Trading Post

I can go a lot of different directions. My bachelor was in microbiology and my master is in molecular biology, I also got a minor in earth sciences just for fun, it's interesting stuff. Many people go on to get a PhD on a topic they are passionate about and will often keep doing academic research or contract research which is a mix between working with a company and working with a university. Some people also get a good idea around the time they graduate or while studying and build a company around it. Other people go work for an R&D division in a company. The possible types of company are diverse. I could for example work at a food company developing vegan meat, or I could work for a company that develops drugs. Work in a hospital or as advisor for the government is also possible. You get the point, the list goes on. Personally I think I want to focus on research into antibiotics or cancer, those are both very interesting rapidly developing fields. Ideally in an academic setting because it gives you a lot of freedom and here in the Netherlands academic institutes follow school vacations, so you get a lot of time off compared to normal jobs. If you want an idea of the stuff I'm researching and learning you can take a look at this paper I just presented, it's not mine but I had to thoroughly understand it for an assignment (kept me up until 4 am last night lol). https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03.22.713439v1.full

The soul of a phoenix, a magical ring from Titania and water from the Styx – and I think something’s gone missing in the chapter featuring our favourite little devil angels too. I can see a pattern here.

Sure! I have many hobbies that I visit occasionally, but these are the main ones: I've been dabbling in coding with C++ since highschool. I wouldn't say I'm good at it, but I have fun making stuff sometimes. I have a brown belt in karate and teach it as well since my school is in between proper senseis at the moment. I play games with my friends almost every day. Mainly counterstrike, league of legends and a lesser known game called omega strikers. I also play a lot of chess. Interestingly I seemed to suddenly improve when I came out to my parents (I guess it freed up RAM in my brain?). Those are the main hobbies that are always around, I engage in many more but often just for a few months before I drop it for a while for something else.

Chapter 163: Two Terrible Conversations A breeze was blowing that Saturday morning. The air had a crispness to it, but the sun was in the sky and heating things up fast. Oakshire had forgotten that it was winter again, and it would be roasting by lunch, but at the moment, it felt very comfortable. Enough that I liked the feeling of the fresh air on the back of my thighs. It contrasted nicely with how Janet held the back of my head. “The Littles were all talking about how Joanie is getting her big girl panties back,” Janet said, re-starting the conversation after a brief pause. Helena chuckled to my right. “Oh really?” “Oh yes,” I could hear Janet’s grin in every word. “They were very serious about it.” “Mmmmhmmmm-mmm-mmm-mmm-mmm-mmm-hmmm-hmmm-mmmm.” Amy mumbled. “Shhhh,” Helena whispered to Amy. “No talking with your mouth full, baby girl.” Mercifully, Amy didn’t reply. Possibly because to do so would risk her unlatching from her Mommy. I know that’s what kept me quiet. It wasn’t quite nine in the morning. At least, I suspected as much. It was half past eight when we got to the park. Our Mommies had missed out on their gal pal time at Little Voices that week, and so an executive decision had been made to make up the difference now. I’d been miffed that I hadn’t been consulted, but I let it go as I would have said ‘yes’ anyways. It’s hard to protest something you want. I could have done it, but it would have been hard. Janet and Helena Madra made small talk for what felt like a good ten minutes before Amy mewled her Mommy into lactation and Janet followed suit. Me? Of course I went along with it. It’s not like Amy was in a position to provide stimulating conversation. Losing track of time is easy when you’re breastfeeding. It’s incredibly easy to just close your eyes and drift. It’s not just the milk itself; a really heavy cheeseburger could have the same effect. It’s the act itself and the circumstances it created. Janet tended to bottle feed when she was in a rush or had literally anything else to occupy her mind. I suspected she enjoyed the act as much as I did, and didn’t seek to sully it with nervous pacing. It was a breezy Saturday morning, and she was gossiping with her best Mommy-friend. Her ease and contentment rubbed off on me. Alarm bells failed to sound with regards to privacy. The playground was occupied by about a dozen Littles and other children, but the benches we were occupying were far enough away from either the bathrooms or the playground so we were unlikely to be noticed or bothered and the atmosphere was very tame. No brats eager to point out that they don’t wear diapers like a Little; no new fish trying to explain things to giants who won’t listen, and no mind-fucked dolls trying to drag everyone into their recitals of ‘I’m a Little Sprinkler.’ I heard a jogger run by us, and I think someone with a stroller, too. Other than that, it was just the four of us.  If any cosseting giant or tightrope-walking Tweener had stopped to coo or gush at us, I probably wouldn’t have been as mortified because Amy was there. Humiliation shared is humiliation lessened, especially when one of you is impossible to humiliate. It all makes being embarrassed…embarrassing. Oh, and it didn’t hurt that I literally couldn’t see anything outside of a 3 inch radius of Janet. It’s also hard to be embarrassed when you can’t see people point and turn away in disgust. Was Janet trying to desensitize me? Absolutely. Did she and Helena get off on doing this in public because it validated their perceptions of themselves? Most assuredly. Was I falling for it hook line and sinker? Most definitely probably for certain. “I hope Clark isn’t feeling jealous.” Helena went on. Janet gently patted my bottom to comfort herself as much as me. My crinkles must have sounded like purrs to her. “Hmm…maybe a tiny bit? But I don’t think so.” “That’s good,” Amy’s Mommy replied. “I know Amy isn’t interested in that sort of thing. Whenever we go shopping, she covers her eyes whenever we pass by the training pants.” She giggled. “It’s like she’s scared they’ll jump out and get her!” Amy was surprisingly quiet at this. I’d expected her to mumble something incoherent that only made sense in her reality, but the girl had stayed mute. “Oh my gosh!” Janet gushed. “That’s too cute!  I think Clark likes his diapers…as long as people don’t know about it.” Amy probably expected me to start fussing. I just held my breath and kept suckling, my face boiling and hoping the subject would change fast enough. “Oh gods, that takes me back!” Helena giggled again.  “That is sooooo year one! But eventually, he’ll calm down. They all do. Eventually.” Janet gave my diaper another pat. “Relatively speaking.” I suspect Helena did the same to Amy. “Still a handful.” “Still love ‘em,” Janet said. A contented sigh came from Helena. “Yeah.” Janet echoed the sentiment with her own sigh. “Yeah.” “Switch?” “Switch.” I’d nearly emptied Janet’s right breast. Janet guided my head away and I unlatched. I sat upright for all of three seconds while Janet fiddled with her nursing bra and repositioned me so that I could go for the left. “Hi Clark!” Amy called. “Hey, Amy.”  I replied without turning my head. We both let out a belch and started nursing again. Janet let out a low hum as I latched on and found my rhythm. “What about the other kids?” Helena picked up the conversation. Janet started lightly massaging the small of my back, her fingers rubbing out knots with the strength, precision, and control that only an Amazon could muster. I relaxed so fully that I literally started peeing without realizing it. Was there some nerve at the base of my spine that turned into a pants-whizzing button? Or was I really that relaxed? Either way, I’d barely lasted an hour in a dry diaper. Oh well. “I think it’s less that they want to use the potty,” Janet spoke over my pontifications and inner monologue, “and more that they don’t understand why Joanie is getting extra chances.” “Ooooooh, yes!” I heard Helena say. “That makes sense! They care very much about routine and fairness at this stage.” “They definitely do,” Janet agreed. “I think it’s more that it’s a disruption to the norm than a desire to wear big kid undies.” Janet was closer to the mark on her first guess. It was more like that particular Tweener was getting a lot more grace than her Little sister, and it would be nice if someone bigger than us took an ‘L’ for once. Or if wearing diapers full time wasn’t an ‘L,’ then prove it.  That and Joanie really was kind of a twat, and needed to be knocked down a peg. “Tweeners have a wider range of development plateaus than Littles,” Helena said, “and their Maturosis fluctuates more wildly and for longer before it settles. Right?” I felt my Mommy shrug. “Hm. I don’t know,” she said. “I’ll have to ask Mrs. Beouf about that one.” More than likely, Tweeners had a wider range of Maturosis because of racism and Amazonian cognitive dissonance. Tweeners had Little DNA, but they had Amazon DNA too, ergo they couldn’t be as immature as Littles. As much as I liked the idea of deliberate psychological warfare, Joanie likely kept swapping underwear types because her Daddies couldn’t consciously settle on whether they wanted another toddler, a potty-training preschooler, or a kindergartener. “I could have sworn I read that somewhere,” Helena muttered to herself. “Anyway…” There was a brief pause as the conversation lulled. For a time, only the slurps and mewling of two gluttonous Littles joined the chirping birds. “Oh!” Janet remembered. “Ivy is starting potty training, and Clark’s helping!” I heard a confused “Mmmmph??!” from Amy, but neither giantess commented.   “I thought you said he wasn’t jealous,” a tinge of concern crept into the comment.   “He’s not,” Janet said. “He promised that he’d never ask to go potty again if he got to help.” I felt her hand pat my bottom and give it a squeeze. She squeezed it a second time between my legs, likely confirming the squish from my recent flooding. “I’m so proud of him for accepting!” “Such a good baby,” Helena cooed as if it were a reflex. “Then why is he…?” She really couldn’t fathom how or why I might be potty training anyone. Janet took me off her breast and draped over her shoulder. “I think he just wants to prove that it can be done.” She started slapping my back and rubbing it up and down and in tiny circles. Massaging me and burping me at the same time. “Even if he’s not the one to do it.”   The sound of Helena’s hand doing the same to Amy sounded out. “That is sooooo cute!” she squealed.  “Such a Little gentleman. A real trailblazer!” “And a good friend.”  “Very good friend!” I winced and jerked when Amy didn’t join the blind praise. Echoing that kind of blind praise felt like the kind of thing Amy would do. I turned my head and only saw the back of her head. I felt guilty for some reason, worried that I’d done something wrong.  Janet finished burping me and pried me away from her so that she could dangle me by my arm pits and tease me. “A very good friend who is getting wiggly! Let’s get them changed so they can go play.” “Good idea.” Our Mommies pulled out our diaper bags, and spread the changing mats out. Within seconds I was staring up at the blue sky, now lying on the bench where the Grown-Ups had been sitting. Amy was not-so quietly sucking her thumb, the top of her head barely brushing against the top of mine. “Hana’s a brave woman,” Helena said, unbuttoning the snaps on Amy’s onesie. “Trying to potty train Ivy.” Janet ripped my tapes off and let the cool breeze hit my urine-soaked cock. “Brave?”  Gentle whooshing noises signaled Helena yanking multiple baby wipes out of the packaging to wipe her Little girl with. “If I tried potty training Amy, my hair would go gray,” she joked. “Have you ever seen parents buying pull-ups? They sound like a smoker trying to quit.” She made her voice go cartoonishly deep and raspy. “This is my last pack, I swear!” “Ha!” Janet left as she tossed my balled-up diaper behind her into the trash can. “Doesn’t that mean we’re the addicts?” The hiss and crinkling of fresh plastic being slipped beneath a waiting bottom preceded Helena’s reply. “What’s wrong with being addicted to love?” Janet snorted and rained baby powder down on me.  “Love stinks.” “I wouldn’t potty train my Little mush-tush for anything in the world!” Helena chirped, while both of our diapers were being folded up between our legs and securely fastened on.”  “Mommy!” Amy giggled. “Staaaaaahp! You’re making me blush!” A beat while our onesies were quietly clicked into place. “But seriously keep going I like being blushy sometimes.” “Why not?” I ignored Amy and called up from the bench. Helena passed by and lobbed Amy’s diaper into the trash. “Because I love her.” I pushed myself up to a sitting position. “Do you think your parents loved you less when you were potty trained?” Janet gasped. “Clark!” Helena barely reacted. “It’s fine,” she told Janet. She picked a giggling Amy up off the bench and placed her on her hip before finally addressing me. “I think the first time we’re babies we get potty trained because we need to be.”  Janet must have sawn an opportunity. She placed a hand on my leg to get my attention. “It’s part of growing up.” “Been there, done that!” Amy practically squawked. “But now that you and Amy are done growing up,” Helena said, “you don’t need to be potty trained. Letting you be yourselves and stay in diapers is how we show our love.” I was suddenly eye level with Amy; newly perched on Janet’s hip. “You’re not a burden. We accept you. You don’t have to prove anything.” She gave me a kiss on the cheek.  “We love you for you.” Helena added and smooched Amy, too. Amy looked around, expectantly.  