Tale #122: Crib Notes in the Baby Book:

Tale #122: Crib Notes in the Baby Book: (A commission for 'Beastbear') (Content Tags: Physical regression, mental regression, diapers, messing, wetting, humiliation, reality alteration) The purpose of a 'baby book' is to track the many milestones that a young child has as they grow; a scrapbook of pictures and mementos that illustrate their early life. It usually concludes by the age of two or three, and what comes after is more generally included in larger family scrapbooks. Soft, ruffled covers in a light pastel color, and bound by the affection of those who craft it. For one boy in particular, this would not be his definition of a 'baby book'. For Roy, the chronicle of his early youth would be crafted in reverse, and at the hands of someone who had anything but affection for him. It wouldn't be tender moments that were organically captured, but mortifying memories was were artificially constructed for him. Instead of an inspiring journey of his growth, it would be a chilling account of his maturity being flung back through the sands of time. And it all started with Zachary. Zachary was Roy's cousin, of around the same age, and there had always been an element of spite to the relationship that the boys had with one another. That spite was completely one-sided though, with Zachary being the one so full of resentment, while Roy was mostly oblivious. While Roy got to coast through life with few worries and little fanfare, Zachary found himself always under the microscope of his parent's expectations and vision for him; while Roy got to live freely and with a healthy sense of independence, Zachary had helicopter parents who scrutinized or catalogued his every movement, while also needlessly coddling him from the realities of the outside world. It was a delicate dance of misguided benevolence and rigid authoritarianism. On paper, one would imagine that overly involved parents would be better than parents who did just what was expected, but Zachary didn't think this was one of those cases. Technically, it wasn't Roy's fault that he'd had a normal childhood with well-balanced parents. There were plenty of other kids at school whose life reflected the same normalcy that Roy had, and arguably there were also kids in school that had far more neurotic parents than Zachary did. But this went back a long time. On a psychological level, Roy was the earliest example that Zachary had for their difference of treatment. Roy had been allowed to 'grow up' at a developmentally appropriate rate, while Zachary had been artificially held back by his parents' fears that he might not be ready. This was the year that they were to both turn thirteen, and a short-list of these inequalities were as followed: Roy got his training wheels removed when he was six, while Zachary was told to keep them on until he was nine and a half. Roy no longer had to wear floaties in the pool whenever he was five and had proven his swimming abilities, while Zachary had been in water wings until he was eight. Roy hadn't sat in a booster seat in the car since he was eight, and Zachary had only gotten moved up to a normal seat by ten, whenever their height and weight were fairly equal. And most egregious was the matter of pottytraining. Roy had been just shy of three whenever he had mastered the art of the potty, and Zachary had wanted to follow his lead, but his parents had thought it was too soon. Zachary didn't get out of Pull-Ups until he was already in *Kindergarten*, whenever his cousin had been rocking big boy undies without incident for more than two years. How humiliating it had been at every turn, to try to show advancement and prove worthiness, and to be shot down. All while his closest peer was allowed to prove all the same capabilities that Zachary knew he could match. Again, that hadn't been Roy's fault. What *was* Roy's fault was his complicity and superior attitude. Roy had held all of these things over his cousin's head as they'd grown up, and while he was never *too* mean, he'd always treated Zachary as being a 'little' cousin, instead of one that was actually two months older. It hadn't really reached 'mean' until Zachary had caught Roy telling stories about what a 'baby' his cousin was to another classmate. It hadn't been very long after that he'd found the book. Bound in a powder blue fabric, with white frills and lace, and embroidered on the front had been the name 'Roy'. Zachary had been familiar with what the book was normally supposed to be, since his parents had filled up multiple different ones during Zachary's own early youth, but he didn't know Roy's parents to be quite as meticulous. Zachary frankly wasn't sure if Roy had even had a 'baby book', let alone multiple volumes. And more