Home for Thanksgiving Dinner

Chapter 1
Thanksgiving Dinner

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Chapter Description: Ben, a college student, learns an important lesson about spending time with his family.

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It was the day before Thanksgiving and Ben had just gotten out of college for the upcoming break. Ben returned home uneasily, as he missed his friends and girlfriend already, and wasn’t looking forward to spending all of his time with his family. Getting out his car, he took his time grabbing his bags and took even more time climbing up the steps to his front door. It was cloudy outside, and he thought that it was perfect to match his moood.

Coming into the house, Ben was immediately greeted with his mother’s shrill shrieks of joy.

"Ben! I haven’t seen you in months! Come and give me a hug, honey!" she yelled, inches from his face.

"Hi, Mom. How’s everything?" Ben said, backing up a little bit in the process.

"What’s the matter, Ben, afraid to hug your own mother?" she insinuated, running forward and hugging him hard.

"Oh, mom, come on!" he laughed nervously, "You don’t have to hug and kiss me like crazy, we’re both adults, you can just say ’hello’ like a normal person."

"What’s that supposed to mean?" she inquired, obviously hurt.

"Nothing. Don’t worry about it."

Ben’s mom looked around awkwardly for a few moments, and then something came to mind, and she brightened up instantly.

"Your father and I have so much in store for you, Ben, so so much!" she said excitedly, clutching Ben around the shoulders. She ran into the kitchen and could be heard bustling around while Ben fell back into a chair in the living room, exhausted.

"Alright, alright, well, tell me about it tomorrow, Happy Thanksgiving, by the way, I’m saying it now because I’m going to try to sleep in as much as I can, so just wake me up when we’re going to eat, I’ll stay around for a while, but I want to see if any of my friends are up to anything tomorrow night," he said loudly, so she could hear him in the kitchen.

"You mean you don’t want to stay!?" she yelled back.

"It’s just dinner, mom, don’t worry about it," Ben replied, as he got up from his chair, walked into his old bedroom and closed the door behind him for the night.

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The next morning, Ben woke up relatively early and was extremely thirsty. He started to grab a glass when he noticed a cup of ice water already on the counter. He looked around to see if maybe his parents were already up, but he guessed that they had poured it and simply forgot. He drank his fill until it was empty, and then put the cup back into the sink and walked into his parents bedroom.

"Hey guys, Happy Thanksgiving." Ben said, leaning calmly against the door frame.

"Hi, Ben, hope you slept well, you’ve got a long day ahead of you!" his mom said, slyly.

"I guess I’m going to be helping you cook dinner?" he asked.

"Haha, if you want to, sweetie, sure, but your father and I have something we want to discuss with you first." she said, lowering her voice into a serious tone.

"...sure, what is it?" he asked hesitantly.

"Well, ever since you went off to college, we thought you had changed for the worse."

"What do you mean, you mean my grades? I’m doing a lot better this semester, mom, so don’t even give me that," he snapped.

"No, no, we’re talking about your attitude. Ever since you went to college, it’s like you don’t need us anymore, and you’re ’too grown up’ to appreciate the simple things in life, you know?"

"What are you talking about, I appreciate everything, you know that."

"We’re not talking about fine wines and cigars, Ben, we’re talking about your family, your roots, where you came from."

Ben sat silently for a while, staring intently at his parents, and glancing from his mother to his father, trying to decipher any kind of hidden meaning behind what they were saying. Ben felt a small tingling in his feet, and shifted his weight to alleviate his discomfort.

"Your father and I both decided that it would be best if we could just start over, you know?"

"Start over?"

"Yes, I know, it’s a little bit strange, and it’s going to take a lot of work--"

"What do you mean, "start over!?"" Ben asked, hastily, noticing the tingling had run up his legs now too, but he ignored the feeling for now.

"We mean re-raise you, re-raise you entirely. We went to a friend of your fathers who knows a guy, who knows a guy, yadda yadda, who managed to procure some of those youth formulas that you’ve read about in the news recently. It was a lot of money, Ben, a whole lot of money, and I hope you can appreciate that when you’re older. We spent nearly all of our savings on this, and we’re leaving it up to you to decide what you want to do, I mean, its your own life. We left the cup with the formula in it on the counter on ice. If you want to let us do what we were talking about, just go drink the whole thing, and we can get started. We’ll be taking ours tomorrow, so we’ll be in our early thirties again!"