When the moment lingered too long she started clapping her hands slowly, and methodically, expecting one of us to take up the cue and build up the momentum into thunderous applause. “No?” she asked, clearly disappointed. “No one else is gonna slow clap?” She snapped her fingers like a gambler who’d just had a bad roll. “Dang.” We were taken closer to the playground. The mammoth structure with its jungle gym and crawl tubes and wobbling rope bridge made the playground at Oakshire Elementary seem well…babyish. Beouf’s playground was a bench, a tree, a ton of mulch, and a few unconnected bits of playground equipment. This spot was labyrinthian by comparison. Tunnels connected to ladders that led to slides, which spilled out into boxes of soft sand, all surrounded by foam mats. It wasn’t the Triple P, but it was the best playground I’d been to besides. The immediate perimeter of the playground was dotted with benches, all occupied by Amazon women ranging from age thirty to fifty, based upon looks. Children and Littles alike ran and toddled back and forth to the benches; all tattling, bragging, whining, and crying…sometimes all at once. “Hi there!” Helena spoke up to a couple of Amazons occupying the nearest bench. “Is it okay if our Little ones play here, too?” One of the ladies smiled. “Sure! It’s safe. All the kids know to be gentle with the babies.” “That’s great!” Janet said. I was placed down and given the go ahead. “Go play, you two.” Amy was somehow ahead of me and beating me to the steps. “And have fun!” Helena called after us. “We’ll be watching!” Amy stalled and called back over her shoulder. “I know, Mommy!” I hustled up to Amy. The sounds of Helena and Janet introducing themselves to the Mom-group and starting to make small talk faded out behind us, covered by the sound of my own breathing, the crinkling of my fresh Monkeez, and me plodding along trying to keep up with my friend. “So…what do you want to play?” I asked. Amy kept crawling. “I dunno.” We climbed up a set of stairs; literally. They were steep enough that even I had to crawl and boost myself up one step at a time. “‘Scuse me, Little babies!” Some Amazon kid chirped, side-stepping past us so that she could bolt at the bottom of the stairs. It was so fast that I didn’t have time to come up with a snappy remark. “Do you think diapers count as pants?” Amy asked me once we’d gotten up to the next level of the play gym.  “Huh?” “Do you think diapers count as pants?” she repeated. “Absolutely not.” I answered. “Why not?”  Amy kept crawling across a play bridge.  There were barriers on either side, but even if we’d hopped the sides, the fall wouldn’t have been that bad. For reference, Amy and I could have crawled underneath the bridge, but I probably could not have stood all the way up. I followed her. “Because I feel naked every time someone sees mine.” “Just because it’s embarrassing, doesn’t mean it’s not clothes.” My brain cycled faster. Something about the word ‘clothes’ got my synapses to start firing. “They don’t usually sell clothing in grocery stores, do they?” “Touche,” she said. I followed her into a system of nearby crawl tubes. From the look of it, they lead to a higher point on the equipment and possibly a slide exit.  “What about onesies? Are they pants?” My voice reverberated against the plastic tubes. “Why would onesies be pants?” “They cover our bottoms,” Amy explained. Speaking of onesies, I felt the need to stand so that the back of Amy’s wasn’t shoved up in my face, but the space was still so narrow that I had to hunch slightly lest I bump my head. “No.” I said. “Onesies are just shirts that snap between the legs. You still put it on over your head like a shirt.” “What about dresses?” “Not pants. You put them on like shirts. Dresses are just shirts that overcommitted to the bit.” Amy paused at an intersection. “What about footie pajamas? The kind that you have to pull up over your legs and zip up from the back.” I tapped my chin. “Teeeeeechnically, but I think it doesn’t count because it covers your whole body. I feel like pants are supposed to primarily obscure the waist.” “Good point.” Just then a literal toddler came up. Amazon. Four or five by the looks of it, and he looked like he just got his hair cut with how absurdly neat and tidy it was. He was standing, and the back of his shoulders pressed up against the top of the tube. Amy clocked his navy blue knickers. “What about shorts?” “Well, obviously shorts count as pants.” I said. “Move, babies!” The hulking preschooler boomed. He probably hadn’t meant to shout, but close proximity, narrow wall space, and less than six years of practice communicating, made it so much louder. Or maybe the little shit really was meaning to scream at us, I don’t know. “Pffft,” I wrinkled my nose in disgust. “You’re a baby, too.” I said. I pointed to the flimsy blue waistband creeping out of his shorts. “You’re wearing a diaper!” The kid gasped like I’d just called him a slur and hiked his shorts up way past his belly button. “Am not! I’m wearing big boy pants!” I rolled my eyes. “They make a crinkle sound when you walk and they get squishy when you pee in them. That’s a diaper.” “No!” he roared. “Yes,” I said calmly. “No!” “Yes!” The kid started to get red in the face. “No, no, no, n-...” his hands drifted between his legs and clamped down. “I…I gotta go potty!” He retreated back the way he came. For the first time since we’d been breastfeeding, Amy made eye contact with me. “Huh. Can’t believe that worked.” “Amazon egos start young,” I smirked. “It’s how I got a lot of my late bloomers to start potty training.” “Ah…”  Amy looked away and started crawling again.  “So in your professional opinion, training pants don’t count as pants?” “Of course they do. It’s in the name. I just wanted that kid to go away.” “Makes sense.” Our journey took us to another platform. An insurmountable barrier kept us from leaping to our collective doom, and more stairs led to a twisting slide.  Just outside of the tunnel exit was a useless steering wheel attached to the barrier wall. I never understood those, personally. Who would want to pretend they were driving or steering something when there was literally no other prop or environmental cues to suggest you were accomplishing anything? I know there’s such a thing as the power of imagination, but there’s also such a thing as lazy design choices. Amy gave the wheel an idle whirl, and ran her tongue through the gap in her teeth. “What about…overalls and shortalls? Pants or nay?” “Yes, if they don’t have snaps in the crotch.  If they do have snaps, then they’re just onesies lying about being pants.”  “Skirtalls? Jumpers?” “I think those are just dresses. Why are you asking this?” “I’m trying to figure out how often I actually pee my pants and stuff.” I snickered. “There it is! Can’t pee your pants if you’re not wearing pants!” “Pretty much,” Amy sighed. “Does that mean I’m more likely to poop my pants than you?” Come to think of it, I don’t think I’d ever seen Amy in something fitting my increasingly rigid definition. “Technically.” she sighed again. Her sighs lacked the undertone of contentment and satisfaction that our respective Mommies had when they’d done it. “Is this about me potty training Ivy?” “I dunno.” She shrugged. “Maybe.” Amy was good at speaking plainly…when she wanted to.  When she didn’t, she was even better than me at beating around the bush. Another girl- a first grader, I’d guess- came down a nearby ladder. There must be another route somewhere, or this kid was a slide-climbing daredevil.  “Hey babies! Whatcha doin’?” “Pooping.” I stated flatly. “Why?” “EWWWWW!” The kid pinched her nose and practically dove into the adjacent tunnel to get away from us. Amy smiled at me, mildly approving. “How’d you know that would work?” “I used to work with kids.” “I normally just swear at ‘em.” “That doesn’t always work.Call it a gut feeling, but I think she would have tried to correct us and teach us a lesson.” Amy rolled her eyes, remembering similar encounters no doubt. “I’ve had that happen, too. Easier to go with poop. You’re right.” A beat. “Isn’t that the great thing about being a baby? You get to be gross and cute at the same time, and neither one cancels out the other? It’s win-win.” “Yeah…so about Ivy. What’s got you so shook up?” Something cracked in Amy’s mask. “I’m not shook up,” she lied, “I just don’t think it’s a good idea or whatever.”  She shook her head, mostly to herself, “This and Little voices. What is everybody’s deal with the potty, lately?” “I didn’t think you liked Ivy all that much,” I smirked. “I don’t, but that doesn’t mean I’d subject her to…that.”  She shuddered as if having a designated room to piss and shit in was anathema. Amy was infinitely smarter and more clever than I’d initially given her credit for, but she’d still gotten more than a few of her wires crossed over the years. “What is ‘that’?” I said. “Not having to pee and poop in her pants?” Instead of replying directly to my point, my friend said, “Do you think that Ivy getting to use the toilet again will get you potty trained?” “She nev-” I stopped myself. “No. Not really.” “You do realize,” Amy said, “that even if Ivy gets her big girl panties back, Beouf will just use that as proof that she’s unbiased and that every other Little deserves diapers, right?” I lowered myself down on the other side of the fake steering wheel and gave it a lazy whirl. “Yeah. I figure that’s the best case scenario. Worst case is Ivy stays stuck in diapers forever, and Beouf writes off every future Little that ever gets enrolled with even more prejudice.” Amy spun the wheel in the opposite direction. “Yup.” “I’m still gonna do it.” I gave the wheel another spin. “Why?” Amy stopped the wheel. “If you don’t think you’ll get anything out of it, why do it? That seems…” she started spinning it again. “...off brand for you.” “Ouch.” “Sorry.” “Naw,” I chuckled. “You kind of have a point.” I stopped the wheel and held it. “I’ve given up on growing up again.” “An emu isn’t giving up when