mysteriously, other than the fact that the book showed up on his desk in his room one day, was that the book was completely empty. Its pages were all blank, as if it was a baby book that'd come over a decade late. His first thought had been that his parents had placed it there, but that hadn't really made any sense, since what motive could there possibly be? Another thought would be that Roy could have put it there, but again, it didn't make any sense. Nobody mentioned anything about it, and it really seemed like it'd somehow fallen from the sky and into his lap. Zachary ignored it for a while. He put the book away in his desk drawer and deemed it too mundane a mystery to attempt solving. But day after day, he found himself taking the book back out and pondering over it. Something about it was drawing his attention. A few weeks after the book had first shown up, his cousin won an award of some sort for track and field; it wasn't anything major, since this was just middle school, and it was really only a step above a participatory trophy, but Roy and his parents had been happy nonetheless. Against his will, Zachary had been dragged there to support his cousin. Sickened by the adulation given to his cousin, whenever his own parents had always been very apprehensive to allow him to try anything athletic, Zachary had gone home afterward to look at the book again. Looking at the book gave him comfort for whatever reason. It made him feel better about himself and his lot in life. There was nothing rational to it, not really, but he couldn't help but to start obsessing over it. His aunt had given his family copies of the photo that had been taken on the track, and one had ended up in Zachary's hands. That was the first time he decided to make use of the baby book. He didn't start at the beginning though. He glued the picture in near the end, with the caption of 'Roy wins the bronze' underneath it. It felt right to him, as if he finally had an idea of what he was supposed to be doing with the mysterious tome. Much like he'd been a bug under the glass for his own parents, he would now treat Roy the same way: archiving and scrutinizing. That only satisfied one itch though. The longer he stared at the sole photo on the one page, the more that Zachary began to daydream about how things might have gone if he and his cousin had switched places. Zachary thought himself already a more capable person than Roy, and he blamed his upbringing for his constant developmental stunting. If Roy had been put in his shoes, then-- "--Yeah, haha! My cousin was still crapping in his Pull-Ups when we were in *Kindergarten*. Dude was seriously slow..." That'd been the part that Zachary had walked in on at school all those weeks ago. That'd been the big joke that Roy had loved to share with their peers, about what a big baby his cousin was. Zachary hadn't even realized what he'd been doing until he was finished writing, but below the picture in the baby book, he had written: 'Roy's not such a big boy! He had an accident at school today.' He'd shut the book shortly after and moved onto his homework, but the thought continued to linger inside his skull like the buzzing of a fly. It was later that week when his dreamy scrawling had proved to be a premonition. They'd been in English class, like any other afternoon, and the period had settled into the 'silent reading' portion of the lesson. About midway through, he'd spotted his cousin awkwardly shuffling up to the teacher's desk and quietly asking for a nurse's pass. To anyone else, it would have been nothing to speculate about, but Zachary's perception felt elevated. He'd seen the wider gait of his cousin's movement, heard the nervous tambor in his voice, and smelled that faint 'fart' smell that had lingered in his wake. There was no definitive proof, but Zachary was fully convinced that his cousin had soiled himself. Just like he'd written about in the baby book. Was that possible? Could Zachary somehow have influenced such an event to occur? By simply willing it into being? It rung improbable, but not altogether impossible. It was no use to ask for a truthful answer from his cousin. First, because no self-respecting preteen would cop to it, and second because he didn't want to think that he might have been wrong. Zachary wasn't fully convinced, but he was intrigued. That day when he got home, he immediately flipped back open the baby book and started to think more about what a better timeline would have looked like for him and his cousin. Zachary couldn't do anything to change his own past, that much wasn't in question, but the baby book was only used in the halfway mark, which gave a lot of canvas for retroactive alterations for Roy. It was more therapeutic than anything else. It was giving