“Hey, buddy,” Amanda whispered, brushing Jamie’s cheek. “It’s a little late for dinner, but how about a bottle?” Jamie stirred, his eyes opening to see it was nearly dark. “You alright? You slept a long time.”
Jamie sat up and pressed his palms into his eyes, the pressure in...
2022-07-25 01:00:59 +0000 UTC View PostHi all! So excited to share this. The Best Babysitter in Town was such a hit, I decided it needed artwork.
Drawings are so expensive, so I commissioned a real-life diaper boy and his wife/mommy to recreate scenes.
I'll have the photos up by the end of the week, and I'll be updat...
2022-07-24 21:41:47 +0000 UTC View Post“Jamie!” Mel picked him up and gave him a hug. Jamie liked the way she smelled and felt. She intended just a quick hug, but Jamie saw no reason to let her go and wrapped his legs around her, and suddenly she was holding him and too nice to set him down. Amanda watched, knowing exactly what he...
2022-07-24 13:00:06 +0000 UTC View Post“Daffy, you’re looking a little poofy pants.” Nana is just … like an older version of Mary sometimes. Whereas by contrast, i.e., difficult to see in the glare of the brilliant light I shine down across all my eyes survey, I am always me.
Except not exactly cuz if Mary said that, I...
2022-07-24 00:14:27 +0000 UTC View PostWhen Rebecca asked Jamie if he wanted to stay home the next day, he said no. It wouldn’t help anything, and he felt he needed to see Ella again. The way they left it, the more time apart the harder it would probably be. Still, Jamie didn’t know quite how to connect with her, so he spent much ...
2022-07-23 20:24:09 +0000 UTC View Post“Hey, Manda,” Becky said coming in the door.
“Hey, Mom. We got another problem on our hands. Or not a problem. Just another situation.”
Becky set her purse down, concerned it had to do with the incident at the park. “What’s wrong,” she said, her voice hard and fast.
<... 2022-07-23 15:21:42 +0000 UTC View Post“How was your day,” Amanda asked Jamie, seated on her hip and glad to be done with daycare for the day. She could tell by his expression that the answer wasn’t good. He looked gloomy, slumped over and not holding eye contact. He responded by burying his cheek in the space between her arm an...
2022-07-21 01:59:02 +0000 UTC View PostThe next day at daycare, Jamie found Ella had beat him there and was already sitting with her sketch pad.
“Hey, Mr. International Incident,” she whispered.
It freaked Jamie out that she knew. “How could you tell?”
“I recognized your shoes.”
“Well, please keep...
2022-07-18 13:23:59 +0000 UTC View PostRebecca was drying Jamie off after a bath, his second in less than half a day. She was being especially attentive.
“Mom, can we have a boring day today, please,” Jamie asked.
“Heh. Yeah, sweetie, we can do that. Just wanna stay home?”
“If we could, yeah.”
“Su...
2022-07-18 13:08:58 +0000 UTC View Post“Daffy,” someone said, very rudely interrupting my nap even if they were sorta softly singing my nickname. And not just my nap, but the puppy’s too. Doesn’t Mary know the puppy is just a baby and needs her rest? Which is nothing like me, an adult who needs her rest because, well, you need...
2022-07-17 21:43:46 +0000 UTC View Post“Walk or stroller?” Another perk of the stroller: he didn’t have to walk after eating so much food. He’d be comatose if he ate that much little food.
“Stroller,” he burped accidentally.
“Ha! Need a tummy rub?”
“That actually sounds like a horrible idea … urp....
2022-07-17 21:08:58 +0000 UTC View PostDear Cheryl,
I’m sorry I haven’t written more. The days are longer here, but somehow they pass quickly.
I’ve started calling Rebecca ‘Mom.’ I feel that way about her now. The three of us, we feel like a family. We will never be able to repay you for you...
2022-07-14 12:39:50 +0000 UTC View PostBack in the car, Amanda sat next to Jamie so she could talk to him. Becky turned the radio off so she could hear and be heard.
“How ya feeling, buddy?”
“Fine.” Really, he was. No breakthroughs or emotional epiphanies, nothing he didn’t know about himself already. Amanda look...
2022-07-13 23:59:05 +0000 UTC View Post“If it’s alright with you, I want to start with before you came here. That will help me understand your feelings about this world,” Mary said. She sat with tablet and stylus in hand. She was older than Rebecca, with rectangle glasses and the soft skin of a woman on the far side of middle ag...
2022-07-10 17:23:53 +0000 UTC View PostThe placebo effect of kissing a booboo? I am an expert. Making up after that kiddo one took this kiddo’s toy? I am a veritable relationship counselor. Treating phobias? Nobody tackles fear of the dark and monsters under the bed as good as I do. Identity crisis management? Not so much.
