By the time Christine returned to the nursery, Marcia had fallen asleep again. Christine snuck up on the sleeping toddler and cooed. Marcia was sucking her thumb! Christine gently shook the toddler awake.
“Marcia…” Christine said gently. Marcia opened her eyes and yawned. “Come on, let’s get you pottied and dressed for breakfast.” Christine frowned. When she left Marcia in the nursery, the girl had been wearing clothes. Now, she was just in her diaper, her clothes neatly folded on a nearby chair. That was…odd.
“Okay,” Marcia said, distracting Christine from her observation. Christine lifted Marcia and brought her over to the training potty in the corner. She removed the diaper, sitting her down on the potty.
“Try to go both,” Christine instructed. Marcia nodded. She looked embarrassed by the situation, poor thing. Christine looked down at the diaper in her hand. To her surprise, it was yellowed. She hadn’t noticed at first, with how the sunlight reflected the yellow walls of the nursery. “Marcia, did you already go number one?”
“While you cawwy me,” Marcia mumbled. Christine thought back to when she first picked Marcia up. Yes, she had heard a faint hiss. That was probably a contributing factor to her embarrassment. Christine turned away from Marcia to give her some privacy and began to gather the clothes to change Marcia into. When she was done, she looked back at the girl. Marcia shrugged. “Don’ have mowe,” she mumbled to explain the still empty potty.
“All right,” Christine said. She brought Marcia over to the changing table. “Marcia, you seem to be struggling with your vocabulary. Is that right?” Marcia frowned at her.
“What vocab-wary?”
“Your words. But that answers my question.” Christine pinned a fresh diaper onto Marcia. She grabbed a book from a nearby shelf and held it up. “What is this book called?” Marcia squinted at the book. After a few minutes, she shrugged again.
“Don’ know.” Marcia suddenly looked panicked. “That bad! Thith bad!”
“Calm down,” Christine said quickly. “I’ll bring you to Rusty and we’ll figure things out, okay?” Marcia’s thumb went to her mouth again. She nodded, though still looking frightened. Once Christine finished putting Marcia into a cute frilly dress with matching buckled shoes, she set the girl on the floor. She took ahold of Marcia’s hand.
They left the nursery and walked down the hall, heading for the dining room for breakfast. As they walked, Christine heard a soft hiss from Marcia. She looked over.
“I pee-pee,” Marcia mumbled. Christine checked her diaper.
“You don’t need a change yet, though.” They resumed their walk to the dining room. All Marcia could do was hope she could tell Rusty and Christine everything. Or at least enough for them to fix what was happening to her. As she felt another spurt of pee enter her diaper, however, she was getting worried that wouldn’t be the case.