Ben’s face fell to the ground realizing what had happened. Ben had already drank the whole cup of liquid, not even realizing it wasn’t tap water! What was going to do? His mind raced trying to rationalized what had happened: he had read tons of articles back at school about the revolutionary formula that was being developed that could lengthen the longevity of cells by adding lengthened telomeres to DNA strands, even reversing the aging process in many cases. Ben began breathing heavily and then explained the situation to his parents.

"Oh, Ben, that’s wonderful! You’re going to be our little boy again! I’m so glad you decided to do this!" she said, with a tear in her eye.

"No, you don’t underst--"

"I understand, Ben! I understand perfectly, you want to try again, I knew you would want to!" she said, getting up and hugging Ben hard.

Ben composed himself briefly, "How long will this take?" he said, hiding his numb, shaking hands behind his back and holding up his loosened pants in the process.

"You’ll be finished with the process by tonight, honey, I promise, and it won’t hurt, I did my research," she assured him, rubbing his back.

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Ben’s mind was overflowing with thoughts of what would happen to him, if he would ever grow up again, or how long he would be stuck at whatever age this process stopped him at. He ran into his bedroom, slamming the door to get a look at his mirror. He immediately noticed that all of his beard stubble had disappeared entirely, and that he had shrunk at least several inches since the last time he had measured himself, he was sure of that.

Ben was too busy inspecting himself to hear what she had said, but he looked down and saw his pubic hair retracting right into the skin of his body, along with his chest hair, and some of his leg hair. His armpits were barely fuzzy anymore, and his penis was now considerably smaller.

Ben tried to look up all the information he could on his laptop, but it was too late, soon he began noticing that his pants simply did not fit at all, and that he began to understand less and less of the scientific jargon that appeared on his screen. He heard dragging sounds coming from his garage, and then eventually through the living room, but was too concentrated on the task at hand to investigate. He surmised they were moving furniture for tonight’s Thanksgiving dinner.

Eventually, the process of regression became too strong, as did the wonderful smells of roasted turkey and cranberry sauce from the kitchen, and he got up to see how everything was coming along, catching a glance in the mirror as he left the room, noting that he looked about 13 years old. He realized that the process seemed to work in spurts, rapidly accelerating a decelerating.

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As he made his way into the kitchen, his pants had already fallen off, and he stood in front of his mother, barely being able to hold up his boxers from falling off his legs. She laughed, and gave him a big hug and a bunch of wet kisses on his face.

"Oh, Ben, you’re making me so happy, look at you!" she smiled.

"Mom, are you sure we can’t reconsider this?" he asked

"Haha, honey, it’s too late for second thoughts now, you know that." she explained.

"Please, please, please! You have to help me!" he begged, not knowing what to say or do anymore.

"I will help you, don’t worry! Don’t get so upset," Ben’s mom said, patting him on the back and then giving him a quick slap on the behind. "What are you so worried about anyways, just let it go! Be a kid again!"

Ben’s mom handed him some silverware to lay out on the dinner table, and he grudgingly obliged, hitting another regression spurt as he finished up his task. Ben’s mom heard his boxers fall off, and then the sound of her son’s sobbing.

"Ben! Don’t cry, honey, you’re going to be fine, come on, lets get you into some new clothes." His mother took her now five year-old son into her bedroom, where she opened her closet and showed him all of his new clothes that she had picked up for him. She showed him a pair of blue overalls, and a blue Tigger shirt along with some small socks. Ben sat clothed only in an over sized shirt on the edge of her bed, still crying to himself. As he looked up he glimpsed some smaller clothes still on hangers in her closet, but she shut it before he could get a good look at anything.

"Come on, honey, come into the bathroom." She took Ben by the arm, now looking no more than four into the bathroom where she began running bathwater. He sat uneasily on the toilet covering his privates up, noticing that they were now babyish in size, and barely worth covering. He kicked his legs lightly as he began to forget what upset him so much earlier.

"Mommy, can I take a shower instead?" he questioned, startled by how high his voice now sounded.

"No, sweetie, you know that showers are for big boys, right? YOu don’t want a shower, you want a nice warm bath!"

"Okay, mommy," he said, resigned. The blue terry cloth toilet cover felt soft on his naked body, and he giggled lightly to himself as his mother finished running the warm bathwater.

