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Done Adulting, Vol. 2 (Final chapter posted 12/21/20)


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I think it is a bit of a combination of growing up with the emotions or hiding them differently or maybe he is learning to deal so it oooks like hiding but it isn’t. Good chapter 

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Chapter 76

 

Amanda changed into her pajamas and sat down on the edge of her bed. She’d tucked Jamie into it three hours before, and he was fast asleep curled around one of her pillows, his bear having somehow ended up resting on top of him. She reached down and brushed his cheek. 

Becky tapped the door frame lightly. “Can I come in?”

“Yeah,” Amanda responded.

“How ya feeling,” Becky asked as she sat down next to her.

“It was a fun day.” They’d gone to the pool with Ella, Jane, and Rosie.

“Yeah. You okay, though? Seemed a little down after dinner.”

“Just been thinking. After tonight, I won’t live here anymore. I feel kinda silly for saying that.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s not a big deal. Or shouldn’t be for someone my age. A bunch of my friends did this when they were still teenagers.”

“I don’t think it matters how old you are when it happens, sweetie. It’s hard for everyone, but I think you’re gonna do better with it than most. You have Jamie.”

“I know,” Amanda said as she turned to look at him again. “I just ... feels like tonight is the last time for a lot of things. This bed. Dinner at our table.”

“You’ll sleep in this bed again, and we’ll probably have dinner together again in a few days.”

“But I’ll be a guest.”

“Never,” Becky said as she put her arm around her daughter’s shoulder. “You will never be a guest here. This will always be your home. Wherever I am, that’s your home, too.”

“Thanks, Mom.” She knew her mother was true, but she didn’t say it with much enthusiasm.

“I think you’re also gonna be surprised. You’ll wake up the day after tomorrow, and it’ll be your apartment. All yours. You’ll like that more than you think.”

“Kinda empty, though, without Jamie.”

“All that hot water is yours, though,” Becky quipped. “Trust me. It’ll feel more exciting when you get there, and Jamie will be spending the night on your second night there.”

“What are you gonna do that night?”

“Go out with Jane.”

“Good. I don’t want you all alone that first night.”

“Don’t worry about me. I’ll be okay.”

They both paused and said nothing for a long moment, and their eyes naturally fell on Jamie. “He’s been such a champ through this,” Amanda said. She moved his bear so it was above his head.

“He’s a good boy,” Becky remarked. “We each have him, and each other.”

“Guess it’s time to go to bed.”

“Goodnight,” Becky replied, giving her daughter a kiss on the cheek.

“Night, Mom.”

Becky went to her room, turned the light off, and got under her covers. She’d been having the same thoughts all day as well. It wasn’t a day of lasts, and though her daughter’s room would always be hers and they’d share many meal around the same table for years to come, it would be different. Becky couldn’t put her finger on how; there wasn’t a single word she could summon for it. It was simply that after today, Amanda wouldn’t live there anymore. Becky was crossing a life milestone off, too, as much a victim of Amanda growing up as Amanda herself or Jamie. At least, though, she wouldn’t be an empty nester.

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Chapter 77

 

Jamie hadn’t been back to the apartment complex since he’d toured it with Amanda. Looking around now, he recalled the style: ten small, three story buildings with nine apartments each. A dilapidated tennis court. A small pool. A well tended playground. Simple gardens with low-maintenance hedges. In one building was a common room and below that a small gymnasium.

“Still like it,” Becky asked as she held his hand across the parking lot.

“Yeah,” he said, thinking back on his own first apartment. It was much like this complex, including the small staircase at the front of the building. This was one of the things he particularly didn’t like about the place. He’d need to place his hands on the steps to climb, which was unsanitary and rough on his hands. He wanted to ask if maintenance would build a ramp for him.

“I guess this place was built without disabled people or littles in mind,” he said. Becky bent over and picked him up. Amanda had arrived ahead of them. “Remember,” Becky told him, “your apartment is number 3C, on the bottom floor in the back.”

“I’ll remember.” He wondered if she’d still be reminding him if he hadn’t walked into the wrong bungalow on vacation. 

He was glad they were on the ground floor. No more stairs to climb, and with the way the building was built, they had a patio rather than a balcony. He could walk outside through the backdoor and skip the steps at the front of the building.

Becky knocked gently before turning the knob as Amanda called out, “Come in.” She put down the rag she was scrubbing the stove top with and met them at the door. Becky handed Jamie over. From her hip, he looked around. “What do you think,” Manda asked.

Jamie surveyed the living room. Facing the back of the apartment, the couch was to the right against the wall shared with the bedroom. The TV was across from it, and in between was the coffee table and the sliding glass door to the patio. To the left was the kitchen, with no wall above the counter, opening onto what would have been the dining area. Instead of a table, there was Jamie’s playpen, a toy chest, and a small bookshelf on top of a thick and brightly colored rug.

“It looks so nice the way you arranged it,” Jamie said.

“Come see the bedroom.” She carried him there. The bed was pushed up flush against the wall, and on the long wall alongside the door was the dresser and Jamie’s changing table. “The diaper pail is in the bathroom,” Manda explained. “Figured we could both do with keeping that in another room.”

Jamie wondered if the same manufacturer who made apartment-beige paint in his home dimension also sold it here. “It looks wonderful,” Jamie told her.

“Wanna try it out again,” she asked as she carried him to the bed. She held him over it and playfully said, “Drop the little!” She let him fall the foot to the bed, and he fell down on his butt and felt the mattress. 

“Comfy,” he said.

“That’s gonna be your side against the wall. That way I won’t wake you up climbing over you when I come to bed.” And Becky had insisted on it; he couldn’t fall out of bed from that side. Becky bent down and opened the bottom dresser drawer, saying, “And this is your drawer. There’s some room in the closet for you, too.”

“What else do we need,” Jamie asked.

“To go to the grocery store. We got empty shelves, kiddo.”

“Let’s go to lunch first,” Becky suggested, “and we can take my car.” They headed to the door, and Becky asked, “Got your keys?”

“Right here,” Amanda said as she patted her pocket. She’d always had keys to the house, but she also had a garage door opener and so rarely needed the keys. It was new, and her mom had been right. It was kind of cool having keys to her own apartment, just the symbolism.

“Where do you wanna go to lunch,” Becky asked Jamie.

“What’s around here?” It was a whole other part of town to learn. It wasn’t far from their house, but it was far enough that he had only been driven through it a few times.

“There’s a pub up the hill. Grocery store is across from it,” Amanda said. “Part of why I chose it. Convenient area.” It was a suburban area, with neighborhoods and apartment complexes on a street that ran to a major intersection with a local highway a mile up the hill, around which were several big parking lots with a grocery store, pharmacy, restaurants, and a bank. There was even a dentist’s office, optometrist, and dry cleaner near by.

At the restaurant, Amanda asked for a booth with a booster seat knowing they probably wouldn’t need it. The hostess showed them to a booth.

“This place is nice,” Becky remarked as they sat down.

“We just finished remodeling,” the hostess told them. “The menu is updated, too. First time here for everyone?”

“I just moved in down the street,” Amanda said.

“We’re gonna be regulars,” Jamie said.

“Is that so,” the hostess bantered. “You don’t look 18 to me.”

“I’m 34,” Jamie answered back. “I think.” With the time difference, he’d lost track. He never liked celebrating his birthday back home anyway.

“What’s your name,” the hostess asked.

“Jamie, and this is Amanda and our mom, Becky.”

“What a cutie,” she responded.

“Hear that, Mom? She called you cute,” Jamie deadpanned.

The hostess laughed. “He’s so clever. Your waitress will be with you in a minute.” She went back to her job.

“You make friends everywhere you go,” Amanda said.

“It’s a talent.”

“Feeling a little smartalecky today?”

