Mum Baby

Chapter 1
Mum Baby

---

Chapter Description: Be mindful of the wish you make, you will have to take responsibility for any changes you make

---

Don’t repeat the past

Don’t follow the same path

Carve your own

Early 1996:

So much for family. They were her last hope, her friends had already turned their backs on her and now her last hope has disowned her for a stupid mistake, a mistake that largely wasn’t her fault but the fault of the young man who had forced himself on her.

She had been too drunk to be able to stop him.

Now because of the actions of an asshole who couldn’t control himself, she was without a home, without family, without friends. All she had was the baby within her and she couldn’t bring herself to get an abortion. She knew she couldn’t afford to care for the baby, she couldn’t afford to care for herself, but the thought of aborting the cluster of cells within her was too terrifying for her to do.

So what now?

“I can’t stand here feeling sorry for myself, so move the backside and let’s try to survive” Forcing back her tears of anger and loss, she picks her few bags with what little she could pack in regards of clothes and walks forward, the front door to her parent’s home gradually becoming smaller the farther away she walks.

Childhood was over.

~~

Christmas Eve, 2014, Early Morning:

As she does every winter she wonders if cold nipples could really cut through steel, the saying was silly but it made her wonder.

Thankfully she didn’t have any reason to go out today, she had the next few days off work for the holidays, the Christmas shopping was done and there was plenty of food. Today she could relax, maybe a hot bath and a movie, nibble on some chocolate.

Sounds good.

“Any plans today or are you going to stare at that thing all day?” No response, typical. She didn’t know which stage of her daughter’s childhood was the hardest, when her daughter had been a baby and she had been struggling to provide for an infant or her daughter as a teenager. The teenager stage was definitely winning the most votes by a landslide.

“Mum to Christie, come in Christie” Looking over to her daughter who is, as usual, texting away on her mobile phone, she wonders if the adults of the future would be incapable of doing anything but walking around with their heads down and their eyes glued to tiny screens.

Her own mobile sat on the kitchen table, she rarely received any calls other than from work. She had few friends and what few friends she had were probably out Christmas shopping. Almost eighteen years of hard work, scraping and saving, years of putting her child first and while she didn’t have much – a reasonably okay council flat which was better than nothing, a TV that was on the edge of needing replaced with something better, the mobile and her daughter’s mobile, a decent amount of clothes that could be better, decent enough heating and decent second hand furniture that has seen better days.

She didn’t have much but such was life, she at least had her health, her job and her daughter. Christie had wanted a pet for years but the costs would have been too much to handle at the time and would still be tricky today.

At least her wages were enough to pay the bills and support herself and her daughter. Could be a lot worse.

“CHRISTIE!” With a slight jolt of shock, her daughter looks up in surprise. How could texting be so engrossing? Or did teenagers turn off their hearing most of the time?

“What?” Looking more like her mother had at eighteen, Christie is pretty with what look like slight hints of her absent father around the mouth and ears, the rest was a mix of her mother, grandmother and great grandmother. Not that she had ever seen any of her relatives since they wanted nothing to do with Christie and her mother.

Her skin also has a strong hint of her father, who had been slightly darker skinned from a born tan due to where he had been born, Spain or somewhere a lot warmer than the UK. Her eyes are a light blue with some flecks of green in them, her hair is slightly lighter than her mother’s at a dark blonde instead of a dark brown.

“What are you doing for today? Anything that isn’t sitting on your backside texting?” As much as she loved her daughter deeply, she did wish that her daughter had the same work ethic. Getting Christie to do much was like trying to get a politician to give to charity.

Surely she hadn’t been this bad when she had been a teen.

“Don’t know, window shopping I guess, not like I can buy anything” The tone of her voice was hinting at another attempt at a guilt trip, not that it ever worked. Christie didn’t take kindly to not being able to get new things on a regular basis like her friends did, efforts to teach her about being grateful for what she had tended to go in one ear and out the other.

“I can spare a tenner, nothing more, take it or leave it” While money wasn’t as tight as it had been in the past, she still tried to watch the pennies and save as much money as possible for emergencies. If there was one thing she had learned since being disowned was that it was best to be prepared for anything. She wished she could take a vacation or just quit work all together and retire, live off interest, but her finances just weren’t that strong.

She knew that Christie was unhappy about having so little in comparison to her friends but there wasn’t anything she could do about that, there were far too many expenses to consider and she was the only one with an income, Christie still kept coming up with excuses for not finding work even though she was a bright young woman and capable of work.

She tended to be more interested in texting and doing very little else.

“Guess it will do” Taking a ten pound note from her purse and handing it to Christie, who takes it at almost faster than light speeds, Tanya wishes for what must be the billionth time in the past few years since her daughter had hit puberty that Christie was more understanding of why things were not as easy as she demanded them to be.

“Keep away from that Keith kid, he’s probably more interested in sticking what’s between his legs into what’s between your legs than he is in you as a person. Young men his age don’t exactly think with much but their groins” She hated how that sounded, but it was accurate. This Keith kid that her daughter tended to hang around with was known to be a bed hopper, which among other males his age was considered heroic.

She considered such behaviour to be stupid and just asking for trouble, as well as throwing a young woman’s life into trouble as well.

“Stay out of it, mum, I like him” Oh how well she knew those words, she remembered the young men she had liked back when she had been a teenager. Christie was the result of one such liking, added with too much alcohol and cocaine. These days she cared nothing for sex and tended to tell men who tried to woo her that she wasn’t interested, as soon as she told them that she was a mother they would never bother her again.

“Keep away from him, don’t end up popping out a baby before you’re ready” She knew that schools rarely taught sex education these days, mostly due to religious control freaks refusing to face the reality about sex and the responsibility behind becoming an adult.

“And don’t roll your eyes at me either, I don’t want you to make the same mistakes I did” Christie just huffs and stomps out of the kitchen, the front door opening a couple of minutes later and slamming shut.

“You’re welcome” Now about that bath.

~~

Christie:

Why did her mum have to be bossy all the time? She wasn’t a baby anymore, she was an adult. Why didn’t her mum see that?

Her mum didn’t understand anything, she was too old too understand. Stupid and old.

Her head down, hands in her coat pockets and trying not to feel the winter chill, Christie heads for the town centre with no real idea on what to buy. A tenner wasn’t going to get much of anything, why couldn’t her mum just give her more? She worked so she had to have more money than she said she did.

It wasn’t fair, why did she have to do without while her friends got so much from their parents?

All of her friends were busy so this was going to be a boring and lonely window shop session, she hated window shopping. Seeing so many things that she wanted and never being able to get them, she was probably not going to get much for Christmas this year again, she only got some new clothes for her birthday months ago and they were an out of date fashion, second hand.

New was rare in the house when it came to anything that wasn’t food, why didn’t her mum buy anything new and up to date? Her friends parent’s did.

