Late in the afternoon Mrs Lawson phoned and offered to come over with more stuff. When she arrived, she had her toddler with her.
“Annie wants to donate some toys that she has grown out of.” But Annie’s first act was to laugh at the teenage boy in the frilly baby dress and obvious thick nappy suc-king on a soother.
“Annie, give Baby Joe those rattles and letter blocks.” Annie scattered them on the rug. “Oh that’s so nice of you”, his mother complimented the toddler, “isn’t it Joe?” Joe just suc-ked gloomily on his soother. “Sit down there and play with them now.”
Joe glumly sat on the floor and tried to pick up a rattle between his mittens. Even that was difficult but eventually he got one up and shook it. “Well done!” his mum praised him. Annie clapped her hands in delight.
“And there’s a shape sorter”, her mum added. She took out the wooden cube, removed the lid and scattered the shapes on the rug. She placed the cube on the floor beside Joe. “There you go.” He sighed heavily but took the lid and placed it on the cube. The nearest piece was a triangle shape. It was quite hard to pick up in the mittens.
“Oh you nearly had it”, his mother sympathised as it slipped between his mittens for the fifth time. Eventually he trapped it and could pick it up but aligning it with the hole in the side of the cube was so difficult. They were all watching eagerly and he couldn’t give up. Eventually the triangle slid into the cube. “Hurray!” they all cheered and laughed.
“Now the semi-circle”, his mother prompted. Joe looked around. It was behind him. He rolled over and crawled towards the shape. “Frilly knickers!” Annie laughed. “That’s right, aren’t they pretty?” her mother agreed.
It took Joe a good twenty minutes to pick up each awkward little piece and get it into the corresponding hole in the box. The simple rattles looked a lot more attractive now. He was a little curious what sound they would make so picked another one up and shook it. It tinkled.
“Here’s another thing Annie doesn’t need anymore.” Mrs Lawson knelt down in front of him and looped a little strap through the ring on his soother securing it with a little patch of Velcro and then attached the other end of the strap to the lacey collar of his dress. “Now! So you don’t lose your soother”, she smirked.
“Oh and we realised that he wouldn’t have anything appropriate to sleep in so I ran this off”, she rummaged in a bag and took out a large pink fleecy sleeper. “Oh that’s perfect” his mother thanked her.
The only upside was that Joe got out of his pink frilly dress, panties, tights, bonnet and booties. He was made to step into the legs of the sleeper and found that it was footed. His mother loosened his mittens at his wrists and they were finally pulled off. Joe flexed his fingers, relieved at their release. His arms were pushed into the sleeves of his sleeper and he was dismayed that his hands were also enclosed in padded mittens at the end of his sleeves. His mother buttoned it up the back.
“Now for your night time bottle”, she announced. It was only 6pm. He found himself suc-king on another large bottle of milk knowing that this was all going to inevitably lead to a major wetting during the night if they were serious about keeping him in the nappy.
Mrs Lawson sat down. “You know we have a sister company that makes accessories for our doll sets – dressing tables for Barbies, toy kitchen sets and so forth – using 3D printers and the like. It would be an interesting challenge to see if they could make accessories big enough for Baby Joe. Would you be interested?” “Sure”, his mother accepted. “It’s not going to cost us anything, will it?” “No, they’d all be free trials.”
Annie and her mother followed as Joe was led into his bedroom and his mother pulled back the sheets so he could get in. He was tucked in. They went to the door. “Night, night. See you in the morning.”
This was ridiculous. It was still bright out. He could hear children playing on the street. He squirmed in his sleeper, trying to find some way out of it. He pawed at the buttons at the back but it was pointless. He was fully enclosed in it with no escape possible.
He supposed it was a relief to be on his own and not having to behave like a baby in front of people. After a few minutes, he realised he was still suc-king on his soother when he didn’t have to. He spat it out. He was already beginning to feel the pressure in his bladder.
Topic: Doll Factory (Read 1904 times)