Zachary a feeling of control that he'd never had in the past over his own life. He flipped back a couple of pages and wrote another blurb: 'Roy is still having potty trouble with number twos! Looks like it's back to Pull-Ups for a while.' Zachary smiled at that and then flipped back a few more pages to add something else: 'Still not ready to get the training wheels off, but Roy's getting there!' It'd be the next day that Zachary got to see if anything had come from his self-indulgent scribbles; it was a family BBQ, which would of course mean bringing the cousins together. Roy looked unhappy from a first glance, awkwardly standing away from everyone else with a sour and uncomfortable expression. "How's it going, cuzz?" Zachary had coyly asked. Roy had mumbled something vague about wanting to go inside and Zachary had a pretty good idea why that was. In search of the truth, Zachary casually mentioned that he wanted to take a look at Roy's bike, because he thought he might want to ask his parents for a similar one. Under normal circumstances, Roy would have had no qualms with showing off his bicycle and pointing out every cool little detail about it. This time though, the boy was blushing and making quick excuses about how he'd left his bike at a friend's house. Zachary simply smiled and nodded, not yet pushing the matter further. There would be plenty to eat, and Roy was keeping himself occupied by continuously filling his plate, probably to ward off another conversation from his nosy cousin. That tactic would comically backfire not much later, when Roy was squatting down to get a can of soda from the cooler. **BLLLLARRRT!** Zachary hadn't let Roy escape his sight throughout all of the family function, so he was the first to watch as a rounded bulge rapidly protruded the cotton material of his shorts out. It didn't take a childcare expert to recognize when someone had pooped their pants. "Sounds like you had too many baked beans, Roy!" Zachary teased, as if had just been a fart. Calling attention to it was enough to get Roy's mom to walk over, and she looked down at him with a stern expression: "Roy, did you have an accident?" She was quiet and gentle at first, like she wasn't really mad about it, but perhaps disappointed. Her son didn't say a word, just lowering his head and shaking it. "Are you sure? It kind of smells like you might have had an uh-oh. Do I need to check in front of everyone?" She was a little louder now. "N-no! Mom, I didn't... it was just a fart..." She pulled his shorts down in the middle of the backyard and his poopy Pull-Ups were plain as day to see. Zachary noted the lack of cute prints and wondered if he should try to use more specificity in his next log. "Just a fart, huh? I swear, you'll be going back to diapers at this rate!" Zachary's smile curled upward as he thought about how prescient that statement would come to be. That Sunday afternoon at his cousin's house had shown Zachary that his powers were real. It didn't logically make much sense, but the book *had* appeared out of nowhere, so it could only be assumed that it had magical origins of some kind. It was beyond a simple coincidence that his very normal cousin, who was going on thirteen, would suddenly be pooping in training pants like a toddler. An accident at school was a realistic event, but not full-on pottytraining failure. Roy's attitude and embarrassment over it all was also a sign that this wasn't simply normal for him. His parents acted like it was, but he looked far too anxious and uncomfortable. Whatever changes that the baby book was producing, it seemed like only the user and the victim were aware that alterations were occurring. When he opened the book back up, he was greeted by some surprising developments; the blurbs he had earlier falsified now had accompanying pictures, and there was a new one about the family cookout! It was a picture of Roy, getting his filthy trainers checked by his mom. The baby book was like a living document, and it grew around the details that Zachary had forged. It was alive, and it yearned to be filled with memories to showcase for posterity. These new revelations gave Zachary newfound creativity. He might not be able to change his own crummy situation, but he could sure make himself look a lot better in comparison! He'd be the ones cracking jokes about his 'big baby' of a pantspooping cousin! He'd be the one who was always ahead! With his pen readied, he had a long evening ahead of him: "Roy still orders from the kid's menu, because he just loves his chicken nuggies!" "Didn't get to ride the rollercoaster; our little boy is still waiting on a big growth spurt! He'll be so excited to ride that coaster and maybe outgrow his booster seat in the car." "Roy had a tantrum when we