The shop displays, as usual, show things she can never have unless on sale and second hand. She can see adults in the shops shopping for their own kids, if they had kids, and she wishes she was in one of those families. Had to be better than having the mum who didn’t understand why things needed to be new.

Checking her mobile phone for any messages, the phone itself an older model and should have been replaced years ago when the newer model came out a month later, she sees that there aren’t any new messages. Her friends were busy.

They probably didn’t care anyway, she was the Thrift Queen as far as the kids in school were concerned. It was barely a college, her mum had managed to get her daughter to college but what little money she got for her college expenses was barely anything.

Slipping the phone back into her handbag, Christie heads farther into the town centre while her thoughts are filled with how unfair it was to have a mum like hers.

It was so unfair.

~~

Tanya:

The bath was lovely and the chocolates, although nearing their best by date, had been very welcome. It isn’t too cold in the flat, thankfully because she had managed to plead the council for a heating upgrade a few years ago which was a huge help when it came to coal, wood and peat for the fire since it required less than the old coal fire had and she could manage the budget better thanks to that. The only chill now was from the small gaps under the windows and from the letter box, she was strongly tempted to buy some sealant herself if she could afford to and seal the gaps. The letter box needed repairs since it clattered a lot on windy days, one of Christie’s slamming moments had caused damage to the letter box a year ago.

The door at least was one of the newer doors which were thick and well built, the old front door had been horrific in cold weather. The flat wasn’t anything special but at least it was a roof over the head, it was better than the alternative of no home.

Money was still tight but at least it wasn’t as bad as it had been. The threat of losing the flat was almost completely gone and that was a weight off her shoulders for sure.

She wishes she could buy new things like brand new clothes, better furniture, a new TV and other things but finances were just not strong enough for that. She already felt horrible for not being able to afford to get Christie much of anything for her birthday’s and Christmases. She tried to explain to her daughter why she couldn’t afford to get anything new but she didn’t listen, the only newish things were the mobile phones and she had to take out a small loan for them because her boss had insisted on her having a mobile phone to help out in case of any emergencies at work.

And she knew that her daughter would demand to have one as well so she had taken out a loan which was thankfully paid off, but she couldn’t afford to get newer models of the phones. Not yet. She was saving up and hoped to be able to save up enough to upgrade the phones eventually.

She was glad that she didn’t smoke, although the temptation to was there at times, and that she didn’t drink and had no interest in drugs unlike many others in the town. A hot bath and the occasional chocolate bar, if lucky, was about all she could manage as a treat to herself once the bills were paid, food was bought and any other expense was dealt with.

If Christie could just understand then maybe she wouldn’t keep demanding to have things that just weren’t possible. Maybe.

Once she has dried off and gotten dressed, Tanya examines herself in her old, but still perfectly function bedroom mirror.

“Thirty seven years old and I look at last fifty or close to” Although she wasn’t plump by any means, she did feel that she was. It didn’t help that so many beauty adverts she saw made it seem like a sinful thing to be older than your early twenties.

Giving her hair a slight flick and picturing how she had looked before she had been pregnant with Christie years ago, Tanya decides to do some chores before putting a movie on. Something Christmas themed sounded good, she had managed to get some second hand DVDs for the worn but still functioning DVD player recently.

Chores first though.

~~

Christie:

After what feels like an hour of walking around the town centre, Christie enters into another street that has fewer shops and with less Christmas shoppers around. Most of those shopping tended to focus more on the bigger shops and the shops that branched off from the main centre did well enough but not as well as the shops in the centre.

There are few vehicles parked and the street is quiet enough with the noise of the nearby centre seeming distant and farther away than just a short walk back. Maybe it was one of the older streets for the town, she didn’t know much about the town’s history but she knew it was at least a thousand or so years old.

Although she wasn’t exactly certain if that was accurate or not.

As she walks the mostly quiet streets, she fingers her purse where the ten pound note is and wonders if she can find something on some out of the way shop in this street, something affordable. The things that did interest her were more expensive than a mere tenner could manage.

Her stomach growls a little as an indication that lunch time is nearing, her breakfast had been meagre but filling enough. A small voice in her mind tells her to try and understand why her mum was struggling but the louder voice, the society created voice of greed and want, drowns out the smaller voice as usual.

Stopping again to check her mobile for new messages, Christie sighs at seeing nothing new and looks up, hoping to maybe see one of her friends coming down the street. There wasn’t anyone though, she was the only person in the street.

A small sound like a small bell can be heard just to her left and she turns to see a shop she hasn’t seen before, considering that she has walked the streets of the town often and knows many of the shops, then seeing a shop that she was certain hadn’t been there seconds ago was a surprise to say the least.

In the window she can see objects that look unlike anything she has ever seen before, the shop itself looks very old. So few shops in the town were all that old due to refurbishments to older buildings over the years and many of the older buildings being torn down and replaced with newer buildings, this place though looked like it been around for maybe as long as the town, maybe even longer.

It didn’t look rundown though, it looked well cared for by whoever owned it.

Looking up for a sign that says what the shop is called, she sees a worn but still very readable sign above the door saying ’As Needed’ and hanging down about the door is a smaller sign with a picture that could be indicative of what the shop sells, but the picture is small and hard to fully make out.

“Guess I could take a look, not like I’m doing anything else” Noticing that the door is an older design that requires pushing down on a beautifully shaped door handle, Christie enters the shop and is greeted by an assortment of smells, some familiar, some completely new to her and none of them were offensive in any way, if anything they were quite welcoming.

As her eyes adjust to the dim lighting in the shop, she can make out shelves and tables filled with all kinds of things that she had never seen before. She couldn’t even begin to try and describe them.

“Hello, welcome to the As Needed, how may I assist you?” Tearing her eyes away from the various items, Christie sees a woman standing behind a beautifully made wooden counter that looks like it has been made by hand. The wood is dark with an assortment of finely crafted designs around the outer edges and farther in are crafted images of various kinds.

For being such an old looking shop that has clearly been around for a very long time, she is surprised that she has never seen this place before.

“I’m not really sure, I don’t have much money” Christie replies, the woman just smiles lightly as if she understood or expected that answer. The woman was as unusual as the shop, she looked to be barely a few years older than Christie but there seemed to be a feeling of considerable age to her, as if her actual age was as old or older than the shop itself.

Her skin is dark but not too dark, it was more of a coffee colour with a little lightness. Her eyes are a light green and maybe a little blue in there somewhere and her hair is a dark blonde colour with several braids of different colours down both sides.. She is a little shorter than Christie yet to Christie she seems much taller than her. Maybe it was the light smile or the feeling of being a lot older than she looked.

“That is perfectly okay, everything here is always at the right price for the right costumer” The woman’s voice is very soft with an almost youthful quality to it while also having a hint of considerable age.

Stepping out from behind the counter, the woman approaches Christie and looks her directly in the eyes.

