Part 31
The first thing Lilly noticed upon her entrance to the nursery room was the intense smell of baby powder that immediately hit her nose. It was much like the smell of her own nursery at home, a smell that would make it clear to anyone that the children here definitely wore diapers. The second thing Lilly noticed was the age range of the other babies that were tottling around the nursery, bumbling around the floor while they played with the seemingly hundreds of stuffed animals and baby toys that were scattered about. They all seemed to be about one to three years old. As it was not a very large nursery, the age differences between the various toddlers was pretty obvious, since they were all housed together seperate from the newborns and pre-schoolers. Some were crawling and unable to form complete sentences, and yet others were walking on their own, using a suprisingly advanced amount of vocabulary for their age. Lilly did not know what her age was supposed to be, but the third thing she noticed would ensure that she would not be standing up on her own or talking anytime soon.
Across the nursery, Jessica sat in a rocking chair holding a little girl who seemed to be about 1 year old. The girl was nursing a bottle while Jessica read a picture book aloud to her, fully capturing the toddler girl's attention. As Jessica finished reading the last sentence on the current page, she noticed Becky enter the nursery with Lilly in hand, who had been standing long enough now that her weak legs were beginning to tremble. Jessica gasped at the adorable sight of her toddler sister, who was now just another one of the many babies under her care. "Lilly!", she nearly shouted in an overly-exited voice, "It's so nice to see you little sis! Welcome to your new home away from home!"
Becky giggled at the enthusiasm Jessica had for her little sister. "Come on baby, let's go see your big sister!", she said as she looked down at Lilly and began to lead her towards the rocking chair. However, it was too much for Lilly, who's legs were not used to standing up for this long. Lilly suddenly fell forward from the momentum, barely able to catch herself by putting her hands down and breaking her now downward momentum towards the carpet. A concerned look came across Becky' s face, who keeled down closer to Lilly to see if she was alright. "Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry sweetie, are you alright? That was a pretty good fall", she asked him with a worried tone.
Jessica looked equally concerned as she looked on, but still could not help but shake her head. "I know my sis pretty well, Beck. I don't think she's quite big enough to have a handle on the whole walking thing yet", she said to her assistant, who developed a slight look of embarrassment on her face. Clearly she had miscalculated Lilly's abilities. "Awww, why didn't you say so baby?", she said to Lilly, "Can you not talk yet either? I didn't realize you were still that young, pudding".
What happened next should not have come as any surprise to Lilly, in fact, she was quite used to it by now. Becky put her arms around Lilly and picked her up, bringing her across the nursery and over to Jessica. Jessica then spread her legs and made room for Lilly, who Becky placed on the leg opposite of the other toddler girl. "Awww there you go sweet pea", Jessica cooed down to her baby sister, "make yourself comfortable and I'll read you a nice little story".
For the next fifteen minutes or so, Lilly would sit on Jessica's lap as she read the two baby girls a wonderfully illustrated story about a baby lamb that gets separated from the flock, only to be adopted by another group of farm animals that make her one of their own. Every couple of sentences or so, Jessica would ask one of the two baby girls a question pertaining to the book, such as "which one of these animals is a goat", in which they would be forced to point to a goat on the brightly illustrated page, or "what does a cow say?", asking them to make the noise that a cow makes and rewarding them with over the top praise every time they got a question correct. For the other girl, who Lilly would find out was named Anna, it was a somewhat difficult task, but for Lilly it was no problem at all. By the time the book was done, Lilly had demonstrated her near encyclopedic knowledge (by a one year old's standards) of farm animals and the noises they make, and had been rewarded with heaps of praise from Jessica, as well as a smiley face sticker that she placed on Lilly's diaper, letting her know what a smart baby she was.
Eventually Anna needed to leave to have her diaper changed. Jessica called for Becky to retrieve Anna from her lap, finally leaving her alone with Lilly. She enveloped Lilly into a big hug, sensing that her little sister was still nervous about being seen in the nursery with the other babies. "Are you still nervous baby?", she whispered to Lilly, who's face instantly lit up red, and she began to suc-k her pacifier with an even greater frequency. Jessica laughed at her response and trussled Lilly's hair. "Well don't be little sis. Everyone else here is a baby just like you. Me and my assistant Becky love taking care of little ones, especially cute little girls...and you're the cutest little girl in the world. Now, why don't you go play with the other babies and try to make some new friends? I'm sure the other babies are dying to meet you. Go on sis, they won't bite!"