it stops trying to fly,” Amy said. “Sometimes swimming upstream just means you’re a salmon and you’re gonna die fuckin’.” “OOOOOOOOOOOO!” Another intruder’s voice resounded. Another strange child, this one looking like she should be in Janet’s class, crawled out of the woodwork (or plastic work I suppose). “What are you two doing saying such naughty words?” “Amy?” I turned my head. “Feel free to curse.” “Fuck-Shit-Cock-Ass-Motherfucker-Damn-Penis-Cunt-Fascist-Bitch!” The girl’s eyes widened like Amy was doing witchcraft. “I’m telling!” That’s how I figured out that the path up to the slide was likely the quickest exit. “You know she’s going to tell on us, right?” Amy asked. “Yup. She was gonna tell on us no matter what.”  The fact that Amy and I were together was probably the only reason the kid didn’t try to manhandle us and drag us with her. “She knows her lack of authority, but feels powerful meddling.” “So why didn’t you just say we were pooping, again?” “Which complaint is more likely to result in our Mommies interrupting us?” “Fair point.” On cue, I peered past the slatted bars of the jungle gym’s barriers and saw the nearly Tweener-sized Amazon youngling tattling on us to whichever adult would listen. I spied Janet and Helena shake their heads in disappointment, but also saw the girl get waved off. I had a feeling she was getting a talk about overreacting and how babies don’t always understand what they’re saying or something. Amy and I would get a talking to, no doubt, but one that could wait until after we’d safely disembarked from the whimsical tangle of wood, steel, and plastic. We’d both had worse. “Do you really think getting Ivy her potty training back will make things better for her?” Amy asked. I shrugged, feeling defensive. “Why wouldn’t it?” “Where does it stop?” “What do you mean?” “Is she gonna graduate? Is she gonna grow up? Or is she gonna just gonna be stuck in daycare with one less bit of care every day?” My nose wrinkled again. “Does it matter?” I asked rhetorically. “Do we have to be productive in a skill to celebrate acquiring it? Does everything have to have a point, or be moving towards some larger objective?” She looked like she was about to say something, then clicked her back teeth together and uttered out, “Damn. Got me there.” She squinted at me like she was trying to see into my head. “You sure you’re not doing this as some kind of ‘reverse-Clark’ where you’re just helping her to make yourself feel more adult-y?” I was insulted, but not surprised. I’d earned my rep.  “Honest,” I said. “Not my intent.” That, and Ivy deserved a chance. “Well fuck,” Amy finally said. “I believe you.” A beat. “Just…be careful, okay? People can be amazingly cruel.” “I’ll make sure Zoge and Beouf don’t go overboard or go back on their end of the deal,” I promised. I smiled and threw her a cocky wink. “Annoyed that I might pull off something you never did?” “Grow up,” she said. “Except don’t, because you tried that already and you weren’t very good at it.” We laughed together at that. Then a moment later, when the breeze was just right and strong enough to carry her words away, she whispered. “It’s not the Grown-Ups I’m worried about.” Like an idiot, I scrunched my entire face up into a scowl of pure disbelief. “Who would you be worried about?”   “The Littles.” “Why?” “Seriously?” “Seriously.” For what might have been the first time, I saw Amy Madra visibly struggle with something internally. Her tongue was doing laps along the inside of her mouth, running along the backs and fronts of her teeth, worming around and lingering in the front gap, and then moving on to the next cluster. We were dancing dangerously close to an actual sore spot. “You don’t have to tell me,” I told her. “I respect your privacy. If you want to tell me you can tell me, and I’d be grateful. You don’t, that’s okay, too, and I’ll try to do my best anyways.” My best Little friend inhaled deeply and closed her eyes. She placed two fingers daintily up against her lips and did it again, as if she was imagining taking a long drag off of a cigarette. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll tell you.” “Tell me what?” “How I lost my front teeth.”

Here we use the child's physical size as the primary decision. If they are small enough that a regular seatbelt/ shoulderbelt would do more harm than good, then a child seat. When my very first was born, my dad got us the GM 'Love Seat'. Infant seat long before they were mandatory, just because he wanted his grandson to be safe. Yes, when the child is growing, a 'booster' seat is allowed here in Michigan. Just to make sure the belt fits properly and does its job properly. That would be my youngest. She's 36, married, is a successful geologist. But she's barely 5'1" and 100# wringing wet. But she has no real trouble driving to work and all.