18 C18

Hannah sat at her desk, staring blankly at the open word processor window. Somewhere along the line, she had started to chronicle her trips out for her dad. He would do the same and it was often fun to compare the two statements. They were usually so similar that even Emily had problems telling them apart. The only time it was obvious was when her dad used terminology that she hadn't learned yet. While she was staring at the blank document she felt the back of her nightgown get wet. Sighing, she got up, took the night gown off, removed the diaper and headed over to the dresser to pull out a new diaper and the changing supplies. She quickly changed her self, wondering if there was any thing they could do to increase the night time absorbency. After Hannah had changed her diaper, she opened the closet looking for something to wear. Hanging in the front of the closet, with a note that said 'Wear Me!' was a pink shortall and white tee shirt. Attached to one of the straps was a pink pacifier clip in the shape of a butterfly. On the other end, was a pink pacifier with a butterfly on it, wrapped in a plastic bag. This was not the same pacifier that Hannah had pulled off the shelf a few weeks ago. Glancing around her room she confirmed that everything else was the same as it was when she had left with her dad the previous morning. Nothing else appeared different. Hannah shrugged and pulled the outfit that she was supposed to wear out of the closet and started to put it on. She had her doubts that the shortall would conceal her diapers, but she wouldn't know until she was dressed. Hannah dressed quickly, well, until she went to pull the shortall up over her diaper. She unbuttoned the buttons on one side of the shortall, pulled the garment up over her diaper and the buttoned the side back up. After pulling the shirt over her head, she reached behind her for the straps to hold the bib up and as she ran her hands down the straps, she found little loops sewn into the shoulders of the tee shirt. She shrugged and hooked the clips to the buttons on the bib and then turned to look at her self in the mirror. There was no bulge as if she were wearing a diaper, but the whole outfit looked toddleresque to her. She knew it wasn't, as there were some girls at school wearing pretty much the exact same thing, sans the pacifier. She smiled as she had an idea. Her idea was forgotten as the smell of bacon penetrated her nose.

Emily turned and smiled when she saw that her daughter had put on the outfit that she had hung in the closet and that the pacifier was still attached. Hannah sat down at her usual place at the table to notice the sippy cup filled with what looked like it could be juice. It was hard to tell through the pink of the cup. The plate and silverware were both childish, pink and purple butterflies on them. Hannah pinched herself to see if she were still asleep and dreaming this. The pinch hurt and she knew that she was actually awake.

"Are you hungry?" Emily asked, picking up the plate that was in front of Hannah and taking it over to the stove.

"Yeah..." Hannah replied, still unsure about what was going on... She watched as her mom picked up the plate and took it toward the sink, returning a few minutes later, the plate covered with scrambled eggs and bacon. The amount of food on the plate looked enormous, but then again, the plate was small.

"Eat up, sweetie, you have a big day ahead of you." Emily said, getting her own plate, and sitting down at the table across from her daughter.

"I do?" Hannah asked, a small forkful of scrambled eggs pausing between the plate and her mouth."Why do I have a big day ahead of me?" The fork finally found her mouth and dropped off it's cargo of scrambled eggs.

"Yep," Emily said, eating a piece of bacon. "As soon as your dad gets back, we're going to go pick up Lexi and Olivia and head to the Zoo. Your dad wants to do something as a family because he's never home when it's nice out like this." A lot of the time if he was home and it was nice out, he still spent time hunched over a laptop or in his office where he had multiple monitors.

"Where did dad go?" Hannah asked, causing the amount of eggs to diminish considerably before she spoke. It seemed to be taking her twice as long to eat with the smaller silverware, but the food was more enjoyable.

"He had to swing by the office," Emily said, cleaning her plate off. "That new probe recorded so much data when you guys deployed it that it would take forever to even think about uploading from here. He said that you're going to get a copy of the data as well so that you can help with the interpretation of the data."

"Ok." Hannah finally finished the contents of her plate, and then turned her attention to the sippy cup. "Mom, why the sippy cup, childish place setting, and pacifier?" Hannah suddenly asked, holding up the pacifier that dangled on the clip attached to her shortall.

"Call it an experiment," Emily said, not taking her eyes off her daughter. "Your dad and I were curious as to how far you would go before you questioned things. I was actually a little surprised that you didn't start when you saw the outfit."

"There were some girls at school wearing pretty much the same thing, without the pacifier, of course." Hannah chuckled. "Eating off the smaller fork was a little challenging though. You're not planning on doing this all the time, are you?"

Emily laughed. "No, sweetie. Not unless you want us to..." Emily's phone chimed and she glanced at it. "Your dad just picked up Lexi from Olivia's and they will be here shortly. Why don't you go upstairs and pack a bag so that you are ready when they get here?"