“I guess.”

Becky opened her menu and put it in front of him. “What sounds good today, Baby Bear?”

The waitress showed up, and Jamie asked, “Do you have a little’s menu?”

“We don’t, but we can make anything on the menu for a little.”

“Ooh,” Jamie responded. He liked that even more. It was a pub menu, but it still had some entrees on it that weren’t fried, didn’t come with cheese, and were made out of ingredients that don’t come sealed in plastic. Jamie didn’t like having to eat like a toddler if he wanted little food. 

They ordered, and Amanda got out her phone and started making a grocery list. She thought about essentials, the kinds of things that were always stocked in their house without her ever thinking about them until they ran low: flour, rice, beans, pasta, foil, plastic wrap, freezer bags, spices. All the things they needed on hand that Becky had just kept stocked and that Amanda only considered when they were close to running out, until now. It once more made her appreciate all the work her mother had done keeping their home, and it made her more fully appreciate this less obvious aspects of adulting. She’d certainly done her part around the house, taking on more and more responsibility, yet this seemed a deeper layer. 

And as she made her list, she realized how expensive this was. She’d never needed to budget when grocery shopping before; Becky made enough that she could give Amanda a grocery list, her credit card, and instructions to come home with anything else she or Jamie wanted. With school and the start of her assistantship still two weeks away, she was relying on Becky to hold her over until her first paycheck. Amanda looked at the list she had already made and stopped adding things.

“What’s on the list,” Becky asked. Amanda handed over her phone. “This isn’t much,” she remarked.

“But all that stuff is expensive when you add it up.”

“Yeah, but some of it last weeks or months. Not like you’re going to be buying a new thing of parchment paper every week.”

“I know,” Amanda said.

Becky surmised why Amanda had made such a thin list, including adding things she didn’t often eat but were cheap. She and Amanda had talked over finances and budgeting several times, and Amanda had each time been more reluctant to accept anymore of the help Becky was giving. Splitting the rent and utilities because Jamie was living there seemed fair, but everything beyond that felt like extras, and as Amanda realized how much it cost to maintain their home in the comfort she had been accustomed to most of her life, she felt less right about the extras.

“I think that’s enough for a first trip,” Amanda said. She didn’t have much in her bank account, just what she made from the occasional tutoring session, savings from her stipend that Becky paid her in acknowledgment that Amanda couldn’t work and be a student and take care of Jamie whenever Becky wasn’t available, and a small inheritance from her grandfather that had been held in trust until she became a legal adult, and she barely ever touched the latter. It wouldn’t last even four months if she drew on it exclusively for her new living expenses. She intended to keep it as an emergency fund and live off her assistantship paycheck, small as it would be.

“Okay,” Becky said, “You take care of what you need, and I’ll take care of food for Jamie today.” Her proposal was disingenuous as she planned to buy enough fresh food for the two of them for a week and packaged food for two weeks. It would be more than enough to cover the extras that Becky suspected Amanda was now thinking of as luxuries, when really they were just non-essentials like snacks and higher quality produce. Becky tried to think back on her own feelings about spending when she was first on her own. It was intimidating, she recalled, to think how much something as simple as a box of Cheezums cost compared to what it took to earn the money. It seemed expensive when she was suddenly been spending way more money than she had ever spent before, and nearly all of it on her apartment.

“I was thinking of joining Money Savers,” Becky said. “Gotta buy in bulk, but it’s a little less expensive. I can add you to the card if I do.”

“Why would you buy in bulk when it’s just you and Jamie,” Amanda asked skeptically.

“Some things don’t perish. I’m not sure, but I think they carry most of the brands we buy for Jamie’s things. Diapers, wipes, cream, shampoo, formula. That could maybe make it worth the membership cost right there.”

“Well, let me know what you decide,” Amanda replied without committing.

Amanda was well aware that she’d led a privileged life. They weren’t wealthy, but there was nothing they wanted that Becky couldn’t afford. Even adopting Jamie hadn’t required any scrimping; she’d just lowered her savings contributions some. Amanda need only look at Mel’s family to understand she had it relatively easy. Mel had started working in secondary school. Amanda had as well, but she didn’t need the job, not like Mel did. When she started college, Amanda worked only during the first summer, and she hadn’t held a regular job since Jamie’s arrival. What she saved Becky in littlecare costs was more than she could’ve earned at the jobs available to students, and so she was able to focus on her academics and occasionally did tutoring sessions, more as a kindness and resume builder than for the money she charged for it .

Amanda wasn’t comfortable living like that anymore. She didn’t exactly feel like a freeloader, but she knew it was time to be more financially independent, which her assistantship would do to a great extent. She didn’t want to live like a trust fund kid, which she wasn’t anyway. The only reason she accepted any help from her mom beyond the first several weeks until she got her first paycheck was because that was the only way she could afford to live with Jamie part time.

Moreover, because he was still six years away from the end of the supervisory period, Jamie’s social worker had to sign off on the new living arrangements, including where he’d be staying. Neither Becky nor Amanda told him that, and neither of them wanted to live in a place that merely met the agency’s standards. They wanted to exceed them at least a little.

Jamie listened to the back and forth quietly. He hadn’t been privy to any of the money conversations. Part of him wanted to help; he’d done basic budgeting for his clients, and he’d helped many foster kids transition to independence. But in four years, the only times Jamie had an inkling of Becky’s finances were when she left a statement or bill laying around. He always assumed Becky gave Amanda some kind of allowance. He didn’t think it was a topic they wanted him involved in, so he didn’t ask them or offer his help.

At the store after lunch, Amanda went one way with her list, and Becky went the other with Jamie in the seat of the cart. “I need your help,” she told him.

“What can I do?”

“When we meet Manda at checkout, I need you to smile real big and say you wanted fresh produce, meat, canned goods, and snacks.”

“Is Manda ... is her assistantship enough?”

“It will be. She doesn’t realize it yet. She’s not as poor as she thinks. It’s, tight but not poverty wages.”

“I guess that’s a good thing. Most of the kids I worked with thought they were a lot richer than they were when they got out on their own. Suddenly having a tiny bit of money when before they had none. They spent too much at first.”

“I didn’t know you did that, too.”

“All the time. Helping people make budgets for the first time. That’s the easy part, though. Sticking to a budget is harder.”

“Were you good at it?”

“Not great. I didn’t save as much as I should’ve. I had a lot of student debt. You have to have a graduate degree to get a raise as a social worker, but you have to pay for the degree yourself. You don’t make nearly so much as the degree costs.”

“Bad enough that you have to pay for college where you come from, but to have to pay to become a social worker of all things.” Becky shook her head as she plucked items off the shelf.

“I’d have done something different if I could do it again.” 

“Like what?”

“Not sure. I went into social work to kinda pay it forward for all the people who helped me, but maybe also a little because I didn’t know many other options. Wasn’t exposed to a lot of college-educated people or career tracks. Social workers and teachers, mostly. Plus, does anyone really know what they wanna do when they’re 18?”

“So you didn’t wanna teach?”

“I didn’t wanna be up in front of a bunch of people. Controlling a classroom - just doesn’t seem like something I could do.”

“You learn tricks,” the veteran teacher told him. “The layout of this store is totally different.”

“What are you looking for?”

“Crackers.”

“I think we passed them.” Becky turned the cart around. “I could help Manda,” Jamie decided to say, “with her budget.”

“That’s nice of you, but I think we’ve got it locked down. Might be some minor adjustments after she gets her first paycheck and we see the actual withholdings, but I think we’re in good shape. She’s even saving a little bit, or will be when she gets paid.”

“I could earn some extra money.”

Becky chuckled. “How would you do that, Baby Bear?”

“I dunno. Research subject. Being cute. Hey - there we go. Panhandling! I could really clean up if I’m as cute as you guys say.”

