Always His Baby

Chapter 14
Lullaby

Chapter Description: Sheridan is going to have to work hard to resist the lull of carefree babyhood.

She lays on her back on the changing mat, a collection of multicolored plastic keys jangling above her head, while her Grandma dusts her naked crotch with talcon powder. Uncle Jim has volunteered the role of keeping the baby happy and distracted while his mother does the dirty work. He coos and pulls silly faces as he dangles and rattles the keys over Sheridan.

She squirms and fusses at first, miserable and humiliated to the core. It’s bad enough having wet and messed herself in front of her family, now she’s having to be changed in public, her aunts looking on in fond adoration as Grandma lifts her legs, wipes her bum and puts her into a clean cloth nappy along with a rustling pair of plastic pants to go with her dress. On top of that she has to put up with her stupid Uncle trying to make her laugh with the most pathetic of attempts.

If she reaches up and snatches the keys then she can get him to stop. She tries, her fingers just barely catching the purple key before Uncle pulls it up out of her reach. Another attempt and she manages to grab one. Yes! She gives a wide grin and a giggle at her accomplishment. Uncle keeps on doing it, sometimes letting her grab the keys and other times jangling them higher.

The keys are so bright and pretty. They make such funny sounds, just like Uncle’s silly noises and faces. What a silly man! Sheridan can’t help but give into the giggles as she keeps trying to reach the keys.

"There we are! Sheri is back to being our happy baby again!" Grandma coos, tickling Sheridan’s sides a little.

Sheri laughs again, feeling a wave of bliss suddenly wash over her. She feels much better now that she’s in a clean nappy and had a nap. Uncle finally lets her have the keys and she wonders if they taste as good as they look - so she tries to suck on the red one as if it was a lolly. It doesn’t taste like strawberry...but it still is nice to suck on something.

Aunty Clara continues using her phone to make the snappy sound, commenting on how adorable Sheri is. Everyone is always smiling at her. She must have done something good. Is it because she got the keys? She grins, letting the drool run around her special keys, gazing happily at Grandma and Uncle.

The front door opens and the other men of the family return. There’s a pitch in the volume that almost startles Sheridan as she lays on her back, unable to see what is going on from the floor. Her head is so heavy that she knows it will take some effort to sit up. Is it worth it? She sucks on her keys for reassurance.

Another face appears to gaze down at the baby. Sheridan’s eyes widen.

"Hello, you. Did you miss me?" Daddy smiles.

Sheridan’s heart soars with glee. She makes a squeal of excitement. Daddy! Finally! It feels like he’s been gone forever. She definitely wants to sit up now. Daddy is worth the effort.

But all she has to do is wave her hands up, twirling her fists and reaching out for him, and he instantly kneels down to meet her. He leans in close, letting Sheridan run her little fingers over his face, through his hair, tugging his ears and nose a bit. Daddy’s back! Daddy’s here just for her! She never wants to let him go.

"I think you have your answer, mate." Uncle Jim quips.

Daddy lifts up her up into his arms as if she weighed nothing, his hands supporting her bottom and back. He kisses her cheek and all Sheridan suddenly wants to do is hold onto him. She doesn’t care that her keys have been dropped on the floor. Daddy is better than any toy.

There’s an overwhelming sense of relief as Sheridan hears Daddy announce that it’s time they were getting home. Sheridan is sick of being treated like the family entertainment piece of one day. Maybe if it’s just her and Daddy, in the peace and quiet, she can remember the big important thing she had been focusing on before. Before stupid Uncle had distracted her with the keys.

After the many, many goodbyes along with obligatory kisses on the cheeks (and a cuddle from Grandma), Daddy straps Sheridan into the baby-seat that has replaced the toddler sized one from before. Not a lot of difference aside from this one has a five-point harness to keep baby strapped in tight and protected. The strap that goes up between her legs make her more conscious of her nappy on show. That’s the first set-back.

Sheridan looks around the back-seat. Something is missing. Her lioness? Where is Kiara? She whimpers and looks to Daddy but instead she just gets a new dummy popped into her mouth.

"I know you’ve had a big day, princess." He says to her, getting in the drivers seat; "We’ll be home soon and it’ll be just be Daddy and Baby Girl time. Sound good?"

It does sound good. Very good. Sheridan still mourns her stuffed lioness though. Will she be waiting at home? It’s the purple haired woman’s fault. She remembers that much. The woman who made her little and now, even worse, took away Kiara. How did that all work? It gave her such a headache to think about.