Jessica set Lilly down on the carpet and ushered her off in the direction of a group of two other babies, who were babbling and passing stuffed animals back and forth between each other. Lilly looked back at Jessica, who was continuing to encourage him to go join the other babies in their game. Lilly sighed to herself and began to slowly crawl towards the two other children. One was a boy and one was a girl, and they both seemed to be totally lost in the game they were playing together.
Being unfamiliar with how to communicate with another baby on equal terms, Lilly just stood there for a second while she thought about how to approach the situation. The answer would eventually come when the little boy held out a pink stuffed rabbit towards Lilly, clearly intent on handing the toy to her. Lilly accepted the toy graciously and cuddled up to it as a sign of thanks. Time would soon become lost to Lilly, who would join the other two in their infantile, rule-less game until she was eventually interrupted by the flash of a snapping camera. Startled, Lilly looked behind her back and saw Becky there with a professional grade digital camera, in awe of the cute sight in front of her. "Congradulations honey, you made the weekly news bulitin!", she exclaimed as she walked off with the camera.
After playing with the two other babies for slightly longer, Lilly was beginning to grow hungry. It was then, almost as if it was on schedule, that she noticed Becky and Jessica loading the babies up into high chairs that all surrounded a big table. Lilly felt a wave of relief at the prospect of a well timed lunch, lifting up her arms to graciously accept the grip of Becky, who carried her off to be sat with the other babies...or so he thought. When they eventually came to the table, Lilly was surprised when Becky instead brought her one room over to the newborn room, where a large middle aged lady with sandy blonde hair was waiting for them in a wooden rocking chair.
"Hello Lilly", the strange lady said to Lilly as Becky released her into the lady's arms, "My name is Ms Mabel. Your mommy told us that you're breastfed throughout the day, is that true?"
Lilly looked down in embarrassment, unable to work up the courage to answer Ms Mabel's question honestly. Luckily for Lilly, Becky was there to answer for her. "She certainly is Ms Mabel. I have the permission slip right here", Becky said with enthusiasm, pulling out a small slip of paper to hand to Ms Mabel. The large, intimidating woman scanned the paper quickly, handing it back to Becky once she was done reading it.
"All right then, I'll take it from here darling", Ms Mabel said to Becky, who quickly left the room to attend to feeding the other babies. Ms Mabel then turned her attention to Lilly, who was sitting in her lap staring up at her large, volumous body. Her enormous breasts seemed to engulf Lilly as she cuddled her closer and began to speak. "Normally we don't do breastfeeding here at the nursery, except under extreme curc-umstances". As she talked she was rolling up her shirt and undoing the clasps on her bra, slowly exposing one of her ginormous breasts. "However, your mother pays quite well, and she said we must be able to breastfeed you as part of her deal with the nursery. Lucky for her, I work as a wet nurse in my spare time, and I was more than happy to take up the job in exchange for a little pay raise."
Ms Mabel then began to press her hand against Lilly's head, bringing her closer and closer to her breasts. Although she was used to drinking milk from Andrea's breasts, it was the first time she had ever been forced to breastfeed off of anyone else. Still, Lilly knew what she had to do, and closed her eyes as she reluctantly braced for impact with the humongous, oversized nipple in front of her. Soon enough Lilly felt the weight of Ms Mabel's breasts press up against her, and knew there was no turning back as the first of her sweet milk dotted Lilly's tounge. "See Lilly? It's not so bad. Although you're probably pretty used to this by now", Ms Mabel said to her as she continued to hold Lilly's head against her breasts, "I mean, I don't know too many 19 year old boys who's mommies still breastfeed them, but with the amount of money your mother gives to the nursery, who am I to judge?"
Lilly's eyes popped open in suprise upon hearing what she had just said. Ms Mabel laughed at her suprised reaction, and unflinchingly continued to hold Lilly in place as more milk poured down her throat. "That's right baby, everybody here knows, it's not like it's a secret. I can't say I really blame your step-mommy for making you live like this. I mean, look at you. I can't really see you any other way. Plus, without her, we wouldn't be getting a brand new playground just for babies like you! Yup...we're going to get to know each other quite well Lilly...and I for one can't wait." After a few more minutes of Lilly silently breastfeeding (forced to take in everything that had just been said to her), Ms Mabel finally removed her breast and hoisted Lilly over her shoulders. She began to pat Lilly's back until she heard the familiar burping sound that she was accustomed to hearing babies make. "Maybe your mommy is right Lilly, maybe you are just a baby girl", she said with a giggle, picking Lilly up to finally bring her back to the toddler room. It would be the first of many feedings that Lilly would receive from Ms Mabel, and it was certainly the most embarrassing.