“You are,” she said as she ruffled his hair, “but no begging.”

“What about busking,” he added with a grin.

“We’re keeping you off the streets, period. Why don’t you try to invent something?”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. I’m not the inventor. Which kind of cookie do you want?”

“The chocolate with the icing in the middle.”

“My favorite, too. The big kind.”

“I wonder why they invented little food.” Becky knew the answer to that - it was invented a long time ago in what was now a non-Alliance country to keep humans compliant. That version was much stronger than what they put in little food, but it was essentially the same.

“I’m not sure,” Becky said. “The important thing is you like it.”

“I do. Manda’s right. I’m a milkhead.”

“I’m not sure what that makes me, because I like feeding you.”

They met Amanda at the checkout counter, and Amanda wasn’t fooled by her mom’s attempt to hide the fact that she bought groceries for her, but she didn’t object, and Jamie played along. When they got back to the apartment, Jamie took in the sofa while they unloaded the groceries. Becky went out to get the last bag.

“So what are you gonna do tonight,” Jamie asked.

“I got a little more unpacking to do, and Mel is coming over to give me some decorating ideas. We’ll probably order a pizza.”

“Don’t wanna cook?”

“I’m too tired to cook. Let’s not move again ever.”

“And you don’t even have much stuff.”

“What happened to your stuff when you left?”

“The agency has it in storage. They’ll sell it when the ten years is up. Be pretty outdated by then probably.”

Becky came back in with a wrapped gift box, setting the last grocery bag on the counter. “You really didn’t have to do that, Mom,” Amanda said graciously when she saw the box.

“It’s from Jamie,” Becky said proudly.

“You,” Amanda said as she reached over to tickle his belly with gentle pokes. He giggled and shied away, then leaned against her when she took the box from Becky, now seated on the other side. He suspected the present would result in gushing, and he wanted to milk the reaction. If they found him too cute and precious, then he was happy to be deliberately cute to make them even happier.

Manda opened the box to reveal the teddy bear Jamie had picked out for her. “She’s so adorable,” she said in the over enthusiastic tone she inadvertently used when Jamie was being too cute not to.

Looking at the bear, he said, “I wanted you to have someone to sleep with when I’m not here. So you don’t get scared or lonely.” Becky smiled as a lump rose in her throat, and Amanda turned to heft Jamie onto her lap so she could give him a proper hug.

“Thank you, Jamie Bear.” He gave him a kiss. “She’ll protect me all night long.”

“You have to give her a name though. Two nameless bears might get confusing.”

“Is she gonna share the bed with us when you’re here?”

“Uh huh.”

“Does she get along with your bear?”

“They haven’t met yet. But my bear is pretty easy going. Hope I didn’t get you a diva.”

“Hehe,” Amanda laughed. “I bet she’s perfect.”

“We should go,” Becky said. “Still a little bit of nap time left.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Jamie said to Manda.

“Yep.” She gave him another squeeze. “Be a good boy, and sleep well.” She passed him to Becky, who stood. She and Manda gave each other a one armed hug. “Thanks for everything today, Mom.”

“My pleasure. We’ll see you in the morning.”

“Love you,” Manda said as she saw them out the door.

“Love you, too,” Becky and Jamie both replied.

Amanda closed her door, turned the deadbolt, and looked around her new apartment. Not quite finished. “Guess I live here now,” she said. She walked to the coffee table and picked up the bear. “He’s so thoughtful,” she mused, “and so friggin cute.” She took her new teddy into her new bedroom to take a nap on her new bed.

 

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I feel Amanda. Moving sucks. Moving into an 80 square foot dorm room takes a lot of time and is a pain while whole apartments are the worst. I can't imagine what it's like to move a whole house. Great chapter, glad that Becky didn't let Jamie help with the budget. Jamie doesn't need that kind of stress in his life.

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What an excellent chapter. I really appreciate the "slice of life" chapters, where the characters are just going about daily business. This one was especially nice, as it showcases both sides to a child leaving the house. Of course I mean in a purely practical sense, I am sure that the emotional shoe has yet to drop. For both Amanda, and Becky. 

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Chapter 78

 

Becky went into the living room looking for Jamie, and when she didn’t find him there she switched off the TV and moved some of his toys back toward the wall. Figuring he must’ve gone to his room, she went there next, but he wasn’t in there either. She called out, “Jamie, where’d you go?”

“Up here,” he called back from the landing. He started back downstairs and was halfway down with Kazoo alongside him when Becky appeared at the bottom.

“What were you doing up there?”

“I was in Manda’s room.”

She picked him up when as he got to the bottom, saying, “Aww. Please don’t be sad.”

“I was looking for Kazoozie. He doesn’t understand where she went. He was in there sniffing everything.”

“Poor puppy. We’ll explain it to him after dinner.” That made no sense to the logical Jamie. Explain something to a dog? Kazoo didn’t even speak the language.

“What did you make,” he asked.

“Pasta,” Becky said as she put a glass of water in front of Jamie and another by her own chair, then turned back to the stove and spooned a serving into Jamie’s bowl and one into her own.

“Heavy meal,” Jamie observed as he watched Becky carry it over. It looked heavy on cheese, like her take on caccio e pepe.

“I can make you a quick salad if you want.”

“No. Just an observation. Looks good.” On the one hand, he wanted to lose a few more pounds. On the other, he wanted to eat that pasta. The latter impulse won out before the dish hit the table. “Thank you,” he said as she put it down.

“Guess I wanted a little comfort food today. Feel like I earned it after all that help moving.”

“Heh,” Jamie grunted. He took his spoon and fork and twisted some noodles onto it. Becky watched him closely, or so it seemed to him. “What,” he asked self consciously.

Becky shook her head tightly. “Nothing. I was just thinking it’s nice to be able make pasta and not have the meal end with a little covered in sauce and noodles in a circle on the floor around him. Cute once or twice.” She began to eat her own dinner. “I remember with Manda we’d give her a bath after feeding her spaghetti, and the water would turn pink.”

Jamie knew very little about the early years of Manda’s life. He knew even less about her father, Becky’s ex-husband. “Did you guys live here back then,” he asked.

“No, we lived closer to where Manda’s apartment is. We were young; we couldn’t afford this part of town yet.” She ate between sentences. “I had just started teaching, and new teachers here do a probationary period for two years. I didn’t start making more money until after ... That was actually when things started to go not so great with Amanda’s father. When I got off probation and suddenly was making more money than him.”

“Money leads to a lot of divorces where I’m from,” Jamie said, “and a lot of men are insecure about earning less than their wives. Probably more so than here,” he guessed as Itali seemed to him to be more socially advanced and equal in many ways.

Becky talked slowly and thoughtfully as she ate. “One of several issues with him, really. I married too young and to the wrong person.”

Jamie was surprised Becky was telling him these things. It made him a little uncomfortable, and he was afraid she’d regret it later. Still, he listened. That’s what he did best.

“He left when Amanda was five. Didn’t want shared custody; didn’t want anything. Haven’t heard from him since ... My mom brought him up a lot, whenever she needed some ammunition to throw at me. Like I needed her to tell me it what a bad decision marrying him was.”

“You got Manda out of it,” he said.

“That’s right. I wouldn’t change anything, except maybe throw him out before he left.”

Jamie guessed that her daughter moving out had Becky in a contemplative mood and thinking about the past. He didn’t especially want to hear more about her failed marriage or her mother’s emotional abuse, though he was happy to hear more about her life before him. There was so much he didn’t know, it could be hard sometimes to see her as a full person, not just his and Manda’s mom. He knew, not from his own experience, that most kids knew their parents the same way, just as parents, until they were adults and could relate to their parents as adults. He changed the subject, though, to something more pleasant.

“Did you teach at the same school as now?”

