As she drifted into sleep she had the strangest and most wonderful dream imaginable. Images of herself as a baby flashed in her mind on rapid fire before fading into a scene where her seventeen-year-old self was lying in a crib just like Amanda’s in a room just like Amanda’s. Just as the fade-in was complete, baby Jessica awoke and the perspective changed to inside her head.
It was a really strange feeling, Jessica’s dream self noted. She was looking through the eyes of a seventeen-year-old at the body of a seventeen-year-old dressed as a baby lying in a crib. She sat up in order to get a better sense of her surroundings. As she shifted her weight underneath her bottom she heard a distinct crinkling sound. It was just then that she noticed her diaper. It was just like the diapers that Amanda wore. It fit her snugly and was oddly comforting. She wondered if she was experiencing through her dream what it was like to be Amanda. Everything looked huge from this new perspective. The nursery looked enormous. If she stood up, she doubted that her head would reach above the railing on the crib. Yet somehow, she felt strangely soothed. Dwarfed by her surroundings though she was, she felt oddly comforted. She lay back down and put her thumb in her mouth, instinctively. The scene faded to black.

The next scene that faded in was one Jess couldn’t make sense of. She was still lying in a crib, still sucking her thumb, and still wearing a snug diaper, but she was not in the Roberts’ house. The room surrounding the crib she was in was her own room in her own house. She recognized all the Britney Spears posters on her wall and her desk. The crib she lay in was where her bed was supposed to be. Where her red oak dresser used to be there was a pink-painted pine changing table completely stocked with disposable diapers, baby wipes and powder.

Then her dream became stranger. Elizabeth, her fourteen-year-old sister walked in and stood at the railing of the crib, staring down at her.

“Hi there, baby girl” Elizabeth cooed as she lowered the crib railing. “You’re awake, I see. I just thought I’d come up and see if your diaper needed changing.”

Jessica could hardly believe her ears. She realized that since she was apparently sleeping in a crib, sucking her thumb, and wearing a diaper, that it was entirely possible that her diaper needed changing. Still, didn’t Elizabeth remember that Jessica was three years older than she was? This was all very strange. Nonetheless, Elizabeth coaxed her out of the crib and onto the changing table across the room. Just as Elizabeth removed the tapes and pulled the front of the diaper from between Jessica’s legs to rest on the changing table was Jessica startled by the sound of crying.