✅ My Sister's Problem

103. Not a Baby

"Has the baby been good while I was busy?" she asked a few minutes later, returning from the kitchen. I could have answered myself, but I decided that I was being too little to talk right now. Mum wanted Lindy to answer for me, and I wondered how Lindy felt about that.

"She's just playing with her toys, pretending she's not done anything wrong. I think... I think she's being good for now. She could have made more fuss, but she didn't. So maybe we'll take it easy on her today."

I gasped and giggled when I heard that. I wanted to say thank you, but turned it into the kind of laugh you might hear from a toddler instead. If she wanted me to be a baby, I would be a baby for her. And if she actually respected that I hadn't done anything to hurt her, maybe she was starting to treat me fairly. If she would stop accusing me of things, or would accept that I'd been punished enough, then I could go back to just being a baby when I wanted a little break from all my grown-up responsibilities, and that was the best outcome I could think of. I just had to keep playing along with the rules that Mum had laid down, and hope that was enough to satisfy Lindy's urge to torment me.

"That's good," Mum said. "It's nice to see that she can go along with her punishment, and be a good little baby. So, would you like to keep watching Sally while I make breakfast? Or should I make sure the baby is entertained while you start sorting out breakfast?"

"Sally's such a little baby," Lindy said, with a little laugh. "I bet she needs her diaper changing again. You could check."

"That's okay. She is just a little baby, after all. And little babies can't help it at all. Isn't that right, Sally? Pee for Mommy. You don't need to hold it at all, you can just let Mommy change your diaper, and remember what a little baby you are."

I started to blush, but then the wave of emotions from the hypnosis video swept over me again. I was just a little baby, peeing in my diaper. I couldn't help it at all, and for a second I couldn't even think that it was out of the ordinary. I was way too young to hold it, and I wet myself like I always did. And then Mum was taking me to the bathroom, where she had rolled out a changing mat on the floor so she could change my soggy overnight diaper. For a moment I wondered if Lindy would try to watch, just so that she could laugh at my predicament. But she had learned by now that Mum still wanted me to have a little privacy, and she wasn't going to risk getting into trouble herself.

"Are you okay, baby?" Mum asked, once we were alone. I guessed that Lindy should be making some breakfast now, but I wasn't sure quite what she was going to prepare. "I know I was being a little harsh there, but it's nice to see Lindy just wants to play rather than always putting you down. Are you okay with that, if we see how far she's willing to let you grow up now? I'm not sure, but I hope this might be the point where she realises that you can both have more fun if she's not trying to tear you down all the time."

I nodded slowly, and showed her a clumsy thumbs up. Maybe I should have used my words, but I was feeling pretty little even after the first wave subsided. It was hard to come up with proper thoughts, and even harder to put them into words, so I just let the child mindset take control.

"Good girl," she said. "I'm going to give your sister a little test today, if that's okay with you. I want to ask her how strict your ongoing punishment should be, and see what she says. If she can start being fair about it, at least to some degree, then we can probably assumed she's learned a lesson. Is that okay with you?"

I nodded again, and allowed myself a little smile. I didn't need to worry, I was sure. If Lindy tried to be cruel in response to me doing exactly what I'd been told, she must know how Mum would react. And if she was going to be gentle and let me have fun as a child, that would be the best thing I could hope for. Certainly better than my sister hating me, or wanting to hurt me in order to reduce her own insecurities.

Once I was in a clean diaper again, and thinking like myself enough to be embarrassed by how soaked the old one had been, Mum led me down to the kitchen. She sat me at the table, and told Lindy to keep an eye on me while she cooked. It turned out that breakfast today was going to be pancakes, with a small selection of different syrups. And there wasn't that much for me to do; there weren't even any toys on the table. So there was nothing I needed to do except sit back and laugh as Lindy made a half-hearted attempt to tickle me. It might have been intended to show me that being a baby could be fun too, or some kind of message that I was powerless to resist her. But in either case, I just stopped thinking about Lindy's motives, telling myself that I didn't need to care about any of those things. I decided that I was way too little to even care about why the grown-ups would do anything.

"Good girls!" Mum said, as she put two plates down in front of us. "Now, I don't know if you're big enough to eat breakfast, or if you need an adult to help you. But we got a flyer under the door while we were out yesterday. It looks like today is the Country Coast Sports Day. And if you're both very good, I think it might actually be possible for us to join some of the open events. Do you think that both of you can behave while I do some shopping, so that we can go out and have fun as a family this afternoon?"

I was sure my eyes lit up when she mentioned the sports day. I always loved being able to test my fitness against other people, and I could only hope that I would get a chance. When I thought about it, I realised that would have been one of the biggest things missing from this trip for me, if I had to be a baby the whole time. But if Mum could lift the punishment long enough for me to compete in a race or two, I knew that I would have been willing to pay almost any forfeit in exchange.

"I guess so," Lindy said slowly. And I was cheering on the inside then, because if Lindy didn't want to complain, she must really have decided that she'd like to see me having fun too. Maybe my sister even cared about my feelings again. I could only hope that this wasn't all some big trick that would end with a big surprise sooner or later.