“Hmm, yes, interesting. You are not the first to wish such a thing about a parent and I doubt you will be the last, however such a wish carries risks. Now I have two items that may be of use to you but I can only allow you to rent one of them, the other you may buy as long as you are responsible with it” Thinking for a moment, the woman smiles again and heads over to one of the shelves and selects two items and returns to Christie.

“How much is it to rent? I only have a tenner” Knowing her luck, the item that she can buy will probably be more than she can afford. Always happened.

To her surprise the woman takes her left hand and places the two small items in her hand.

“Nothing to rent, the item to buy is five pounds, the other five is to get you and your mother something you can share together. I know an excellent bakery just down the road to the left, they sell the most delicious apple turnovers” Only a fiver? It was so rare to find anything so cheap that she was interested in and these items interested her, something about them made her want to accept them.

“Me and mum love apple turnovers, especially with a little cinnamon added. Mum says they remind her of when she was younger and eating them when she was really young” The woman smiles again, such a gentle smile. It made Christie feel safe around her.

“Then why don’t you get some after you leave here, I’m sure your mum would enjoy the treat. Now to use these items you must heed these words. This item here” The woman points to what looks like some kind of symbol but she doesn’t recognise it.

“This is the one you are renting, after you give your mum her apple turnover you must hold this in your right hand and think of your wish. After forty eight hours your wish will end but with luck things will be much clearer for both of you. Now this item” Pointing to the next item which looks a little like an indication of clothing of sorts.

“This item is best used after the original has returned to me, it will return to me of it’s own volition so you do not need to worry about returning it to me yourself. This item will allow you to make small changes to a person’s clothes, but be mindful of how you use it. The changes match a part of a person that is suppressed either out of need or fear of a secret being discovered by less understanding types. You may only use this item once a day, any more than that would result in the item returning to me and I do not do refunds. Also any changes made will be permanent instead of a one day thing. Heed the instructions well” They sounded simple enough. Taking the ten pound note from her purse, she hands it to the woman who checks it in the light before going over to the counter and behind a set of curtains into the back.

She returns a minute later with a five pound note in charge that she hands to Christie.

“Enjoy your purchase, Christie, may it help you both” She was sure that she hadn’t told the woman her name, so how did she know? She didn’t get the chance to ask though since she felt compelled to leave the shop, the two items tucked into her hand bag and her change in her purse. After a few steps she looks back but can’t see the shop, not even the hanging sign.

It was as if it had never been there.

“Weird. Okay, she said down the road to the left. I can see a left turn just down the street, must be there” Heading for the bakery, she wonders just who the woman was and why she can’t see the shop. Maybe she was daydreaming, yet when she puts her hand into her handbag she can feel the two items resting there.

“Definitely weird”

~~

Wish:

Checking the time as the movie she was watching comes to an end, she notices that it’s time to look into making lunch and Christie would probably be home soon for lunch. She wasn’t sure what to make, the options weren’t great.

As if on cue the front door can be heard opening and Christie calling out:

“Me mum” And the sounds of her taking off her coat and putting her hand bag on a peg as well as taking off her shoes and slipping on some slippers, she wasn’t fond of wearing her shoes around the house for whatever reason, Tanya had never taught her that yet ever since Christie was seven she just preferred to wear slippers when in the house.

“Find anything nice?” She asks as Christie enters the living room with a plastic bag. Her daughter’s face looked cold, it was probably colder out there than it looked.

“Not sure. I got some apple turnovers, want to share with me? I’m sorry about earlier” It was rare for her daughter to apologise, usually she just gave a slight grunt as a means of communication if it wasn’t another demand for something new.

Once she had thought the terrible twos were hard, but the teenage years were enough to drive any parent mad.

“Sounds good, was just watching an animated movie and thinking of making lunch. I think the turnovers will do for lunch though, I’ll get some juice. Just diluting but it’s better than nothing” As Tanya heads through to the kitchen to get some juice, Christie fingers the first item in her pocket while taking out the apple turnovers from the bag with her other hand.

If her mum could just understand her needs.

Tanya returns from the kitchen and sets down two glasses of diluted orange and lemon juice as well as two small plates for the turnovers, which Christie serves.

Taking a plate each, they sit down next to each other after Tanya slips another of the second hand DVDs into the player, another Christmas animated movie, and tuck in.

As they eat the turnovers, Christie grips the first item in her right hand and wishes in her mind:

“I wish mum could understand need” As she finishes her wish, she feels the item start to feel warm and disappear a second later.

“Didn’t work” Christie thinks with disappointment and she looks over to her mum and her eyes widen in surprise as a faint glow appears around her mum.

“Mum?” Tanya looks over to her then down at her chest as her clothes start to become loose, the glow increases and Christie watches in surprise as her mum starts to shrink into her clothing, her clothing changing slowly and shrinking to fit, becoming almost childlike in design.

Within seconds where a woman in her late 30s had sat was now a teenager around Christie’s age, and a 12 year old girl who became 8 quickly seconds later.

“Mum?!” Tanya tries to speak but she seems to be having trouble as she becomes even smaller and younger, her age now around five years old, then three and finally stopping at around eighteen months old, her clothes finishing their own transformation to leave her wearing a thick nappy, a baby sized t-shirt and baby socks on her now very tiny feet.

The former adult now baby girl looks at her daughter, looking up at her instead of over to her, with an expression of complete shock on her very young face. Then looks down at her body as possible, then at her arms and legs, her tiny hands patting the thick padded garment between her tiny, chubby legs.

This is followed by a very loud baby’s scream.

~

As Tanya screams and cries, tears running down her face while her arms and legs frail, Christie shakes herself out of her shock and tries to think what to do, this wasn’t what she had wished for, she wasn’t able to care for a baby. Especially a baby who just a couple of minutes ago had been her mum.

She had babysat before for some money, but that had only been for a few hours and those kids hadn’t been former adults, she didn’t know what to do. So thinking quickly she picks her mum up and holds her in her arms, rocking her gently in an effort to try and calm her down.

“Shh, mum, please, shh, I’ll try to get this fixed” Tanya just screams louder, so Christie tries to make her mum comfortable by cradling her mum close to her body and humming a random tune that pops into her mind, this seems to help because Tanya’s crying starts to become quieter and her screams reduce to a scared whimper.

Reacting purely on instinct, which she didn’t even think she had in her, Christie continues cradling her mum, patting the thick nappy and humming softly until Tanya’s whimpering decreases and she is looking up at her daughter, an arm reaching out in an effort to touch her daughter’s face.

“I didn’t wish for this, mum, really, I didn’t expect this to happen. I wish you could tell me what to do, I’m scared that I’m going to screw up” Tanya gives a slight coo then to her daughter’s surprise, speaks.

“What did you do?” The voice is small but clear enough, it was clearly adult but with a very young sound to it.

“Why am I a baby?” Sitting her mum down on the sofa, the baby girl looking so small on the seat, Christie tries to think on how to explain. What could she say? How many people turned their parents into babies?

“I made a wish, I just wanted you to understand my needs” Tanya frowns, which for her now very youthful age only made her look very cute.