The dummy helps. The sucking reminds her of Auntie’s boobies making her feel all full and sleepy. There’s music in the car now too. No longer Guns & Roses or Bon Jovi. Appropriate music to help calm one her age. A simple tune that brings her back to magic and fairies and princesses.

When you wish upon a star,

Makes no difference who you are...

A star. A genie.

A father. A grandmother.

Will it ever be her turn? What will she wish for? To be big again? How big is she supposed to be? She wishes she could clear the fog in her head but what if that’s the only wish she gets? Then she has to deal with complete clarity of her ridiculous situation. She might have to just grow up the old fashioned way. Is that what Dad wants? Or does he want her to stay a baby forever?

She looks at him driving; eyes on the road and hands on the wheel. Every now and then he looks in the mirror to see his baby looking intently at him. He smiles back to her but Sheridan can see a twitch in the corner of his mouth. A glimmer of uncertainty in his eyes.

"Something wrong, sweetie? You don’t look very well..." He says.

She knows she’s not. She got lucky that the right song came on to jog her memory.

"Don’t like the music, eh? Let’s try something else..." Dad fiddles with the controls on his CD player.

Sheridan frowns. The music won’t change what has happened. Dad doesn’t know what she heard while in the cabinet. Or has he figured out she’s caught on? The anger gives her focus. It stops her from sucking at the dummy. She can tune out Jiminy Cricket if she tries really hard.

But then the track changes. It’s no longer Pinocchio. It’s something much more personal. Something that threatens to pull her back down the whirlpool of mental infancy.

I can show you the world...

No. Not this one. The nostalgia is far too heavy. Intoxicating.

Shining. Shimmering. Splendid.

Tell me, princess, now when did you last let your heart decide?

And now Daddy is singing along. Sheridan opens her mouth, letting out a babbling sound around her dummy, part endeared and part wanting to beg him to stop. Her moment of clarity is about to slip through her chubby fingers again. She tries to stick them in her ears but they don’t seem to want to obey her. All they do is wave about clumsily. Useless.

The music is so lovely. Daddy’s smile is handsome. She doesn’t even have to close her eyes to imagine that she’s riding on a carpet like Princess Jasmine. Except the prince at her side is Daddy, singing to her about all the wonders he can show her. A whole new world of seemingly endless warmth, joy and innocence. She grins around her dummy. If she looks behind Daddy’s head then she can see the stars outside in the night-sky. Maybe the car could turn into a magic carpet right now!

That would be wonderful. Her and Daddy soaring through the late-night sky!

Thoughts of stars, magic carpets, princes, Daddy and music swirl around her head. She’s trapped but she doesn’t care. The car stops and Sheridan is so clever. She knows that means they’re home. She gurgles as Daddy comes back around to unbuckle the harness and lift her out to take her inside.

Inside the house it’s just as promised. There’s no one else there. No one to stare at her or tease her or insisting to play with her when she doesn’t want to. Just her and Daddy. How everything is supposed to be, right?

Daddy continues to hum the song from the car, keeping Sheridan’s mind wrapped in a thick, magical fog where the silly confusing big thoughts can’t get to her. He gives her the loveliest of baths, letting her splash around in the shallow but warm water, giggling at the tiny mounds of bubbles and playing with her duckie.

At one point he catches her looking at her hand, frowning. As if she’s attempting to solve a difficult puzzle.

"Here, Sheri." He gently takes her hand and starts running his fingers along them; "Round and round the garden like a teddy bear...One step...two step...Tickle you under there!"

Sheridan writhes with giggles, splashing her little feet and hands in the water, Daddy’s fingers tickling up her arm-pits.

"You always did love that one. Didn’t you, my darling?" He smiles and pokes her nose.

She’s too happy to even notice the phrasing of his words. It’s much more interesting to pat her palms against the water and watch the ripples and splashes. So fun and silly!

Sheri sits, good as gold, as Daddy washes what little hair she has on her head. She doesn’t cry. Daddy is always so careful. And after it’s done, she’s rewarded by being taken out and cuddled in the warmest of fluffy, baby towels. She’s dusted again with a powder that smells much nicer than the one Grandma put on her.

Daddy puts her in a nappy that’s much thicker than her day-time one ("Just in case of leakies, darling.") and dresses her in a light green baby-grow that feels even softer than her towel. Sheri can look down to see some pink squiggles on the front of her pajamas along with a picture of a heart. She blinks, thinking the squiggles might mean something, but she can’t work out what.

