“Good mooooorning.”
You slowly awaken in a cocoon of plush and warmth. Your body is curled around your teddy bear like a precious stone; your pacifier seems to have fallen out at some point in the middle of the night. With a silent grumble, you exhale and stretch out your legs underneath the blankets. “Good morning, Mommy.”
Mommy is standing in the doorway, radiating love. “We have bacon and eggs on the dining room table for you, Kimmy. We’re getting up early for church, so eat up!”
“I’m still sleepy, Mommy.” You flip the blanket over your face, as if that will alter the flow of time.
“Are you sure? There’s chocolate milk…”
“Ooh!” The “C” word is enough to make you squirm out from under the covers and jump up! Your white vinyl soles shuffle noisily on the carpet, then make sticky peeling noises on the linoleum tiles in the kitchen. There’s a heavy thud as you try to jump up onto the dining room chair and come up short. It’s so easy to forget how small a four-year-old girl is…
Mommy is coming to the rescue! “Alley-oop!” She picks you up from under the armpits and lifts you up to your seat. As soon as your butt hits the solid wood chair, there’s a comfy POOF from your diaper. You can’t help but squirm into the cotton a little bit, pretending that gurgling noise you hear in your gut is no big deal.
Which reminds you… “I’m dry, see? I did it!”
“That’s very good, Kim!” Mommy cuts up your fried eggs for you. “Here you are, nice and soft, no crunchy bits on the edges. After we’re done eating, we’ll get you to the bathroom. Can you wait a few more minutes?”
You sip on your chocolate milk. Aah, that’s good. “I can wait,” you say, ignoring that uncomfortable sloshing sensation in your body. Kim- that is, you- don’t have the muscles to fight that yet, so you’ll just be careful, for the time being…
Munch, munch, munch. You eat at a breakneck pace; you’re a growing kid, after all. Maybe. You’re not sure how permanent this new form is, but it feels real, oh so real. After you’re done you jump down to the floor… feel your tummy gurgle… and dash off to the bathroom.
You have your jammies unzipped in a flash and feel a moment of panic- you forgot your rubber pants were locked on! “Aaa, nnf!” You groan to yourself as you tug and pull and tug again, but the extra-tight waistband won’t budge just from yanking on it. You fall on your bum (POOF) and arch your back as you try to get your thumbs under the drawstring, but you simply can’t. Static crackles as you kick your footie pajamas off of your legs and across the room, thrashing desperately (crinkle squeak crinkle) to even budge the rubber pants slightly. Don’t pee your pants, don’t pee your pants… tug, squeak, tug… “NNF!”
Crick-crick. Mommy turns the teeny-tiny key in the lock in your pants, and the waistband loosens. You peel the rubber pants off in an instant, and the mercifully dry diaper in one instant more. What happens next is one of the most satisfying bathroom breaks in your multiple lives, which doesn’t really need much extra detail.
Mommy claps for you. “Good job!” It should feel condescending, but it’s oddly satisfying. “Now we can get ready!” Oh right… boring old church.
Compared to the hot and stuffy confines you were in previously, your pink cotton panties feel like wearing thin air. You let Mommy tie the little red bow around the waist, which is thankfully only decorative. Something about wearing big girl pants after a night without them is gratifying on a fundamental level. You feel all the tension just melt away…
“And UP!” She invites you to step into the plain white tights you only ever wear to Sunday School. Wait, not quite plain- as they stretch over your legs and up to your waist, you can see the pretty glitter sparkles embedded in the fabric. The way your ankles are just barely visible through the tights makes you wish they were thicker- and Mommy comes in with the solution!
“I remember wearing these when I was your age!” Wait, she was a kid once too? Even if you knew that, Kim sure didn’t. Either way you’re distracted by the white bobby socks she put on you- the frills around your ankles are really fun, but you know you won’t be allowed to play with them at church. You don’t get to do anything fun at church…
More static electricity crackles in your hair as Mommy pulls a thin, stretchy undershirt over your head. “Oops!” she says, “We can comb it right back into shape later.”
“Moooom, you take a really long time to comb me and you keep pulling.”
“I’ll be nice and fast,” she says as she eases your hands into a pair of white silk gloves. Is that real silk? Of course it is, and they unroll all the way up to your shoulders. They’re so pretty… but wait a minute, they’ll get dirty if you touch anything with them! Another thing you can’t do at church, they keep getting you!
Mommy helps you slip into a long baby blue petticoat with not one, not two, but THREE layers of stiff and kind of scratchy fabric. You thought your skirt would be short and easy to move in, but this thing is dangling around your ankles, almost touching the floor! You lift the front of your petticoats in a dainty manner as you struggle not to trip on your own clothes. “Almost done!” she says while dropping the dress proper over your head. It’s sky blue and carnation pink, with big puffy shoulders and a ribbon tied around the waist and OH it feels so good to look this cute! “NOW we can do your hair!”
You’re barely paying attention to how Mommy is braiding your hair into a single neat ponytail, because your socks keep sliding around on the tile floor. She holds your shoulders still, but you can’t help but squirm at the new sensations. A single bright pink scrunchie holds your hair in place… and then she plops a wide straw hat on your head and ties the string holding it under your chin.
All that’s left are your shoes. These aren’t the flats you were expecting… the glossy patent black leather shoes have heels over a centimeter tall, just barely raising your dress off of the floor as you strap them on with Mommy’s help. “Will you be good at church today? Kim? Promise me you’ll be good.”
You see yourself in the mirror… you look like a damn birthday cake with a hat on top, you can barely sit down without hiking up your dress, and you’ll be covered in smudges if you do anything but wait around and listen to adults talk. So helpless… you clasp your hands together in front of your skirt and blush as your knees wobble and your shoes go pigeon-toed. This is the full experience, isn’t it? This is what you were expecting when you picked that costume God only knows how long ago, and the warmth spreading through you seems to agree. Your eyes close and you sway slightly to a beat only you can feel.
“Mmm… okay, Mommy. I’ll be good.”