“Mhmm. I did. Been there my whole career.”

“How long is that?”

“Twenty-five years. Twenty-six when the new semester starts.”

“Do you still like it?”

“I love it. All the kids I’ve gotten to know. Lot of really special people ... It’s great to be a part of shaping their lives, but I think my favorite part is just meeting them, seeing who they are. What they’re like when they’re still young, seeing the early part of who they’re going to become start to show up.”

“I guess that’s the nice thing about your grade.”

“Yeah.” Becky smiled. “I taught younger for a bit and older for a bit. The younger ones are fun; different kind of job, and I didn’t like teaching every subject. Older ones at my level - ya know, it’s still primary school - just too much in the throes of adolescence.”

“Tell me about it,” Jamie replied. He’d had many clients in that age group, some after he’d known them for years, and it was not the most fun transition to deal with day in and out. It was special for the reasons Becky said, but it was also a difficult stage of life, for them and for the adults around them.

“They’re just so mean to each other sometimes,” Becky continued.

“Developmentally appropriate. Differentiating themselves for the first time; finding their own identity,” Jamie interrupted.

“Yeah, and sometimes that means finding what they’re not and being total snots to the people who are.” Jamie nodded. “Some people are great with that age,” Becky continued. “I had to always remind myself they were still kids. Ya know the way they switch back and forth at that age, surly teenager one minute, whiny little kid by the next sentence ... Not all of them all the time , obviously. I just decided I wasn’t suited for that. Figured the kids deserved a teacher who was.” Their bowls were empty. Kazoo was laying under Jamie’s feet in the hope of getting to lick a bowl or be fed a scrap.

“How long have you been teaching this grade.”

“Twenty years, come next month.”

“Ever hear from any of your old students?”

“A few of the ones who liked school more always reach out now and again when they’re in the next few grades. Had one or two I got close with contact me on social media before they started college, but that’s it ... Which is okay. That’s how it’s supposed to happen.”

“There’s a country where I’m from that has an old saying ... I’m not gonna get it right, but they say a student who doesn’t surpass his teacher insults the teacher ... I don’t mean surpass; just grow up, I guess.”

“Mhmm. I think that’s right. That’s the hope anyway, right? Teach them well enough that they don’t need you anymore ... Different when it’s your kid; you still want them to need you for stuff. And they do, usually ... First time you realize you’re not a kid anymore is when you realize your students from ten or twelve years ago are having kids of their own.”

“Consider yourself lucky. I had kids who were having kids long before they were even supposed to graduate ... very few of them did graduate after that ... One of the worst days ...” Jamie shook his head. “I got a call from a school I worked at a lot. Had a lot of clients there over the years. Cops were raiding this drug house and found two of the students there. They were prostituting themselves for drugs. Cops didn’t arrest them, so they took them to the school instead of the police station.”

Becky shook her head with her eyes closed. “I can’t imagine. I know that kind of thing happens here; I’ve just never had to deal with it.”

“You must’ve dealt with some tragedy in twenty-five years.”

“Yeah. I have ... I’ve had a couple of very sick kids, but mostly the tragedy happened to a parent or an older sibling. Only happened a few times, but fifteen kids a class, three classes a year, twenty-five years.”

“Eleven hundred twenty-five,” Jamie said.

“Give or take.”

Wanting to turn the topic back to something more happier, Jamie asked, “What was Manda like at that age?”

“Pretty easy kid. She’s always been pretty easy. Little bookworm.” Becky smiled after the memory. “She read way ahead of her grade level. Lot of adult fiction by the time she was fourteen ... very much the kind of kid to have just a few really good friends.”

“She seems so popular now.”

“She was then, too, but it was really just Mel and Donna. A few others, but by the end of secondary school, Mel and Donna. Just grew apart from some of the kids she was friends with when she was younger;  happens to everybody ... She’d do things with bigger groups, but her preference was always small ones. Think she liked it best when it was just the three of them ... Caused a little rift there when Mel became more social than Manda.”

“How so?”

“They’re the same age, so I guess it’s just a personality thing. Right around when they were fifteen Mel just started having a bigger social circle. Manda was a bit resentful of Mel’s other friends. She wasn’t thrilled with having to hangout with them to hang out with Mel. Didn’t like sharing her.”

“Sounds familiar,” Jamie said with a chuckle. “How’d she get over that?”

Becky shrugged. “Matured a bit. Actually got to like some of those people once she got over the resentment ... Never did want to go to a party with any of them without Mel or Donna, though.”

“And what was Mel like?”

“Haha. I always called her ‘high spirited’ back then, but she was the troublemaker.

Only times Manda ever really got in trouble, she was going along with Mel ... Donna was the total opposite. She’d never break a rule. Wanted to be sitting for a baby or little than be going to parties.”

Jamie chuckled. That all seemed right to him. “What kind of trouble did Manda get in?”

“Typical teenage stuff. Little contests of will,” Becky remembered with a gentle laugh. “Outfits. Curfew, going places and not telling me there wouldn’t be any parents there ... Tried experimenting with drinking one time. Wasn’t the alcohol that made her sick but the sugar and carbonation. Wine coolers.”

“How did you handle stuff like that?”

“That particular time I told her the red stain on her favorite shirt she begged me to buy was part of her punishment, and then I grounded her for a couple weeks ... Manda always made herself feel worse than I ever wanted her to feel when she got in trouble. I mostly took away privileges or her phone or grounded her for a weekend. She’d get to feeling so guilty with not much more than a cross look from me.”

“You think you being a single mom had anything to do with that?” Jamie asked the question out of curiosity before he could think not to. He cursed himself for asking, but Becky seemed unfazed and kept talking.

“I don’t know. Manda’s father wasn’t the best father. By the time she was maybe eight, she was over him being gone. Even right after he left, I think the change bothered her more than him, specifically, being gone. They had their good times for sure, but only when he wanted. He disappointed her a lot; even that young, he managed to ... After that passed, it only bothered her a bit at events sometimes; other kids had their dad watching, stuff like that. She never had a melt down over it at things like that, but sometimes you could tell it got to her, just the way her shoulders slumped, or she didn’t smile when everyone else did. Not always, but sometimes, like when the dads would lift their daughters over their heads after they won a game, hearing the loudest ones applauding and whooping. More just missing a dad than the actual person. My dad filled in when he could; when his health was better. Danny filled in a lot. Took her father/daughter dances.” Becky stood up and collected their bowls, placing them in the sink and sat back down. “Even Mel’s dad; he’s cheer them both on. They were on the same teams, in the same plays. Hoisted her on my shoulders myself plenty of times. Incan cheer pretty loud, too. Even coached one season, not that we did so well; lost all but two, actually. ... I always tried to make it so nothing was different about Manda’s life growing up than for her friends with two parents.”

“There’s a limit,” Jamie said.

“How do you mean?”

“Only so much you can do to make that happen. Still going to be different in some ways. One safe adult versus two in the house. Money being tighter than it would be. And her just knowing, seeing how other households work.”

“Yeah, all that. Tried to make it so it didn’t bother her; that it didn’t actually, ya know, change any actual outcomes. I think I mostly succeeded.”

“Seems like it to me.”

“Probably put more work on her keeping up the household than I would’ve. She probably took on certain responsibilities at a younger age than her friends ... Not a bad thing. Never stopped her from having fun or going out to do things. Wasn’t a chore chart thumper who wouldn’t let her put something off if it meant missing out on something worthwhile, within reason ... Did a chore for her sometimes. Idea wasn’t to teach her responsibility; I mean, it did, but it was mostly just practical. Couldn’t do it all by myself all of the time.”

“You did a great job. She took on taking care of me so seamlessly ... especially since she wasn’t that thrilled with getting me at first.”