“You wished this? Christie, I’m a bloody baby! You’ve reduced me to a helpless infant in a, admittedly comfortable, nappy! How could you do this?!” Scooting herself to the edge of the sofa, Tanya looks down and gulps, the floor very far away now, the entire living room was much bigger than before and things looked different from before.

“I think the flat’s changed as well due to your wish, how did you do it? Do you have any idea how dangerous this is? What if I can’t age back, what if I’m stuck like this and you have to raise me? I have my work, Christie, I have to support both of us! I can’t do that when I’m probably barely even able to walk let alone use the bathroom without someone needing to change me and tend to me!” As if on cue to those words, Tanya looks down and blushes while one hand goes to the back of her nappy and the other to the front.

“You wanted me to understand need? Fine, I need changing” If Christie could see her expression as soon as her mum said that, she would have seen a combined look of dread, terror and revulsion all rolled into one.

~

There are days when something will happen that doesn’t make any sense and there are days when many things happen that you can’t believe are happening, today was one of those kind of days.

“You didn’t, tell me you didn’t” A sharp scent comes to Christie’s nose, she did. This was not what she had intended when she had made that stupid wish.

“I did. You did something to reduce me to a baby so you have to take care of me, I’m too young and too uncoordinated to care for myself. And I don’t think you’ve noticed but that wish of yours did more than reduce me to a baby, look around the living room” She was right, the living room looked different, there were things here that weren’t here before.

There were baby toys, a play pen close to the sofa, a very soft and cuddly looking toy cat was on the coffee table. There were socket protectors in the sockets, intended clearly to try and stop tiny curious fingers from getting electrocuted, there were curved table edge protectors on the edges of the coffee table and other sharp areas that are eye level to a toddler or young child who was learning to walk.

“My hunch is that the changes made by your wish that have turned me into a baby and made toys and such appear in the living room may have had the same kind of changes around the flat, so it is very likely that there is a nursery in one of the two bedrooms. Considering that I’m the one who’s been reduced to this very young age then it is very likely that my bedroom is the one that has been turned into a nursery. So pick me up and take me through to the nursery and change me, I can talk you through it if you have any problems” Change her mum’s nappy? Seriously? This was bordering on a whole new level of weird.

“Now, Christie, before I get nappy rash and drive you mad with my screams and cries of pain” Knowing that she doesn’t have a choice since she was the only one who could do what needed to be done, Christie picks her infant mum up from the sofa, holding her in both hands, and goes through to her mum’s bedroom.

Tanya’s guess proves correct, the room has been changed and where there had been an old double bed that was almost as old as Christie herself, a dresser, an old mirror in a corner and a bedside table was now a crib, a changing table with stacks of nappies, more toys and a different dresser. There was also a mirror that looked like the original but much newer.

The entire room looked like what you would expect for a baby all the way down to the wallpaper and curtains.

“Lay me down on the changing mat, I’ll talk you through the entire process. Babies tend to need changing about three or four times a day, sometimes more. You’ll have to get used to doing this often” Laying her mum down on the changing mat, Christie follows her mum’s instructions and tries not to gag when she removes the filled nappy and cleans her mum up.

Eventually her mum is cleaned up and ready for a fresh nappy, so with lotion and baby powder applied gently, Christie grabs a nappy from the closest stack, they all looked to be as thick as the one her mum had been wearing previously, and puts it on her mum.

One done and tucking in the sides, the tapes fastened securely and the nappy clearly snug going by Tanya’s expression of contentment at being clean and with a fresh nappy on, Christie cleans up while her mum lifts herself up and pats her new nappy.

“These are pretty comfortable” She mummers to herself, it felt strange to have been changed by her own daughter yet at the same time she felt comfortable and secure. Regardless of how sudden this change had been, she had to admit that maybe it wasn’t so bad. If anything it felt like a break from being an adult.

Christie returns after a couple of minutes and picks her mum up from the changing table, patting her mum’s freshly re-padded bottom softly which Tanya found even more comforting.

“Better?” Christie asks, her mum giving a coo of contentment as a reply. After years of being an adult and having to be responsible, it felt nice to be the one being cared for.

“Now tell me exactly what you did to cause this, every detail” Seeing a rocking chair close to the crib, Christie sits down and cradles her mum in her arms while telling her about the shop, the woman and the instructions about the items.

“So I’m going to be like this for two days? Good thing I have several days off work, it would be hard to explain this at work and I doubt nappy changing breaks would be covered in my pay. Okay, this means that you are going to have to not only take care of me, but also make Christmas dinner tomorrow, supper tonight and any cleaning up. You will also need to feed me, bathe me, change me and generally tend to my needs as well as provide comfort when I’m needing it plus keeping me safe. And don’t give me that ’I can’t be bothered’ look, you got your wish, I understand need just fine. I have to depend on you for the next two days, exactly forty eight hours from when you made that wish. You made a very stupid mistake and you will have to deal with the consequences of that mistake” Forty eight hours of caring for her infantised mum, so much for a hopefully quiet Christmas.

“Set me down on the floor please, I want to crawl over to the mirror and see how cute I probably am” Setting Tanya down on the floor, Christie watches as her mum first tries to stand only to fall onto her thickly padded backside. Clearly walking wasn’t going to be an option at this time, so leaning forward and placing her hands on the soft carpet, Tanya shifts herself into a crawling position and crawls over to the mirror, her nappy covered bottom wiggling away as she crawls.

It doesn’t take her long to get to the mirror, babies can crawl pretty fast, and she tries to use the mirror to pull herself up and see herself in the mirror.

She is greeted with her reflection which shows a baby girl of eighteen months old with fine wispy hair that is mostly blonde but is showing slight indications of becoming darker at a later age, a tiny cute nose, light blue eyes and a very cute mouth with a few very tiny teeth peeping through the gun when she opens her mouth.

Touching her now equally tiny ears, she smiles and giggles. She couldn’t believe how young and small she was now.

The rest of her is as chubby as expected with baby fat, a tubby belly that sticks out over the top of her nappy, very tiny fingers poke at her belly and nappy. Hoping that she can at least stand, Tanya gives herself a small push from the mirror only to find that her balance is still quite off and she falls down onto the ground, her thick nappy cushioning much of the impact and making her giggle.

“You were this clumsy when you were this age, Christie, and every bit as adorable. No matter how stressful things were at the time, a giggle, laugh or smile from you and a cuddle made everything feel worth it. Now then, let’s go see how many other changes have been made to the flat, so up please”

~

With her mum held securely in her left arm and held by her right arm, Christie checks how much has changed around the flat. All but her own room show major changes, her own room is the same as ever other than socket protectors like the ones in the living room and in other power sockets.

In the bathroom are bath toys and a baby seat for the bath for bathing a baby safely. In the kitchen is baby food, baby bottles, baby formula, some newly cleaned baby dummies, a high-chair and baby clothes that had been set out to dry after being washed.

