A Little Overwhelmed

Chapter 5: Mommy(?) Lily

Lily went into her bedroom to get ready to go shopping for her new baby. Along with the pastel pink sweatshirt and sweatpants she changed into earlier, she added pink tights and pink fuzzy boots, since it was cold outside. With Lily being so skinny from being malnourished, she looked around for things she had to keep her baby warm. In a bag in her closet, she found a pair of pink mittens that she wore when she was younger. "They're not baby mittens, these ones have thumb holes, but they'll keep her warm during the trip.", Lily thought. "That won't be an issue for long though, that's one of the things I'm going to buy for my baby girl!", Lily continued to herself. 

Having finished getting ready, Lily went into Rosie's room and picked her up."Look what mommy found for you, mittens!", Lily exclaims as she puts them on her baby girl's hands. "Thank you mommy!", Rosie says happily. "Of course dear. And you can bring one of your stuffie friends to the store with you, so pick one and we'll be off!", Lily exclaims. "Candy!", Rosie said excitedly. Lily picked up Candy and gave her to Rosie, then carried her baby girl to the car.

Lily buckled Rosie into the car seat. "Don't worry Rosie, I'll let you pick out a more babyish car seat in the store, okay sweetie?". Rosie nods, too distracted playing with Candy to bother responding by speaking. Lily smiles at her baby, then closes Rosie's door and gets in the driver's seat, then reverses the car and exits the driveway, driving towards the store. Rosie absent-mindedly plays with Candy in her car seat, not paying attention to where Lily is driving.

After a quick feeling 25 minute car ride, the girls arrive at the store. Once they park, Lily gets out of the car and goes over to Rosie's door. "We're here, sunshine.", Lily says as she unbuckles Rosie from her car seat and picks her up, with Rosie firmly holding Candy in her arms. She walks over to the shopping carts and grabs one with an extension seat for children, placing Rosie in the extension seat and grabbing onto the normal part of the cart. 

As they enter the large department store, Rosie is mesmerized, having never been in any kind of store at all before. Lily firstly pushes the cart to the adult sized baby clothes section. Lily grabs all of the onesies and footie pajamas that Rosie wants, and while digging through the footie pajamas, she finds what she's wanted since she turned 16: the same pair of pink bunny footie pajamas that Rosie is currently wearing that used to be hers, but in her size. Lily, ecstatic about finally finding her favorite pajamas ever in her size, puts them in the cart. "My footies for mommy!", Rosie exclaims. Lily hugs Rosie, "Yes baby, I finally found them! We will be matching when we get home!". Lily then goes over to the adult sized baby accessories section. She grabs all of the mittens and pacifiers that Rosie chooses. Lily then pushes the cart to the adult diapers section, which in this store not only has the standard plain white ones simply for incontinence, but also cute printed ones for littles. Rosie picks out several different prints, with Lily buying the highest capacity ones for each print to be safe. Then they head to the adult portion baby feeding section, which has baby foods like formula and puree fruits and vegetables, but in package sizes for adults. Lily grabs a few tubs of formula and several cans of puree, also making sure to get nutritional supplement powders to help Rosie get to a healthy weight quicker. Lastly, the girls head to the large baby supplies section, where Rosie picks out a proper large child sized baby car seat, it being pink and fuzzy, as well as Lily getting a playpen for the living room and a bouncer so she can keep an eye on Rosie while she's cooking or working.

They reach the register and the total comes out to almost $900 worth of supplies. Rosie, having come from a poverty stricken home growing up, gets scared when she hears that total. Lily, wanted her baby to calm down, happily pays the total quickly so they can leave. Lily pushes the cart out of the store and calms down Rosie. "Baby girl, it's okay. Your horrible parents may not have been able to afford that, but I can easily. There's no need to be worried about finances anymore, sweetie.", Lily reassures her baby girl. Rosie nods and calms down, cuddling Candy for extra security. Lily then sets up Rosie's new car seat and changes Rosie into one of her new, proper diapers. When she does however, she sees that Rosie's pull-up is wet. With Rosie appearing to be in her little space right now, Lily didn't ask her about it now. Instead, she simply changed Rosie into a proper, very thick pink diaper with four tapes before zipping her footies back up. She sets her baby girl into her new car seat, Rosie smiling and giggling once in it, clearly very happy. Lily smiles, happy to see the girl she met on the side of the road less than 24 hours ago feeling the happiest she's felt in her whole life. Lily buckles up Rosie and puts most of their purchases, as well the old car seat, into the trunk, with just barely not having enough space for everything, so Lily decides to put the small bag with the pacifiers in the passenger's seat beside her. Lily get's into the driver's seat, and hands Rosie a paci out of the bag, a pink one that says "princess" on the ring part and has a princess' tiara on the main plastic part. Rosie immediately starts sucking on it with a steady rhythm, a rhythm she's had since she was a baby, having kept it this long due to sucking her thumb while regressed when she was with her parents. Lily mentally debates grabbing one for herself, deciding that there's no harm in it and that she can wash it when she gets home so Rosie can use it anyway, so Lily grabs a light blue pacifier that says "can't adult" on the ring and has a baby bottle on the main part, and puts it in her mouth, sucking on it in a familiar rhythm for her as well, which seemed odd at first, but she realized why she was somewhat interested in age regression stuff as well: her parents' death.

When Lily learned that her parents died while she was in college, she didn't take it very well. Having been seen as "nerdy" and "weird" by other students in school, she never had any friends. Her parents were the only people in the world that she felt any connection to, and at that point in time, Lily was in her final semester of college, being on track to graduate early with flying colors at only 20 years old. Hearing of her parents' death placed her into a horrible downward spiral of mental health for the remainder of the semester. Having to go to her parents' funeral caused her to miss important end of semester lectures as well. And as the proverbial cherry on top, the man who killed them in the tragic car accident showed up to the funeral as well. To Lily, that man having the audacity to show up to the funeral of her parents that he killed, the man indirectly responsible for her spiraling depression, had dared to show his face in front of her. When he came up to her to apologize, his seemingly half-hearted apology was the breaking point for her. Lily, the 20 year old soon to be college graduate, broke down in tears in front of the whole ceremony. Lily's aunt and uncle helped comfort her, and they told the perpetrator to leave. He did, and he was escorted by the police officer who brought him there, back into the police car and he was taken to prison to serve his life sentence. Even after the funeral, Lily's mental health didn't improve. With the killer's fake apology as the catalyst, Lily began involuntarily age regressing to cope with the sadness and anxiety she had. For the remainder of the semester she wouldn't go anywhere without Candy, the same stuffed unicorn Rosie was now holding in her car seat. She ended up still fairly easily passing the semester and graduating, but her grades did decrease significantly after her parents' death, going from straight 100s, to an 80 at the end, with the finals included. That same comfort stuffed animal of hers, Candy, was right there in the back seat with Rosie. That reminder was enough to get Lily back to reality. She drove home, keeping the pacifier in her mouth in case the paci was right: in case she couldn't adult anymore.