“I think that was all you. I asked for a little bit of help when I decided to adopt; I didn’t mean for her to turn into a second mom. Certainly didn’t ask her to. Glad she did, for both of you. You’ve been so good for each other.” Becky shook her head in wonder at how it all worked out.

“Why do you think she did,” Jamie asked. “Become kind of a second mom, I mean.”

“Because she loves you. She met you, and she loved you before you even woke up, and she wanted to take care of you. Makes her so happy. Like it makes me so happy.” Jamie felt a warm, fuzzy ball in his stomach. “Would’ve been different if you were a sibling, I think, or if the two of us were a few years younger when you arrived. I mean, obviously, but then I would’ve needed her to take on more serious responsibilities, whether she wanted to or not ... I wouldn’t have liked doing that.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean all older siblings take care of younger ones to a point, but it’s not good for them to have to be junior parents.”

“Happens a lot of single-parent households.”

“Exactly. Not what I would’ve wanted for her.”

“Do you feel that you kind of took on that role for Danny?”

“Somewhat; not entirely. Just had to be a very protective big sister, especially when he was younger ... Never really got to go through the stage when you pick on your little brother all the time. Enough bullies in the house.” Becky looked down at the floor for a moment and took a drink of water. “Just wanted him to know he was a good person. And loved. Unconditionally. Someone had to do those things.”

Jamie changed the subject, asking, “Did you ever want a second kid?”

“For a while. Always pictured it that way growing up. But then pictured my marriage differently, too. When Manda was still a baby and things hadn’t gotten difficult between me and her father yet, I wanted another baby.”

“Did he?”

“He would never commit one way or another. Sort of his general problem; one of them. I don’t know why he even married me. Doesn’t seem like something he would do, looking backward. But for all I know, he’s got ten kids now ... Anyway, after the divorce, I still wanted more, but I didn’t want to do it as a single mom. Didn’t wanna do that to Manda but also not to me, and also not to the second kid.”

“Ever get close to marrying anyone again?”

“No. Only had a few other relationships after my divorce. Just let that fall by the wayside once I got into my thirties. Single mom in her thirties isn’t the easiest pitch to make ... and I also stopped enjoying it, the dating. Just felt like work; never got past the first five dates after those first few years. I stopped wanting the second kid, and then the dating just didn’t feel fulfilling anymore. Not worth the effort.”

“Is that why you wanted to adopt a little, do you think?” Becky reached over and picked Jamie up to place in her lap.

“Because I wanted a second kid? Maybe a bit. Different, though; one’s not a replacement for the other ... I wanted a little because I just had more love to give.”

“Makes sense,” Jamie said, “you’re such a good mom, you weren’t ready to not be one anymore. To a little kid. I mean, I’m not a kid, but you know what I mean.”

Becky smiled. “Something like that.” She put her arms around him from behind and her chin on his shoulder. “I did miss that feeling, being needed by someone so much, a snuggly little thing like you. Just wanting to love and be loved.”

“I’m glad I make you happy.”

“So happy.” She gave the back of his head a kiss and saw the clock on the oven from the corner of her eye. “Goodness; we’ve talked pretty late for you.” She turned him around as she stood up and carried him toward his nursery. “Will you share my bed with me tonight?”

“Mhmm.” She set him on the edge of his changing table, and he laid back, lifting his hips. Becky pulled his skirt right off. “You are a wet little boy tonight,” she cooed. “Who’s my wet little boy?” Jamie blushed but giggled. Becky untaped his diaper and took it out from under him, dropping it into the pail. “Ya know what wet little boys need,” she asked as she wiped him off.

“Mmm mmm,” Jamie said as he enjoyed the feel of her hands.

“Little oil. How about that tonight?” She took the bottle of little oil from under the table and opened it, squirting some into her palm before closing the cap, putting the bottle away, and rubbing her hands together. “This ought feel nice,” she said as she massaged the oil into his diaper area. “Shiny little butts are the cutest,” she said. She gave his cheek a squeeze. “All wrapped in no time.” She got a fresh a wipe out and cleaned her hands. “In dinosaurs, too,” she said excitedly as she picked the top diaper off the stack.

She lifted Jamie’s ankles and put the diaper under him, took out the powder and gave him a very light dusting, and then sealed the diaper tight. Before putting the powder away, she put the tiniest bit on her palm and rubbed it across Jamie’s chest. “You might just be the best smelling bear ever.” She held her arms out, and Jamie sat up for her to pick him up onto her hip and cross the dresser. With her free hand, she opened his top drawer. “Which one tonight,” she as he looked at his diaper covers. 

“Those, please,” he said as he pointed.

“Hehe. You love the satin ones.”

“I like how they feel slippery.” She took the cover and set him down, then bent down on one knee. Jamie put his hands on her shoulders for balance as she held out the cover for him to step into, pulling it up tight and giving him a gentle pat on the front of his diaper when she was done. “Arms up.”

He lifted his arms, and she pulled his tee shirt off, pivoted to grab his skirt, and tossed both in his open hamper before picking him back up. “Let’s get your bear.” She bent over the railing to pluck the bear from his blankets.

“You did such a good job on him. Thanks again,” he told her.

“You’re welcome again. I love that you love your bear so much.”

That reminded Jamie. “We still haven’t explained things to Kazoo yet.”

“That’s right!” She tapped his nose. “So clever.” She left the room, flipping out the light. “Better call for him,” she said.

“Kazoozle.” Jamie called out. The dog quickly appeared from the living room and followed them upstairs, quite an effort for such a small dog but one his young body executed with grace, most of the time.

When they got to the top of the landing, neither looked to the right, toward Manda’s room, though neither noticed the other did this. They turned left into Becky’s room, and she set him and his bear on the bed, stooped to pick up Kazoo, and sat down on the edge.

“Do you want to explain it to him, or should I,” she asked.

“Could you do it? Please?” She let the dog go, and he waddled toward Jamie, putting his head in his lap. Jamie picked him up, turned him so he was facing Becky, and set him down in his lap.

“Kazoozie,” Becky started, “I think you’ve noticed most of Manda’s things are gone. She’s okay. Nothing bad happened. It’s a good thing, in fact.” The dog looked at her, that mindlessly loving stare dogs have, tail wagging because you’re looking back. “She’s growing up, and it was time for her to move out on her own. I know it may be scary for you, and it’s probably a little scary for her, too. The important thing is you’re both going to be okay. You’re still going to see her and have fun with her and play with her, and most important is to know that she still loves you. You had nothing to do with her moving out. She loves you very much, okay?”

Kazoo had lost interest. Jamie gave his puppy a cockeyed grin and let out just one amused chortle as he patted his dog.

Becky smiled at Jamie gently. “How’d I do?”

“If anyone could get through to him, you did.”

“Ready for your milk?”

“Yes, please.”

She reached for him, and Kazoo moved out of the way. She cradled Jamie in her lap, not often how she held him to nurse, and looked down at him as he looked back up at her. “Are you okay? I mean, really,” she asked.

He felt his eyes water just a bit, not only because of Amanda’s empty room but because his mother’s concern and that she’d had shared so openly with him, more than ever before that night, touched him so. “I’m okay, Mama.”

“You did so good these past few days. Very brave.”

“Are you okay,” he asked.

Her own eyes watered, and a lump that felt familiar these past few day’s rose in her throat. “I’m okay, Baby Bear.”

“Will you tell me if you’re ever not?”

“Mhmm, but you have to tell me, too,” Becky said as she unbuttoned her blouse.

“I will. I promise ... It’s okay to not be okay with me. I like that you shared tonight.”

Becky’s face made an uncertain, tight-lipped grin. “You’re a very good listener.” He smiled back, wondering if there was an end to that sentence she wasn’t saying. “Ready?”