"Come on, big guy, into the tub so I can get you cleaned up for dinner!" she said, grabbing him off the toilet by his armpits and putting his naked butt cheeks in contact with the porcelain bottom of the bath tub. Ben splashed around childishly, and for the most part, sat quietly while his mother scrubbed him clean with a washcloth. She gave him a cup to play with in the tub, and he poured warm water over his shoulders and over his head, helping her to wash his hair. Ben got down on all fours in the tub, and eventually lay down on his stomach with only his baby butt and head above water, kicking his legs behind him like any toddler would. His mom watched him, smiling, and took this time as a cute photo opportunity. A few minutes and a roll of film later, she scooped him back out of the tub and dried him with a yellow towel before sitting him back down naked on the blue terry cloth toilet seat cover.

Ben’s mother was a little surprised at how quickly the formula was working on Ben, possibly due to his initial resistance which drove his heartbeat faster causing the formula to be more readily absorbed into his system. She looked at him, and realized he couldn’t be much older than three. His entire body was now covered in baby fat, and as she watched him giggle to himself, she noticed that all of his adult teeth had receded back into his gums, leaving only a small row of baby teeth left.

"We better hurry up and get you changed for dinner, honey, or you’re not going to be able to even chew your food!" she laughed to herself, scooping up the toddler in her arms and heading back into her bedroom for a moment to open her closet and retrieve the articles of clothing which Ben had missed before: an infant’s onesie and bib. She dug through her closet and retrieved the package of toddler’s pull ups that she had stashed earlier in the day while Ben was asleep.

"These for now," she said, showing him the pull ups, "these for later," she said, putting the baby clothes back on her bed.

Ben stood unsteadily leaning on his mommy’s bed, he had to use both hands, but atleast he could still walk. His mommy helped him into the training pants and then, sitting him on the edge of the bed, put some no-slip socks on his tiny, pudgy feet, so he wouldn’t slip while she was cooking dinner. She remembered back nearly two decades to when Ben had learned how to walk the first time, and laughed to herself thinking of all the times he had fallen on his wet little behind.

Ben toddled out of her bedroom and his mother busied herself finishing up dinner in the kitchen, often nearly tripping over her little son, who, now an hour later, was back to crawling on his hands and knees across the tile floor. She smiled down, motheringly, at her now infant son, and watched as the final stages of his regression came to an end. She reached down behind her son’s legs, and slipped two fingers under the elastic of Ben’s pull-ups, she felt that they were only a little wet, so she decided to wait to change him. She picked her son up by the armpits and help him up to her beaming face.

Ben’s former worries were gone, and a final thought of his adult brain swam through his mind, realizing that there was no more college ahead of him, no more relationship with his girlfriend back at school, no more parties with friends. His life would now be a series of diaper changes, spoon feedings and even breast feedings, he thought in horror, although this horror quickly passed, as the connections to adult hood were severed forever in his brain. As this happened, his last few remaining baby teeth receded back into his soft gums, and his baby fat grew thicker, causing his hands and feet to become even chubbier, and his face even rounder. A small rivulet of baby drool ran down his rosy cheeks and off his chin onto his naked chest as his mother held him in the air, his soggy pull-up slipping off his tiny thighs and hitting the ground with a light plopping sound.

"Ggaaa! Mmm...amaa! Ma-ma! Ca-ca!" he babbled, only now able to gurgle and babble.

His mommy held him high in the air, and the now 9 month-old Ben kicked his chubby legs in the air, giggling as his mommy blew raspberries on his tummy. She let him back down, cradling him in her arms, and kissed him on the forehead. His naked body was cold in the air, especially from wetting his pull-up before, so Ben’s mommy decided to put him into his clothes for dinner.

Having moved all his baby furniture into their home office, she had finalized the transformation of the room into the nursery. She had already prepared Ben’s old yellow changing table from when he was a baby. She had saved it in the garage, simply for memories and a lack of another place to put it, and she laughed, not realizing that years from then he’d need it again. She laid her infant son on the changing table and put her hand on his tummy to keep him in place while she grabbed a diaper from the package of Pampers underneath the table.

"No! No dydee! Puh-up! Puh-up!" he cried, but quickly realized his pleas were being ignored. Soon he completely forgot of what he was trying to convince his mommy of and lay quietly on the changing pad.