wouldn't let him rent a game for teens, looks like no dessert tonight!" "He's been sucking his thumb too much, so we gave him back his binky; here's to hoping it doesn't ruin his baby teeth!" "Roy pitched a fit, pooped his pants, and got a spanking, but look at these cute overalls I bought for him!" He'd been filling out the pages before the training wheels, and it occurred to him that the book still had no 'beginning' to it. The very start was a lot less interesting to him, and he would probably let the book fill most of itself in for that part, but it brought up a curiosity: Could he make a much larger change to the timeline? He hadn't used any dates or ages in any of the things that he'd written, since it was all supposed to be things that were recent. Slowly, he flipped the pages until he was at the very start of the baby book. Him and Roy had both been born in 2011, but what if he changed that? Just a different interpretation of history that would assure that Roy was always behind him. "Our baby boy is born! 2016!" Zachary quickly flipped back toward the middle and saw that the pictures had changed. Roy looked six or seven years old now. He flipped a couple of more pages ahead and smiled. "Roy's just not ready for the potty yet. Looks like we need to buy Pampers again!" Zachary closed the baby book and decided to let the changes settle. He would need to see things firsthand. The boy would get his chance on the next day. After noticing that Roy was absent from middle school, and that his name hadn't even been called, it was looking likely that the date change had been a success. After school, when his dad was picking him up, Zachary got asked if he could 'babysit' his cousin for a couple of hours, just while his aunt and uncle went to see a movie. It was perfect. It was the purest representation of his work in action. Roy was a tiny thing now, and he wore a pair of overalls that did little to hide the bulk of the diaper he wore underneath. Roy's mother apologized to Zachary about the short notice and also the fact that her son's toileting had taken another big backslide. Zachary insisted it wasn't an issue and mentioned he'd probably be able to figure out changing a diaper if he had to. The little boy was sitting on the floor while cartoons played, but he didn't seem all that interested in them. Zachary grinned and knew that Roy must be having a hard time processing all of this; he'd had his life turned upside down from an unknown force. "Hey little guy! Heard you got your Pull-Ups taken away for pooping your pants too much, like at the cookout yesterday." Roy gave him a sour look, but didn't respond. To Roy, everyone else was already acting as if he'd always been this way, so he assumed Zachary was the same way. "...Yup, just not quite ready for the big kid potty. I wore Pull-Ups to Kindergarten myself, which was embarrassing...But you must be in first or second grade, right? And in *diapers*." Zachary watched as Roy's face pinkened. "I bet that'd make for a funny story to tell my classmates. About how my cousin poops in his pants still. Or about how he uses training wheels or a pacifier, way past the age he should..." Roy looked at him again, this time with a hint of recognition, as if he suspected there was deeper meaning to Zachary's words. "With what a little baby you are now, maybe a tricycle would be more appropriate. Probably be faster on that than on the track, huh? Waddling with a full diaper?" That'd been enough to let Roy know that Zachary was completely aware of what the past reality had entailed. It was a stark admission of a world that no longer existed. Roy's eyes widened and a juicy fart reverberated in the bottom of his diaper; the shock of the revelation overloaded his system, and similarly, he began to overload his diaper. A fast and furious cacophony of squishy plops came from deep within the denim overalls, and the diaper immediately began to swell and puff out underneath the garb. "Well aren't you a little dump-truck!" Zachary cackled as his cousin helplessly filled his seat with his own surprise. Taking advantage of the moment of dumbstruck stupor that Roy was under, Zachary continued: "I know you were used to always being the more mature one, and not having your parents all over you, but sometimes change is good!" **FFRRRTBBLLLARRRRT! PLORP!** "...Though, I think I'm going to leave *that* change up to your mommy and daddy." Roy was confused, angry, and still tooting uncontrollably in his loaded Pampers. "How...! W-why?! I'm gonna...I'm gonna..!" Zachary shoved a pacifier in the boy's mouth and lifted his phone to take a picture, "Stop being so grumpy and smile for the birdy. This will be a great picture to put in your baby book." There were still a lot of blank pages after all.