Jamie just barely nodded, and Becky reclined against her pillows and raised Jamie to her breast.

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4 hours ago, Alex Bridges said:

She let the dog go, and he waddled toward Jamie, putting his head in his lap. Jamie picked him up, turned him so he was facing Becky, and set him down in his lap.

“Kazoozie,” Becky started, “I think you’ve noticed most of Manda’s things are gone. She’s okay. Nothing bad happened. It’s a good thing, in fact.” The dog looked at her, that mindlessly loving stare dogs have, tail wagging because you’re looking back

This was a lovely chapter and a very interesting one, as we learned so much about Becky and Amanda's lives before Jamie.I'm so happy that I checked in before going to bed so I could read this one.  I have a couple of questions though. First, in this section Jamie picks Kazoo up and Kazoo wags his tail. I asked you once if Kazoo was a bear because to these people that's what dogs are, and you said that he was. If so, how can Jamie pick him up? And where did this tail come from for him to wag, since bears don't have that kind of tail?

I also have a stylistic question. About halfway through this scene, Becky starts dropping the subject from her sentences, beginning almost all of them with the verbs. I don't think I've ever noticed her doing this before. (Actually I wondered if I had missed some reference to her maybe having some alcohol because this kind of terseness is common when people have been drinking, but I looked back and I hadn't.) Why is she suddenly and so consistently doing this?

Thanks for Jamie's ongoing story; it is wonderful.

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5 hours ago, kerry said:

This was a lovely chapter and a very interesting one, as we learned so much about Becky and Amanda's lives before Jamie.I'm so happy that I checked in before going to bed so I could read this one.  I have a couple of questions though. First, in this section Jamie picks Kazoo up and Kazoo wags his tail. I asked you once if Kazoo was a bear because to these people that's what dogs are, and you said that he was. If so, how can Jamie pick him up? And where did this tail come from for him to wag, since bears don't have that kind of tail?

I also have a stylistic question. About halfway through this scene, Becky starts dropping the subject from her sentences, beginning almost all of them with the verbs. I don't think I've ever noticed her doing this before. (Actually I wondered if I had missed some reference to her maybe having some alcohol because this kind of terseness is common when people have been drinking, but I looked back and I hadn't.) Why is she suddenly and so consistently doing this?

Thanks for Jamie's ongoing story; it is wonderful.

Good questions! Dogs in Itali, like our dogs, come in many sizes. If you look back at the very last chapter of Volume 1, you’ll see that Becky got him a tiny one, because Jamie is tiny, too.

As for Becky’s sentence structure, all of my characters talk like that, especially when they get more serious. I try to write in vernacular and use sentence structure and grammar in my dialogue to to reflect the way people actually talk as opposed to how people write formally. I would look on the periods as sentence enders sometimes and cadence markers in others.

Jamie starts talking the same way when he’s reminiscing. I find most people talk in free verse rather than prose when they’re deep into a conversation between family and close friends.

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11 hours ago, Alex Bridges said:

contexts

Contests?

11 hours ago, Alex Bridges said:

you could tell most got to her

"You could tell almost go to her"?

 

I don't want to be the spelling and grammar guy, but I guy I will be today.  

11 hours ago, Alex Bridges said:

Becky’s face made an uncertain, tight-lipped grin. “You’re a very good listener.” He smiled back, wondering if there was an end to that sentence she wasn’t saying.

Hmmmm. My foreshadow sense is tingling. I wonder what you mean or what you are possibly maybe implying? 

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1 hour ago, Shotgun Diplomat said:

Contests?

"You could tell almost go to her"?

 

I don't want to be the spelling and grammar guy, but I guy I will be today.  

Hmmmm. My foreshadow sense is tingling. I wonder what you mean or what you are possibly maybe implying? 

Fixed. I hate making errors, but I did write this in about two hours and re-read just once. I prefer to post as soon as I’m done. Otherwise, I’d never post anything because I dislike editing and would never get around to it.

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17 minutes ago, Alex Bridges said:

Fixed. I hate making errors, but I did write this in about two hours and re-read just once. I prefer to post as soon as I’m done. Otherwise, I’d never post anything because I dislike editing and would never get around to it.

Any of the short stories I have written, gave also been posted with minimal proofing. I have, a tendency to, overuse, he common, comma.

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No soy ABDL sin embargo, me considero un lector de varias historias y libros, y desde hace un tiempo me han gustado mucho las historias de "Diaper Dimensional" pero dejame decirte que los 2 volumenes de "Done Adulting" me han gustado muchisimo, estan en mi top 1 ambos volumenes, seguidos de otra historia creada por Baby Sofia, espero que este volumen no sea el ultimo de "Done Adulting" y que no sea la ultima historia de "Diaper Dimensional" que haces.

Soy tu fan y lector desde México, un saludo   (Perdón por la traducción soy malo escribiendo en ingles, es algo que no pongo tanto en practica, solo domino la lectura y el hablar con otros en ingles).

//Translation:


I am not ABDL however, I consider myself a reader of several stories and books, and for a while I have really liked the stories of "Dimensional Diaper" but let me tell you that the 2 volumes of "Done Adulting" I liked a lot, they are In my top 1 both volumes, followed by another story created by Baby Sofia, I hope this volume is not the last one of "Done Adulting" and that it is not the last story of "Diaper Dimensional" that you do.

I am your fan and reader from Mexico, greetings (Sorry for the translation I am bad writing in English, it is something that I do not put so much into practice, I only master reading and speaking with others in English).

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Chapter 79

 

Mel took the one-minute tour of Amanda’s apartment and declared it, “Nice. Nicer than most of our other friends’ places.”

“Thanks to Mom paying half so Jamie can stay here. Think we can do much with it,” Manda asked as she surveyed her living room again.

“Yeah. I think so ... You need some stuff to hang on your walls.”

“Yeah, that was a low priority, but it looks so bare now.”

“I’ll help pick things out and arrange them.”

“Thanks.”

“You need a bookshelf,” Mel observes when she saw there was a small one for Jamie in his area but not one for Amanda. She needed one for her own schooo bigs and as a place to put some nic nacs and other objects. “If you come pick one out at my store, I’ll use my discount to buy it for you.”

“Thanks. I’ll need to see if I can afford it this month.”

“We have some affordable stuff, plus back to school sale starts in a week. I get my discount on top of that.”

“I think that could work. I’ll check tomorrow.”

Mel sat down on the sofa, and Manda popped herself down next to her. Manda took her phone from the table and ordered a pizza on the newest delivery app. “Ya gonna buy a TV,” Mel asked.

“Not sure. Just as easy to stream stuff on my tablet. Jamie might want one though.”

“It’s nice that you think of him in everything,” Mel said.

“Kinda have to.”

“Maybe not in everything.”

“What’s that supposed to mean,” Manda replied defensively.

“Just that he doesn’t live here full time, and you don’t have to make all your decisions based around him. If he was a kid, we’d call him spoiled with how much you guys cater to him. And I do it, too, so I know whereof I speak.” Mel winked at Amanda. 

The way people spoiled their littles, and the way she and Becky and Amanda spoiled Jamie, reminded her more of how people obsessed with their dogs treated them than the way people treated actual kids. It made some sense, though. People have to raise their kids, but spoiling littles and pets, to a point, was part of the fun of having them.

“He’s gonna be here four days a week every other week. I want him to like it here,” Manda said.

“I know.”

“I’ll figure it all out. Just ... early now. Got a month before school starts. And anyway, there’s not much I need or want at this point. Plus I’m almost broke until I get paid, and that’s six weeks away.”

“If don’t wanna buy a TV, maybe he could ask your mom for a tablet of his own.”

“She’s not crazy about screen time for him. Her generation grew up with a lot more screen time than we did, but you know how they were about limiting it with us. Mom likes him to stick to analog.”