Ben gurgled up at her, drooling slightly and shivering naked in the light while his mommy grabbed his soft white ankles with one hand, grabbed a bottle of baby powder with the other and shook it lightly over his little tushie.

"And don’t forget your little wee-wee!" she exclaimed, blowing kisses on his tummy while powdering his hairless little genitals. She lifted his ankles once more and slipped the diaper underneath him, bringing it up between his legs and completing his diaper change. She sat him up on the changing table and helped him into the tiny white onesie from earlier. She fastened all the snaps around his diaper and then picked him up gingerly, hearing the crinkling sounds of the slick plastic underneath. It was if Ben had never seen his twentieth birthday, or even his second for that matter.

His mommy carried him across the room and deposited him into his old crib, which was full of brightly colored stuff animals and featured a swirling mobile of brightly colored planets with smiley faces on them above it. The old wooden crib even had tiny mirrors for Ben to look at himself with, and also several Fisher-Price toys attached to the bars which beeped and honked when they were pressed. She left Ben alone in the crib while she took the turkey and fixings out of the oven and served them on each plate for her and Ben’s father.

Baby Ben rooted in the crib for a moment before becoming focused on the spinning mobile above him.

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When she came back, 10 minutes later, Ben was sound asleep in his crib, she decided to let him rest a few minutes longer, but she she turned off the light to the room and closed the door, the noise startled him and he woke up, sobbing and crying. He stood up unsteadily in the crib, and clung the bars, swaying his unbalanced diapered bottom in the air, and bounced up and down on the hard crib mattress. As he stood holding the edge of the crib, he was completely unaware of the soft, brown curds falling into the seat of his diaper. He began to stream baby pee hard into the front of the diaper as well, before plopping back down on his bottom, unable to stand any longer. Little Ben soon began to feel the warmth in his diaper turn cold and he began to cry at his discomfort.

Ben’s mommy rushed into the room, scooping him up quickly and holding him close to her breast.

"Ohhh, honey, what’s wrong? Did something scare you?" she asked, not expecting an answer. It was then that she noticed the distinctly infantile smell of a dirty diaper.

"Oh, I know what you want, baby, you want your little diapee changed, don’t you? Yes you do! Yes, yes you do!" she cooed, dropping the side of the crib down, deciding to change him right on the mattress, since it had a plastic coating and a crib sheet anyways. She didn’t think she would stain it. She began to change little Ben, unsnapping his onesie, untaping his diaper and wiping the brown clumps off his soft bottom. She cleaned him with some baby wipes she had nearby, powdered him, and slipped him into a new pair of Pampers. Little Ben, finally calming down, sucked contentedly on his thumb as he laid on the crib mattress. He gurgled up at her and kicked his soft baby legs in the air. He placidly switched between his thumb and his toes, putting each in his mouth trying to discover which he loved more. He was the perfect image of a baby boy. She scooped him up and went into the kitchen where his father was already sitting, waiting for the two. He said nothing, but smiled broadly at his infant son.

"Isn’t he beautiful?"

"Just like I remembered."

Ben’s mother and father kissed briefly at the dinner table before setting baby Ben up in his awaiting high chair. His diaper crinkled loudly as it hit the hard plastic of the high chair, and he bubbled up at his mommy, in infantile delight, as she fastened a plastic bib with the words "I love my Mommy" printed on it in mock-crayon. Before she sat back down, she took a moment to revel in her son’s newfound life.

The reunited family ate dinner together once again in the soft yellow lights of the dining room, only this time, with one of their members eating their share of the Thanksgiving Feast from a Gerber jar.

After the main course, Ben’s mommy laughed as she took off Ben’s onesie, leaving him in just his disposable diaper and plopped him back into his high chair. Ben cooed softly and looked around as strings of drool ran down his chubby, rosy cheeks. His mommy put a piece of cherry pie infront of him and let Ben go to work as any little tiny baby would, grabbing handfuls of the sticky, sugary pie and rubbing it into his toothless baby mouth. Ben gummed the pie as best he could before swallowing, getting most of the pie on his face and hands, and the rest running down his naked chest into the pouch of the plastic bib.

His Mommy and Daddy watched in the parental joy and laughter that they had known so long ago, and were finally happy with having their baby boy home for the holidays for good.

Little Ben smiled back, too, covered in cherry pie and ready for his bedtime bath.

 

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