Unl...
2022-07-10 16:25:08 +0000 UTC View PostIt’s a heccin good thing I’m independent and reliant on no one but myself, cuz otherwise when I rolled over in bed and didn’t find my comfort person, I would’ve been very upset. But nope, not me. I was merely curious where she went until my very pretty ears (so says the person who nibbles...
2022-07-08 14:12:14 +0000 UTC View Post“Are you nervous,” I asked my Mary.
“A little. You?”
“O my gawd yes … I mean, a smidge … What? You’re looking at me funny again.”
“No particular reason.”
“Don’t roll your eyes while driving.”
“Why not,” she scoffed at me. Scoffing! At ...
2022-07-04 17:06:23 +0000 UTC View Post“Nice to meet you, Jamie. You can call me Mary,” the therapist said.
“Nice to meet you as well, Mary.” Jamie was good at being polite and professional.
“If it’s alright with you, Amanda and your mom are going to wait in the outer room while we talk alone.”
“That...
2022-07-04 12:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostIt was lunchtime. Jamie knew Mom and Amanda would be picking him up from daycare soon for his first therapist appointment. He was having mixed feelings about it. To start with, they hadn’t asked him if he wanted to see a therapist. It was just announced. Jamie knew why they would have him see a...
2022-07-03 20:01:01 +0000 UTC View PostAfter taking another couple days thinking over her letter, Cheryl decided she couldn’t be so transparent and heavy, not in this letter. She feared causing Jamie any worry or stress might would take his mind out of his new reality, which she knew would likely set back his adjustment to Itali. Sh...
2022-07-03 13:00:05 +0000 UTC View Post“Wakey-wakey,” this annoying person said to me. For serious. Like, what the damn even?
“Did I ever tell you your morning perkiness is one of your worst traits,” I grumbled as I sat up in bed. Seriously one of her worst traits, leavened only by the way she looks in the morning, all h...
2022-07-02 19:38:27 +0000 UTC View Post“Hey,” Jamie said.
“Hey back. How was your night,” Ella asked. She was sitting in the art corner with a sketch book and pencil.
“I learned my middle name is Patrick.”
“Uh O. Whuddya do?”
“What makes you think I did something?”
“Either you were l...
2022-07-02 18:08:57 +0000 UTC View Post“How was your day?”
“What?!” When they were up front, Jamie could never hear Becky or Amanda well from his carseat.
“HOW WAS YOUR DAY?”
Jamie wondered what the right response was: to include the part about his mini-meltdown or not. He appreciated that what happened a...
2022-06-28 02:59:30 +0000 UTC View PostI wondered if maybe by the end of the long weekend I’d stop being caught off guard by Jordy’s bare skin. He was dressed when he came back to his room, thank goodness, and I don’t know why I even worried for a moment he wouldn’t be, but he hadn’t put his shirt back on. Despite being the ...
2022-06-26 01:59:57 +0000 UTC View PostJamie still had an afternoon to get through after his nap. It felt good to wake up in a room with a closed door. Waking up on the floor surrounded by others reminded him too much of college nights we couldn’t remember. If he could do them over, at least now he’d take a nap mat. Yesterday’s ...
2022-06-21 12:32:10 +0000 UTC View PostGordy has younger siblings, I reminded myself when we got to the bathroom and saw bath toys on the rim of the tub. The guest room has an en suite bath, and given that Gordy is the oldest and his needs, you’d think he’d have that room, but I could also see Mrs. Rooney reserving the room for gu...
2022-06-19 23:59:48 +0000 UTC View Post“Diaper, could you come here?”
Did I hear my Mary right?
“Diaper?”
What is she even … I hear footfalls.
“Diaper, I was calling for you,” Mary said as she stood in the doorway.
“Um, huh?”
“Diaper, you silly goose. Fine,” s...
2022-06-18 21:35:01 +0000 UTC View PostDearest Jamie,
I’ve tried to think of all the reasons you haven’t written me in so long, and the reason I want to accept as the truth is every moment brings you so much happiness your hand cannot hold a pen. I want to believe that. We’re so far apart. I want to believe so...
2022-06-18 21:13:40 +0000 UTC View PostI’ll be okay if I can just live through the night. It’s happened before. But let me back up to explain.
“Why are you putting cocoa powder on vanilla ice cream,” the benevolent tyrant known as Mary asked me.
“Cuz I like it this way.”
I swear she looks at me like an an...
2022-06-14 22:56:40 +0000 UTC View PostI dropped my bag off in the Rooneys’ guest room, which is nicer than the master bedroom in the house I grew up and still live in, and wondered quietly to myself whether the Rooneys having money made them so weird or if they’re be just as weird if they were average. And don’t call them eccen...
2022-06-12 20:28:00 +0000 UTC View Post