If it wasn’t for how recent this was you would have thought that Tanya had been a baby for eighteen months instead of less than an hour.

“I’m hungry, Christie, and since you’re not lactating although that would be a tad much if you were, you’ll need to make me a bottle as well as some baby food. I’ll talk you through it, sit me down in the high chair for now while you make my food please” Sitting her mum down in the high-chair, Christie listens to her mum carefully as she chooses one of the jars.

“Check for any bananas, they might be in one of the cupboards, I used to buy bananas for you when you were a baby. You couldn’t get enough of mashed bananas” Checking the cupboards as asked, Christie finds a bunch of thankfully non-bruised bananas and picks one from the bunch. Mashing it in a plastic bowl, she sets it down in front of her mum with a plastic spoon added.

Picking the spoon up in her tiny hand, Tanya tries to feed herself after Christie ties a bib around her mum’s neck. It was awkward but she was glad to have some coordination to be able to feed herself at least.

As Tanya eats happily, some mashed banana falling onto her bib and the tray, Christie gets started on the bottle that her mum had explained how to make before being given mashed banana to eat. Just as the bottle is almost ready, Tanya finishes eating.

“That was nummy. My baby taste buds loved that, thank you” Christie couldn’t believe that she was actually doing all of this, when she got up this morning she hadn’t been expecting to be caring for a baby.

“My friends will never believe me if I told them about this, I don’t even believe it’s happening” Once the bottle is ready and the stove turned off, Christie splashes a couple of drops onto an arm and once satisfied that it is warm enough for a baby to be able to drink, she hands it to her mum who takes it happily.

“Up please, would like to sit on your lap as I drink this. You loved doing that when you were this age” Babies were definitely demanding, that was for sure. Helping her mum out of the high-chair, Christie takes her through to the living room and sits down with Tanya on her lap.

Suckling happily on the baby bottle, Tanya cuddles up against her daughter while Christie softly pats her mum’s nappy.

“I really messed things up, mum, didn’t I? However you managed this when I was a baby is beyond me, it’s barely been almost an hour and I’m not sure if I can manage a full two days of this” Tanya doesn’t reply, sounds of happy suckling and breathing from her nose are pretty much the only sounds from her.

“All I wanted was for you to understand need and I ended up reducing you an infant who’s nappy I’ve changed and who is now sitting on my lap drinking baby formula. I really screwed up” Trying her best to keep her emotions in check, Christie looks down at the happy infant on her lap. It was hard to believe that this tiny baby had been a grown woman almost an hour ago.

Thirty seven years of growing up and development all wiped away within seconds.

Tanya finishes drinking from her bottle and tries to burp, whimpering when she finds that she can’t muster a burp on her own. Looking up to her daughter, she tries to indicate that she needs burped, tears coming to her eyes.

Remembering seeing other babies being burped before, Christie quickly grabs a nearby towel, which was likely there for it’s intended purpose as a burp rag, and holds her mum gently once the towel is on her shoulder.

Gently rubbing her mum’s back with a few pats as well, she tries to calm her clearly distressed mum and is rewarded with a loud burp and feeling her mum relax.

“Yay for being observant” She remarks lightly while Tanya coos happily from the much needed burp.

After a minute or two, Christie sits her mum on the sofa and gets up, taking her mum’s empty baby bottle with her, and goes through to the kitchen to wash up. While Christie works in the kitchen, Tanya scoots over to the edge of the sofa and looks down. It really was a long way down at this size.

“Maybe if I’m careful I can get down and have a crawl around, feeling a little sleepy though. Not ready for a nap, I want to crawl!” So with careful movement, Tanya lays down on her stomach then tries to swing her legs to the edge of the sofa and slowly push herself off the sofa, it was so hard to tell exactly how far she was from the floor.

After what feels like a nerve racking bit by bit movement, she feels a foot touch the floor, the other foot joins it. She had done it! Now to crawl.

Plopping down on her padded bottom, she crawls for the kitchen but doesn’t get far. Her body starts to feel heavy and as hard as she tries to fight it, her eyes close and she pitches forward, her face turning just as it hits the floor, her nappy covered backside sticking up in the air and she starts snoring.

Nap time.

This is how Christie finds her minutes later.

~

Once her mum is laid down in her crib, Christie tries to find a phone number for the shop she had gotten the items from but finds nothing.

They had internet but the connection wasn’t great, her mum couldn’t afford to upgrade to fibre optic internet. But maybe there was something online.

Making sure the baby monitor she had taken with her is working well while leaving the other next to her mum’s crib, thankfully it’s working beautifully and she can hear her mum’s baby snores through it clearly, Christie connects to the net via a worn but thankfully still working lap top that her mum used for work and would allow Christie to use sometimes as long as she was gentle with it since her mobile was being recharged at this time.

It had been new six years ago after her mum was given the lap top from one of her few friends as a Christmas present, now it was slow and stubborn but still worked reasonably well after being repaired and upgraded as often as able.

Once the lap top has loaded and is showing it’s going to behave, Christie searches for anything about the shop and finds nothing. Surely the shop had a website, most did these days. Nothing though.

She tries variations in the search engine but nothing appears. What kind of shop these days didn’t have a web site?

Deciding to check her e-mails, she sees an e-mail from a sender she hasn’t seen before. It isn’t junk mail, that was for sure. Curiosity urges her to open it and she is greeted with the message:

’Christie, I received the first item. I take it that you have made your wish, I hope it is what you intended. If not then there is nothing I can do since the wish will only become permanent if you try to undo the wish, you must allow it to be for the full forty eight hours.

Whatever your wish was, you must take responsibility for any changes made. A wisher must never run from the consequences of their wish.

May this Christmas be a good one for you and your mother’

It had a No Reply tag on it. Well bollocks. No chance of reversing the wish then, she had to see this through to the end. But how was she going to care for her mum like this? She wasn’t exactly the maternal kind, the kids she had babysat were usually asleep while their parents had gone out for a couple of hours, very few of them woke up while she was there and the few that did just asked her questions before being ushered back to bed.

And most of them hadn’t been babies like her mum currently was.

But if her mum could manage to take care of her when she had very little else and no support, then surely she could manage to do the same for her mum for a couple of days. It wasn’t like it was going to be eighteen years or however long, it was just two days.

Two days of being largely clueless and feeling very guilty for what she has done to her mum.

“I did wish this though, didn’t I? Maybe not in this exact way but I did want her to understand need and she does, she needs me to help her and I’m all she has, just as she is all I have and have always had. She raised me on almost nothing for years, she’s done so much for me and how do I thank her? I reduce her to a nappy filling, drooling infant who can’t take care of herself. She managed for years, I need to manage for two days. Just two days” From the baby monitor she can still hear her mum’s baby snores, what was her mum dreaming about at this reduced age? Was she dreaming about how to support her daughter or was she dreaming of whatever babies dream about?