The answer is revealed when Daddy runs his fingers across them and smiles at her; "’I Stole Daddy’s Heart’. You sure did, didn’t you? You gorgeous little baby, you."

She smiles again at the lovely words, splaying her fingers out inside the mitten sleeves of her baby-grow. She hopes the pajamas don’t mean she’s going to bed yet. She’s not tired. And there’s that annoying flicker in her mind that she’s supposed to tell Daddy something important.

But all he needs to do is smile at her and she wonders what could possibly be wrong?

Thankfully, Daddy says she can stay up a bit longer before bed-time, a reward for being so good at Grandma’s. Daddy takes her downstairs and puts her on a soft rug like the one at her grandmother’s. Except this one is much better. It has all sorts of soft toys like plush blocks and rag-dolls for her to play with. It’s much better than being left in the corner in a chair, bored and ignored, while Grown Ups talk. She’s not bored now and she’s certainly not ignored.

"Can you put the blocks on top of each other, Sheri? Like this?" Daddy sits with her and tries to show her how to build a tower.

That looks like fun and Sheri uses her unsteady hands to give it a go. She can’t use her fingers to grab because of her mittens so she has to use two hands to pick up each block and slowly balance it on top of the other. The tower topples over quickly the first time because she can’t get a good grip and almost starts crying. But when Daddy guides her hands with his much bigger ones they can make the tower so very tall! Almost as tall as Sheridan! Can they make it taller than Daddy?

One extra block makes the tower topple, mostly towards Daddy’s direction. He makes a show of it burying him and falling onto the carpet. Sheri blinks at first. What is Daddy doing? The blocks didn’t really hurt him, did they? The very thought makes her chest hurt.

She crawls over to him as quickly as she can, her padded bottom waddling behind her. Please be okay, Daddy...

"Da-deh..." Sheridan babbles, reaching out to touch Daddy’s face. His eyes are closed and he looks like he’s sleeping.

Then he opens his eyes and grins at her. He was just pretending! Silly Daddy.

"Gotcha!" He teases and Sheridan explodes into giggles again, letting Daddy pull her close for a lovely cuddle.

The gentle excitement finally begins to wear her down and it’s soon time for bed. She’s rubbing her eyes with her encased fists as Daddy picks her up and carries her upstairs. He doesn’t take her to her bedroom right away. First her bottle is warmed up and Daddy decides to give it to her in his bedroom first before he can put her down for sleeps.

He lays her down on the mattress before laying down himself beside her, one arm curling her around to keep her close to him. His other hand puts the bottle in between her lips. There’s no fight or fuss as she takes the nipple. She was getting quite thirsty. She hadn’t worried though. She was with Daddy now and Daddy is there to take care of everything. She’ll always be fed and warm and clean so long as she’s with Daddy.

It’s the most relaxed and secure feeling as she suckles on the nipple, her head turned to the side a bit so she can stare into Daddy’s adoring eyes. She can feel his thumb stroking her wisp of a fringe. Already her eyes are beginning to close. The flicker is beginning to die out.

Would it really be so bad to just...give in? To stay like this for as long as possible? When was the last time she was ever this content? This safe and loved?

Probably the last time she was nine months old.

"You’re so beautiful. I’m the luckiest man in the world to have you, aren’t I?" Daddy whispers, ever so softly; "I didn’t want things to get this far. I really mean that, Sheridan. I thought this might be too much. But now...here we are. You’re so perfect. And I know I don’t deserve you."

She blinks at him, continuing to drink. What is Daddy talking about? He almost sounds sad. Why Daddy sad?

"I don’t know if you’re still in there. My head-strong daughter." He sighs, biting back regret; "I promised I’d spend the day with you today. I thought we could rebuild what was lost. Things got a bit side-tracked...But tomorrow, I promise. It will be our last chance. And then it will all be up to you, sweetheart."

What will? Why does she suddenly feel anxious?

She whimpers a bit, dislodging the bottle. She screws up her face and Daddy sits up, putting her over his shoulder and rubbing her back before she brings up a windy cough. That’s better. She rests her head on Daddy’s shoulder, suddenly so very sleepy, not wanting to think about whatever confusing thing Daddy was talking about.

He’s not talking anymore. He’s singing. She’s drifting back onto the magic carpet into dream time. She’s practically asleep by the time Daddy lays her down in her cot, placing a soft pink blankie over her fragile body, popping her dummy between her sleepy lips.

"Ni-night, Princess." He whispers, giving her a loving kiss on the forehead.

She stretches and yawns, wishing she could say Goodnight, Daddy, but her mind is already tumbling into the dark.