniffling, she thought to herself she never cried so much in one day as she had today.
As a matter of fact, she never cried this much ever.
She was becoming such a crybaby.
John pulled up the side rail and secured the lid.
Janice was now incased in her infantile prison.
Turning on the baby monitor and the night-light, he closed the door as he left Janice alone.
Janice laid in her crib sniffling.
For some strange reason, she wanted very much to suck her thumb, but because of the mittens, she was unable to.
But relief was there.
By her head was a pacifier.
“My binkie!”m she thought happily as she grabbed it with her mitten hands.
She shoved the nipple into her mouth and sucked blissfully on it.
Thinking Janice thought,
“I don’t want Denise to be my mother, pretend or otherwise”.
Even though Janice spoke like a baby and did not realize it, her thoughts still were arranged in an adult pattern.
Well, I will worry about it tomorrow.
I’m tired and need some sleep.
Janice thought to herself.
n a little while, Janice was sound asleep, sucking contently on her pacifier.