Mum and that mysterious woman were right, she had to be responsible. She got her mum into this mess and she had to help her mum endure it until the wish wore off.

Childhood was over.

~~

For three hours while Tanya sleeps, Christie looks up as much information as possible to help her learn enough basics on caring for a baby, the information was extensive and much of it was conflicted with different accounts. She kept was she found to be useful and helpful while disregarding the rest, at the same time she looked up information on the basics of cooking.

Her mum had tried to teach her how to cook often but she had rarely paid attention, that changed now, she had to learn to be able to take care of herself and her mum for the next two days and all of this information could prove to be useful to her for the rest of her life.

The more she learned the more she was amazed at how her mum had been able to learn with less access to resources in the past, that she had coped and did her best came to amaze her. Here she thought that her mum was being too hard on her for so long but she was starting to understand why her mum was being hard on her. It wasn’t out of bossiness, it was out of concern. She had struggled for so long and she didn’t want her daughter to go down the same path, she wanted her daughter to have a better chance with better support.

The small voice from before was becoming louder the more she learned and started to understand. Her idea of need wasn’t need after all, it was want. Her mum understood what need was and had known for years, she was making constant sacrifices and hardships so that her daughter would have a home, clothing, food and an education.

Her idea of need didn’t factor into any of this, the actual needs were the basics – food, warmth, education. Everything else was secondary and were managed according to priority and affordability. Anything too expensive had to be worked on slowly and anything within acceptable budgetary range was thought over and sorted out according to if it was of any immediate importance or not.

This was going to take her a long time to master, but she knew she needed to do this. She couldn’t rely on her mum forever, what if something happened to her and she couldn’t help anymore? Just like with today or worse?

Whenever she had asked her mum about any other relatives she had always gotten the response that they didn’t regard her as part of the family anymore and didn’t say anything else about it, she never said much about Christie’s dad other than he was a right disgusting bastard for what he had done.

“Christie?” Her mum needed her, hopefully her nap was a nice one. Shutting the lap top down, Christie heads through to the nursery to see her mum awake and peering over the top of her crib, her hair is a mess of wispy curls both sticking up and framing her mum’s young face, one hand is rubbing at an eye with the back of the hand while the other is holding into the top of the crib.

“I’m here, did you have a nice nap?” Tanya nods, the movement making her sway a little on the soft mattress of her crib. It was like seeing a completely different person in many ways, instead of the grown woman who worked hard for so little, there was this innocent, vulnerable baby girl who was rubbing sleep from her eyes. Both were far removed from one another.

“Yes, how long was I sleeping for?” It had been three hours since her mum had fallen asleep, didn’t seem like that long.

“Three hours, wanting to play?” At first Tanya looks like she’s going to shake her head, but she thinks it over for a moment then nods and holds her arms up, wobbling on the mattress and falling onto it bottom first.

Lifting her mum up from the crib, she takes her through to the living room and places her in the play pen, Tanya going for a rattle automatically.

“I’ll be close by, mum, I won’t be far” To her surprise she watches as her mum grabs the rattle and starts chewing on it.

“Mum?” Tanya looks up and stops chewing, then coos happily while some drool drops onto her t-short and nappy. Was her mum becoming a baby mentally as well?

“Can you still understand me?” A slight nod, there was confusion in her mum’s eyes for a second which fades away and is replaced with an older, more worn out look.

“Yes, I seemed to blank out then. I felt all fuzzy in my head. Christie, if I’m turning into a baby completely then I won’t be able to help you. I need you, please, I need you to help me. If I blank out again for a longer time then you need to keep me safe” The look in her eyes fades away again to be replaced with an almost blank look of pure innocence.

Her mum was fading away and there was nothing she could do to stop it, not if she wanted her mum to be an adult again in less than two days time.

~~

After supper time and a bath, Christie watches her mum play in the living room. Tanya is happily playing in a fresh nappy, after wetting her previous one just before her bath, which is peeping out from the crotch piece of a one piece night time baby grow, or onesie as they called them in America if she recalled correctly.

Her mum had enjoyed her bath and had splashed a lot happily, sometimes her mum would resurface from within but those times were becoming increasingly few and far between. Right now her mum was completely a baby, her adult self hasn’t appeared for at least twenty minutes.

“Almost bedtime, sweetie” Tanya just keeps playing, her happy babbling and awkward words indicative of a toddler at play. Something in her felt very maternal towards the happy baby girl, she knows that she really shouldn’t feel that since that baby girl was, in a sense, her mother but the feelings were still there regardless.

Tanya yawns a few seconds later and rubs her eyes, baby timing when it came to fatigue. Leaving her toys where they are, Tanya crawls over to her daughter who scoops her up and gives her a raspberry kiss on her belly, making the child laugh in delight.

“Okay, nappy bum, sleepy time for baby” Holding the sleepy baby at her hip, Christie heads through to the nursery which is a comfortable warmth for a young child, thankfully the information she had read online had helped her to ensure the room had the right temperature, and lays her down in the crib.

“It happened again, didn’t it?” She can hear her mum now, it was strange to hear her mum coming from such a small and adorable baby.

“It did, it’s bed time, you started yawning and rubbing your eyes. I’ll keep the baby monitor on and have spare batteries close by if needed, you’ll probably wake up at some point in the night for a change or comforting. I’ll do my best to look after you, mum, promise. I’m learning” Tanya yawns again and her eyes slowly start to close.

“I’ll be close by, mum, rest well” Tanya coos tiredly before fully falling asleep, Christie gives her a little kiss on the forehead and leaves the room, being sure to leave the door open a little but not too much.

Good night, mum”

~~

Christmas Day, 2014:

Falling asleep at some point the previous night after doing some research on cooking Christmas dinner, she had found some pre-cooked and sliced turkey breast in the freezer that her mum must have bought when she went food shopping before yesterday as well as other things for Christmas dinner, Christie is woken up by the sound of a very unhappy baby.

Checking the time on her alarm clock, she notices that the time is a little after seven in the morning, she didn’t know when she had gone to bed.

“Mum needs me, up and to it” Pushing herself out of bed and trying not to remark loudly at how cold it is, she would have to put a fire on as soon as she saw to her mum, Christie heads for the nursery despite her state of undress – she was just wearing her nightwear which consisted of little more than a t-shirt and shorts and the t-shirt was bunched up under her breasts to reveal her midriff, and finds her mum in her crib crying for Christie.

“I’m here, I’m here, it’s okay” Checking her mum’s nappy she sees that her mum needs changing again, so tending to that and calming her mum down, she dresses her mum once she’s cleaned up and in a fresh nappy.

“Num num time” Since her mum hasn’t said anything but the clumsy words of a young child learning to speak, she assumes correctly that her mum’s adult mind is suppressed for the time being. At this age she doubted that the child in her arms even knows what day it is, all she knows is that she’s comfortable again and she’s hungry.

Once in the kitchen she sits her mum in her high-chair and makes breakfast, Tanya happily babbling away to herself. Christie didn’t know what she was talking about, maybe she was talking about the dreams she had, but it was pretty cute.