“I’ve seen him on your phone and tablet, and your mom’s phone,” Mel said.

“Never for more than a few minutes at a time. At most for a while movie, but never more than that even if he’s with us on it. I think it’s partly because she doesn’t want him to start looking at grown up stuff.”

With a perplexed and doubtful look, Mel asked, “She worries about him looking at porn? I thought she was convinced he doesn’t have those urges.”

“I meant stuff like news,” Amanda said. Though Mel raised a point. Becky has washed Jamie’s sheets, so she either knew he did have those urges or assumed what she found on his bedding from time to time didn’t get there intentionally.

Mel laughed at her mistake and asked, “So when do you actually have to be on campus?”

“Orientation starts three days before the semester, to another three and a half weeks.”

“And when does your mom go back to work?”

“In two weeks. I’ll have Jamie during the day until orientation, then it’s back to daycare for him.”

“Do you get any kind of access to the employee daycare as a university employee?”

“I would if he were a kid.”

“That sucks. Unfair.”

“I’m sure it would be cheaper there if I did get it, but I’m not sure we’d move him there anyway. Pretty sure we wouldn’t. He wouldn’t like not going to daycare with Ella. Probably actually cause a real problem, when I think about it. Assuming they’d even take an unregressed little, and not all do, and the ones that do aren’t all good at with them, I can see him being bored to the point of behavioral problems without Ella.”

“He did have a hard time adjusting to daycare the first time,” Mel chuckled as she remembered the stories Manda had relayed back then. 

“He really, really did,” Manda remembered with a laugh. It had been distressing at the time, but distance made it at least a little amusing. “And anyway, with his relationship with Ella, it just wouldn’t be right for them not to see each other as often as they do now.”

“Very true. So what are you going to do until school starts?”

“Same thing I’ve been doing all summer, I guess. Spending tomorrow at Mom’s house and probably going to the pool. Don’t have anything else to do. Don’t have any extra money to spend. Everyone we know is at work during the day except me.”

“Why’d you move in so early then?”

“The apartment was available at the beginning of the month, so it was pay for the whole month or lose it to someone who would, and I wanted time to get settled. We also thought it would be helpful for Jamie to have a couple weeks to get used to it before he went back to daycare,” Manda explained.

“So you’ll pretty much just be sleeping here for a while?”

“Pretty much. I can hang out here all I want, but there’s nothing to do for four whole weeks. Won’t take that long to decorate.”

“What do you think so far? About the place, I mean. Being on your own.”

“Little scary. Feeling broke. Don’t have any less money than I had three days ago, but suddenly all these expenses. If Mom wasn’t helping, I would’ve had to wait until a month into the semester to move after I’d been paid ... But what about you?”

“Got my first paycheck. The taxes are a shock. Or not really, because I expected them, but still a eye opening seeing how much gets withheld. Didn’t stand out so much when I was working retail or waiting tables.”

“Cost we pay for not having to pay for the doctor or college or having a bunch of major social problems. Look at daily life in Vespucci. Or just talk to Jamie if you wanna hear about what it’s like to have taxes to low to pay for social services that work. Stuff like thousands of homeless people in a city and the group home shit hole he lived in for five years ... Can’t even imagine group homes for kids here. Society would have to collapse before we’d need those.”

“I know. Just seeing the actual difference on the check. It’s still the biggest paycheck I’ve ever gotten, and by a lot.”

“What are you doing with it?”

“Putting two-thirds of it in a savings account for my first apartment deposit and to set some a little by for emergencies. I want a little nest egg before I start paying rent. It won’t be much, but better than nothing. We’ll see after I get my first apartment how much is left over. Still want to save a lot, but also not so much that I can’t enjoy what I earn. My parents are being helpful with it. I’ve been bouncing a lot of questions off them, and they don’t mind me staying as long as I need.”

“Ya know some parents charge their kids rent to live at home when they get to our age.”

“I know. Helping out with groceries and stuff is one thing, but seems stupid to charge your kid rent to live in the house they’ve lived in all their life. If you need to charge your adult kid rent to teach them about finances or to get them to move out, clearly you screwed up. I mean, your kid should understand finances and be responsible about it by our age; shouldn’t need to be hit over the head with a bill from mom and dad to understand the reality of it twenty-four ... Whole other issue if you have to charge them rent just to motivate them to move out when they’re ready.”

“Should, but it was still a shock to me. There’s a buncha stuff I didn’t think about. Add up the cost of the stuff in the drawer with the foil and stuff. It’s ridiculous.”

“Are you paying utilities?”

“Built into the rent,” Amanda said with relief. “Jamie can take all the hot baths he wants without me having to pay more for water and gas.”

“Ha!”

Amanda took a drink from her beer bottle and looked around as though to make sure they were alone. “Can you keep a secret?”

“Don’t I always?”

“I got him something I didn’t tell Mom or him yet, and I’m not telling Mom.” Manda went into the bathroom and came back with a nondescript box and a grocery bag. She handed the grocery bag to Mel, who looked inside and then back up to Amanda with genuine surprised on her face.

“And,” Amanda said as she sat back down and opened the box.

“Wow,” Mel said, a little amused and a very skeptical. “Pullups and a potty chair. That’s ... Are you sure he can learn?”

Amanda laughed silently and wearily. What was wrong with her species, or at least her society? She set the box on the table. She didn’t want to reveal that Jamie had once upon a time been as continent as any big. She wasn’t sure if that would change Mel’s view of Jamie or of herself, if Manda explained how this has all come to be. Instead, she answered, “I think he can.”

“I dunno. He peed a small lake on your bedroom floor while you were moving in here, and that was two day’s ago ... And pooped six diapers that day before you got home without even a hint he knew it was coming ... And didn’t seem to notice after he’d done it, either.”

“He was hopped up on the little extract.”

Mel was skeptical. “Yeah, but he never seems to know he’s about to go. I mean, it’s obvious when he’s going most of the time, but he never acts like he’s knows it’s coming, and then after he’s done, he almost never says anything about it.”

“Trust me. He can do this,” Amanda assured her.

“Isn’t that the order it happens in with toddlers, though? First they know when they need to poop, then when they need know when they need to pee during the day, then they start waking up at night to pee? I just don’t see him as being ready ... And no offense, but if he’s not ready at - what is he? 34? - I don’t think he ever will be.” Mel had been around toddlers on the cusp and in the middle of potty training, and she’d seen no signs Jamie was ready or even interested in it. She didn’t think she’d ever even known a potty trained little or a big who had tried to train one. If it was possible, to Mel it seemed possible only in theory. She recognized the pullups Amanda had bought as a brand meant for toddlers, and she was pretty sure there were no pullups in the little aisle at the grocery store or anywhere in A Little This A Little That. She wasn’t even sure Jamie had ever seen a big use a toilet. Amanda would have to start from absolute scratch with showing him the mechanics of using a potty.

Manda smiled a little condescendingly and patted Mel’s leg as she put the bag into the box and closed it. “Trust me,” is all Manda said in response to Mel’s doubt.

“Okay. If you say so. Why is it a secret?”

“Mom doesn’t want to potty train him. I tried to bring it up, and she dismissed it right away. She thinks it will upset him, plus she likes him in diapers.”

“He’s adorable in them. Changing time is special, too. After cuddling with him, that’s my favorite time with him.”

“Yes to all of that,” Amanda said, smiling as she thought of his cute butt.

“So your plan is to potty train him and then tell your Mom after?” To Mel that seemed like a plan for a major fight and some serious trust issues. Boundary issues even. Amanda was Jamie’s guardian just like Becky, but that was a legal arrangement. Becky was the mom, and potty training is definitely a mom decision. Even if Mel believed it were possible to potty train Jamie, she would never do what Amanda intended if she were in Amanda’s position. If she were in Becky’s position, she imagined she’d be pissed if she found out. A decision of that magnitude without Becky’s okay seemed like a violation of trust, even to the point where it would make Mel, if she were Becky, seriously question the two homes arrangement.

Telling Becky wasn’t Manda’s plan, though. “No. Jamie will still wear diapers around Mom or any time we might run into her. There’s still no little potties in public, so he’d be wearing a diaper away from home anyway. When he’s here, though, I just wanna give him the choice of what he wears and where he does his business. Maybe down the road we’ll tell Mom.”

“I don’t think you can potty train a kid if you’re only working on it two days a week and of working on it all the other days. And I’m not sure even if you could do it that he’d be okay going back to diapers around your mom. Doesn’t work that way with toddlers. Once they’re out of diapers, almost all of them don’t want anything to do with them.”

“He might not want to try training at all,” Manda said. “It’s his choice. I’m gonna ask him before doing anything. I’ll take this stuff back if he doesn’t want to.” There didn’t seem anything else Manda could tell Mel without giving away the secret. Without revealing that, she didn’t think she could convince Mel it was possible.

“Okay,” Mel said, obviously still not believing it could be done.

“Will you at least help me when you’re over or watching him here,” Manda asked.

“Sure. I can take him to the potty, I guess. Wiping his butt there won’t be as bad as on the changing table,” she shrugged. She thought for a moment. “He’s supposed to shake it when he’s done, right?”

Manda laughed. “Yeah, boys do that. At least the clean ones do.”

“You really think he’ll want to try?”

Amanda didn’t know. She could see why he would want to get some control back, but he never voiced any unhappiness at having lost most of his control. He could hold his bladder and bowels, but not for very long, and he’d been wetting his bed for years. During the day, he had at most a minute’s warning before wetting, and he never bothered to hold it unless he was having some naked little time to air our this bum or was being dressed or bathed. When he did pee, he barely even noticed he was doing it, sometimes didn’t notice at all, and when he did notice, he usually forgot he was wet until he was very wet. It didn’t register in his memory, it was so natural for him to just go as soon as he felt the slightest urge. 

Not so for his bowels, though. Were it not for the breast milk, Amanda was pretty sure he wouldn’t have any control problems there at all. The milk made home go a more often, and it made it looser than it would otherwise be. Together, that made his need to go more a little urgent and a little harder to hold in, but he could hold it unless he was sick with a stomach bug. But Mel was right. Jamie rarely told anyone he had a dirty diaper. If he avoided using his diaper that way in certain places, Amanda didn’t know of it, and if having a dirty bum bothered him, he didn’t say anything about it. A few times a week they’d find Jamie was a little dirty as they undressed him before his morning bath, which Manda chalked up to the milk making him shart in his sleep, it was a surprise to Jamie when that happened, and it didn’t bother him. When he did ask for a change, it was when he was in dire need of one. Anything less, and he waited for someone to notice he needed fresh pants, and he never had to wait long.

Maybe Jamie wanted all his control back. Maybe he was fine with his level of control now. Maybe he didn’t want to wear diapers part time and underwear part time, but underwear all the time. Maybe he really did prefer diapers now whether he had total control or no control at all. It would be entirely his choice. 

And it wasn’t lost on Amanda that they would be lying to their mom by omission, but they’d been lying to her by omission for four years. Now, with her own place, it seemed like the first time Amanda could make amends to Jamie for going along with forcing him into diapers in the first place. Sure, she’d given him the choice eventually, and she did believe wearing diapers had helped Jamie to learn to let Becky and herself care for him, but there had been an element of guilt in convincing him. She’d told Jamie him being in diapers made her happy and their mom happy. Amanda figured at least part of his decision to say yes to diapers was because he didn’t want to disappoint them.

If what she was doing now was partly wrong, it wasn’t nearly as wrong as what she and her mother had done in keeping Jamie in diapers in the first place and what Amanda had done in not telling him she knew he was potty trained for the first three months he’d lived with them. 

She was pretty sure the only reason Jamie didn’t completely rebel against the diapers back then was because there was nowhere else in the house for him to relieve himself, and even then, it seemed to Amanda he’d have been justified in stripping his diaper off and using the floor or the yard.

It seemed funny in retrospect that for all their early struggles helping Jamie to learn that he was a little and to trust them enough to let them take care of him, on the most elemental aspect of being a traditional little, Jamie had, more or less, been more submissive than on other struggles, like not lashing out when bigs demeaned him but letting Amanda and Becky do it for him. That lesson took most of his first year to teach, but after the first few weeks, he had gotten over being in diapers in the house. Or at least he’d gotten to the point where he didn’t get outwardly angry about it or inwardly depressed. After that, it was wearing or, worse yet, using diapers outside the house or around other littles and bigs that bothered him. Then it was comments around or by strange bigs that bothered him. By the time Amanda told him she knew, he seemed virtually over all of that within days of the incident at Bullseye, his first time making a dirty diaper away from home. Yet just a few days earlier, he’d been so angry and hurt she had deceived him.

Maybe he’d want out of diapers. Maybe not. Finally giving him a choice, with no guilt attached, seemed the least Amanda could do to right the original wrong.

“I’m not sure, honestly,” Manda said to Mel. “But he’s not regressed. He deserves a say. If he wants to, we’ll figure out Mom after it’s done. She might even like it. Undies can be cute too.”

“On toddlers. I don’t know; I think they’d look weird on humans. Out of place,” Mel mused while she tried to picture it. In her mind, the sight was absurd.

Manda wanted to point out the very many obvious flaws in Mel’s and virtually everyone’s understanding of this particular part of humans. Everyone knew some littles were diaper fetishists and that’s why they adopted themselves out. If all humans wore diapers, why would that fetish be a reason to adopt themselves out? Then there were independent littles. In the capital, where almost all of them lived, they had their own bathrooms. Did everyone think that’s where they went to change their diapers? That couldn’t be, because bigs built and cleaned those bathrooms. Did they think the toilets were decorative? The hotel Ella’s family stayed at had toilets for humans. Did people think only dependent littles needed diapers? But how could that be? Signing adoption papers magically relieved them of their continence?

It just made no sense to Manda; there was not logic that could explain how bigs couldn’t understand littles were potty trained in their adult, unregressed state. She could do her graduate thesis on the topic, and she suspected that if she tried, the professors wouldn’t let her, and that if they did let her, no one would believe what she wrote, and that if they did believe it, she’d be pilloried by the six million bigs in Itali who would be furious that someone wanted to put their adorable littles in underwear.

Amanda’s phone buzzed. She checked the notification. “Pizza’s here,” she said.

Mel, still feeling not quite right about Amanda’s plan and still thinking it couldn’t be done, said, “I’ll help when I’m around, but if your mother ever finds out, leave me out of it. And if she ever finds out I was involved, I’m telling her I thought she knew.”

“That’s fair,” Amanda said as she walked to the door just before the delivery person knocked.

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13 minutes ago, Sarah Penguin said:

I don't think jamie will change his mind about diaper wearing but I do think his teddybears might want to pottytrain and wear pullups.

Agreed. At the beginning of Volume I Jamie says, “oh how I’d give my entire kingdom for a potty chair.” However, at this point I don’t think Jamie would see a point because he’s just accepted and gotten used to wearing diapers. On top of that he doesn’t seem to mind them and enjoys the changes. He did reminisce when he was hyped up on little’s extract about how he used to not need diapers, but I don’t think he’d want to put in the work to go back.

 

I wonder if Amanda’s decision is rooted primarily in the fact that she feels bad about the move be forced upon him, so she was thinking about what she could do for Jamie to make him happy.

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  • Alex Bridges changed the title to Done Adulting, Vol. 2 (Final chapter posted 12/21/20)

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