Once her mum is fed and burped, she sees to making herself some breakfast while her mum plays in her playpen contently.

“Okay, order of the day. I need to get started on making Christmas dinner, since mum wanted to make it a good one then I have a lot to cook. I wish I had listened to her more when she was trying to teach me how to cook, the online instructions were helpful but most of them followed American measurements, few followed British ones. Yay for being able to translate a lot of it to British English or I would probably blow up the flat by accident or cause me and mum food poisoning. Since mum is a baby and has a baby sized appetite then she’ll need a much smaller serving than myself and I’ll have to soften it enough so that she can eat it and digest it without any issues. So much to do, it’s amazing that mum managed to do all of this year after year without any help. From now on I’m going to be helping her with things like this” Once she’s had her breakfast and washed up, she gets dressed and sorts out what is being cooked for dinner after making a fire, once it’s all laid out and all of the cooking times written down, she heads into the living room and picks her mum up from the play pen.

“Ready for presents?” She asks, Tanya gives a happy gurgle and babble which Christie takes for a yes. Sitting her mum down in front of her on the floor, Christie reaches over to the small but perfectly acceptable Christmas tree which has a baby gate around it to stop curious hands getting at the tree and presents, there wasn’t much but that was okay.

“Now this is one is for you, mum, looks like the wish has made the adult based presents disappear for now, they should return tomorrow and I can give you what little I could mange to get for you from the little money I was able to get and save up. As soon as I can I’m going to see if I can get a job, if there is one I can get, and I promise I’ll try harder at college after this” Handing her mum the present, the curious toddler grabs it and begins tearing at the wrapping. A new soft toy for her to cuddle with, Tanya coos which Christie takes as a thank you.

Taking another present from the tree which she sees is for herself, Christie opens it to see a new set of clothes that she had wanted. They looked brand new, how had her mum managed to afford this?

“Thank you, mum, these must have cost so much” Her mum replies, although her voice now sounds even younger and smaller.

“I had to do some overtime, but I wanted to be able to give you something new. I know it isn’t much” Reaching over to her mum and hugging her as gently as possible due to her mum’s much smaller frame and size, Christie finds herself wishing that she hadn’t been so hard on her mum all these years for rarely being able to buy anything new.

“Thank you, I love it” Once the few presents are opened and the wrapping paper cleaned away, Tanya returns to playing before having a nap shortly after and Christie returns to cooking.

Checking over her written instructions and cooking times, she starts with heating the oven so that she can start with the meat, by now it is just after ten in the morning. It felt much later to her.

Checking in on her mum who is sleeping blissfully on the sofa with her new soft toy being cuddled close, Christie checks her mobile, which had finished recharging before she had gone to bed, for any new messages and sees the expected Christmas greetings which she replies to quickly while keeping an eye on both the oven and her mum. She didn’t tell them about what happened to her mum, they wouldn’t believe her if she tried.

Soon the oven is ready and she puts in the turkey breasts, they would take the longest time so she had time to get everything else prepared and ready to go. Some things needed to be boiled and since she and her mum preferred roast potatoes over boiled then she checked her instructions to be certain that the fat fryer is ready for that part.

Once that’s done with that, she makes a makeshift steamer with a large pan filled with water and a glass bowl with tin foil ready to be applied to the top of the bowl, this would be for the green beans. The sliced carrot would be boiled and heated up in the microwave, the microwave was a little old but still perfectly functional.

The gravy would probably be the hardest part for her, previous attempts when her mum had tried to teach her how to cook hadn’t worked out too well. This time she had to do it right, so quickly calling up a video on the lap top once it’s loaded and the net is up, she writes down how to cook gravy. She didn’t want to screw this up.

“Mum would be proud for sure at how much I’m learning, I didn’t even know I could learn so quickly. I’m really enjoying this” With everything written down and translated to British measurements, Christie checks on her mum who is starting to wake up.

“Hello sleepy head, nice nap?” A happy babble is her answer while she checks her mum’s nappy, another change was in order. Once that is done and her mum is suckling away on a baby bottle which had been prepared earlier and just needed a little heating up to a temperature safe for a young child, Christie checks on the turkey breasts which are still cooking.

“Little bit longer, once they’re done I’ll slice up one into small pieces for mum to manage and purée the potatoes and vegetables, a little gravy will be safe for her” Checking in on her mum again, who is contently playing in her playpen, she takes a little time for a breather before taking out the turkey breasts once they’re ready. By now it’s almost two in the afternoon.

Slicing up one of the breasts into small pieces for a baby to manage and making sure she has what’s needed to purée the meat, she wonders what her friends would think if they saw her now. Few of her friends cooked, they saw it as demeaning and tended to order take out and fast food joints.

She was finding it to be a lot more enjoyable than she expected, it felt good to be making something with her own two hands.

Once the meat is sliced up and placed in a small bowl while her own turkey breast is placed on a small plate next to it, she gets started on the potatoes and carrots. While those are boiling, she checks in on her mum again.

“Having fun?” She asks of the baby girl who looks up at her in surprise, she must have been completely absorbed in her playing.

Picking her up from the playpen, Christie gives her mum a cuddle and holds her close, rocking the child in her arms gently.

“You really did wonders when you were my age, didn’t you? You didn’t give up even when you were strongly tempted to, I guess because you felt that giving up wasn’t an option no matter how tired and stressed you were. Caring for me after I was born couldn’t have helped yet you managed, I don’t know how you managed, but you managed. You tended to my needs, provided for me, raised me with all of the love and care you could give and asked for nothing in return. I have been so selfish and I am so very sorry for that, I didn’t know any better and now I’m understanding why you’ve been so hard with me in recent years. You’re not being hard on me out of hatred or anger, you’re being hard on me because you don’t want me to go down the same path you did. I’m learning, mum, and I don’t want to let you down. Thank you for everything, thank you for being patient with me, thank you for providing for me, thank you for being there for me even when you’ve been on the verge of tears from the stress. Thank you” Tanya looks up to her daughter, her eyes showing that the adult mind has returned for however long. Had she heard everything Christie had said?

“You’re welcome”

~~

At close to four the dinner is almost ready, the green beans were almost steamed, the Yorkshire puddings were a few minutes away from being ready, the gravy was almost ready and everything else was ready to be served.

If she had been told yesterday before she had accidentally reduced her mum to a baby that she would be spending Christmas Day cooking and caring for a baby she would have laughed in the person’s face, but now she finds that she would have answered with:

“Sounds good to me”

Sitting her mum in her high-chair and securing her firmly, Tanya indicating that she’s becoming pretty hungry now, Christie starts serving out everything. First her mum’s food is made into a Christmas dinner purée for her stomach to manage easier, the Yorkshire pudding would be hard for that so she would have that herself. Besides the small amount of turkey, potato, vegetables and gravy would be more than enough for her mum at her current age.

For herself she would need a little more and considering that she has spent a lot of the day on the move then she has worked up a considerable appetite.

Finally the last few things are ready and she finishes serving up, her mum reaching out for her bowl once her food is served.

While she serves out her own food, Christie looks over to her mum who is, awkwardly, feeding herself.

“Would you like some help?” She asks, Tanya just replies with a little babble which could mean she would manage but thank you anyway. Sitting down beside her mum’s high-chair once she’s served herself her dinner, daughter and mother eat happily. Even Tanya’s bib was getting some dinner.

“Not bad for my first attempt at cooking, better than I was expecting. I should definitely keep learning” A happy coo from Tanya pretty much says that Christie has done a good job as well.

Once dinner is finished and Tanya is cleaned up and burped, Christie cradles her mum gently while her mum has a post-dinner nap. Setting her mum down on the sofa gently, making sure she’s safely secured and not going to fall off, Christie heads to the kitchen to wash up the dishes, she had already washed all but a couple of pans in-between cooking and caring for her mum.

Smiling from the happy baby snores as she cleans up, Christie wonders if her mum will remember everything once the wish has ended tomorrow. She finds herself hoping that she will, she liked the memories of the day herself and she hoped that the memories on her mum’s end would be just as good.

“I’m exhausted, but in a good way. Mum must have fairly been worn out with all that she did on a daily basis when I was younger” The dishes don’t take long to clean, leaving them to drain for now in the drainer, Christie checks on her mum and sits down close by. She didn’t feel like putting the TV on, which has been off since yesterday after the movie she and her mum had been watching just as her mum had been reduced to the happy sleeping baby on the sofa next to her.

The flat is quiet with few noises but baby snores, the sound of the clock on the mantelpiece and the light traffic outside the flat. Usually she would have out some music on or be watching TV, but the near silence was so blissful to her.

“I guess it’s true, silence really is soothing”

~

After her mum wakes up from her short nap, which was a lot shorter than her previous one, Christie gives her mum another bath since she needed a nappy change anyway and cuddles with her after drying her off and dressing her for bed.

Her mum was so relaxed and happy, the wish seemed to have given her a much needed break from adulthood for sure. After cuddling she plays with her mum, giving her tickles, hugs and belly kisses which make her mum squeal in delight whenever she gets one, as well as when she gets raspberry kisses on her tiny feet and hands.

After a few hours of play and cuddles, Tanya falls asleep in her daughter’s arms and is placed in her crib for the night. Christie watches the sleeping baby for a few minutes before leaving the nursery and checking for any e-mails once the lap top has finished being ready for use and the net is connected.

A new e-mail from the mysterious woman at the unusual shop is waiting for her, looks to have been sent just as she was setting her mum down for the night.

’Christie, tomorrow your wish ends. Once it does then the second item will be ready for use, but don’t use it straight away. I hope you and your mother had a wonderful Christmas’

How had the woman even gotten her e-mail address? Not that it mattered, things had worked out pretty well despite the way it had started. She understood now and she was determined to make her mum proud of her.

After an hour of any remaining clean up, Christie calls it a night and heads for bed.

“It’s been a good day, hard work, but a good day”

~~

Boxing Day, 2014:

The next day starts as the previous day with her mum needing changed and fed, once that is done Christie plays with her mum while taking care of her. Since there was little to do for today then there was a good amount of time to spend with her mum who was more infant today than yesterday.

At close to mid day, Christie checks the time and sees that the forty eight hours are almost up, one minute remains.

“Almost time for you to be a grown up again, mum, I hope you remember all of the memories from being a baby for the past couple of days” The adult look in her mum’s eyes return and she smiles up at her daughter.

“Me too, I don’t remember how I was when I blanked out but I hope I will when I return to adulthood. Thank you for taking care of me, you’ve done great” Awkwardly hugging her daughter, since her arms are too small to reach far around her daughter, Christie sets her own on the floor and moves back so to give her mum room to grow.

As soon as the minute ends her mum starts to glow in the same way she did before and as she does she starts to grow, the baby fat melting away while her clothes change to more adult attire -the same clothes she had been wearing when she had been reduced to a baby, as clean as they had been when she had been wearing them before.

While this is happening, unseen changes are also underway with everything that had appeared when Tanya had been reduced to a baby disappearing and being replaced with what had been there before the wish was made.

Within less than a minute the baby girl who had been sitting on the floor in just a nappy is now a fully grown and fully dressed woman, the teen years having gone by quickly to her delight.

“They really do grow up so quickly” Tanya remarks jokingly as she picks herself up from the floor. She felt so refreshed and relaxed.

“I guess you’ll want to talk about what happened or about what happens now then?” Christie asks after her mum hugs her. She missed the little baby already.

“Shortly, for now I feel like going out for a walk. Want to come with me?” Christie smiles, that sounded great.

“Need a nappy bag?” She asks with a slight joking tone in her voice, her mum smiles and laughs.

“I think I’ll be okay in those regards. Come on then, let’s go for a walk”

~~

New Years Eve, 2014, just before midnight:

A week has passed and Christie has taken more time to learn with her mum’s guidance, the bond between them has gotten stronger and Christie has come to understand her mum more and about how things had been for her before Christie was born and after she was born.

She understood why her mum struggled to provide for them both and why new things weren’t going to be likely very often, she accepted that there was a difference between what she used to believe was a need and what she actually needed.

Although window shopping still wasn’t great, she now understood that if there was something she really wanted to get then she would have to save up for it and get it when she can, which meant having to settle for second hand.

Her friends found her new attitude unusual, they had received a lot of what they had wanted over Christmas and they had expected Christie to be sulking and angry at receiving so little, but she wasn’t, she was glad to at least have her mum and an understanding of what to do with her life.

Sure she didn’t have the latest gadgets and fashions, but that didn’t matter, not when she had a home to return to while she looked for a job and a place of her own close by, and a parent who truly loved her and cared about her.

And for her that was more than enough.

Deciding to spend New Years Eve with her mum, Christie sits in the living room while her mum pours out two glasses of fruit juice. It wasn’t champagne or whatever else her friends were likely having, but that was okay, alcohol didn’t agree with her anyway.

Her mum returns to the living room and sets down the two glasses, it was a minute to midnight.

“To the future and determination to do a good job” Christie says as she picks up her glass, her other hand holding the second item since she was curious about what it did.

“And to hopefully getting a raise this year” Midnight. Together they clink their glasses and take a gulp of their juice, just as Christie thinks of the tiny baby she had cared for during Christmas and the second item feels warm in her hand.

A glow appears around her mum and she watches in surprise as her mum’s clothes change, but not her age, to something very unexpected – a very thick adult nappy, adult sized baby socks and an adult sized baby t-shirt.

Tanya looks down in surprise, then pats her nappy with a slight smile before saying with a mock shocked tone in her voice.

“Christie!”

“Oops”

What you want is not a need,

When what you need is more important.

 

---