Bedtime

New Art! Also a Story from my amazing Mommy, mommykhayl! 

This is her art request!

A new grocery store opened up, and Crash REALLY wanted his Mommy to take him. 

"Please PLEASE?" he begged with his best puppy dog eyes. "I’ll be good, I *promise*." he pouted.

"well see about THAT," thought Mommy Khayla with a smile. You see, Crash wasn’t very good at behaving in public, especially since Khayla couldn’t overtly reprimand like she could at home.

"Of course, my little prince," Mommy Khayla cooed, though she had her own agenda. "let’s go."

At the store, baby boy made a valiant effort to follow through on his promise, but life is hard, and bratting was easy and fun.

"shall we get a cart?" Khayla asked.

"…mmm… Yes!" Crash said with a curt nod, relishing that he appeared to be the Sole Decision Maker in These Serious Matters. "but a kids cart. And it’s a Mommys job to push it."

"Hmm!" Mommy said with a sly smile, knowing her perfect little prince was on a slippery slope. "hmm," she said.

Yes, life is hard for a little, especially one who thinks he is Sole Decision Maker in Important Matters, and the brand new style of cookie butter just happened to find its way into the cart. 

"Crash…" Mommy said, giving Crash The Eye.

"But Momm-" Crash caught himself, reverting to a whisper. "Khayla…" he said, his big boy voice accidentally and amusingly imitating a man’s sultry tones. "Khayla," he said again, "you LOVE cookie butter."

"Hmm!" Mommy said.

And so it went, until shopping was done. For the most part, Crash lived up to his promise, but at the register, his bratting tendencies became too much to hold in yet again. On spying the candy bar impulse buys, Crash casually picked up a candy bar, turning it this way and that, considering his options.

"would you like to add that?" asked the cashier, and Crash came to a decision. In his best big boy voice, he decided that yes, yes he would like that candy bar, and then when Mommy gave him the look and a bemused smile, he quickly added a second. He would not look Mommy Khayla in he eyes, because he was kind of sort of sure he was in trouble.

Now, Crash *was* in trouble, but Mommy listened to his excited ramblings and songs all the way home. The more sure he became that he was, in fact, in deep, the louder he became, as if to distract his dearest Mommy from what she planned when the front door was latched behind them.

When they got home, Mommy instructed Crash to put away the groceries as she had other things to attend to. In Mommy went to his nursery, preparing a proper reminder of who was *truly* in control. Mommy slid the rails down on his crib and firmly attached two short spreader bars to Crashs baby cage. She smoothed down his childs print top sheet, laid out a nice thick diaper for her “little prince” to use if nature called while he was locked up, and placed the sender box of his baby monitor at the foot of his crib. She retrieved and tenderly ran her fingers across his fleece lined cuffs and collar, loving the darker side of the nursery, when she noticed it was oddly quiet in the house. She wondered if her Crash had stopped his overzealous bravado out of apprehension, but that did not seem like the Crash she knew and loved. Narrowing her eyes, and went to the kitchen where he ostensibly was unloading groceries.

Did you guess that he was not, in fact, in the kitchen putting groceries away

If you guessed that no, he was not, you are getting a feel for our young Crash. Where might he be? Had he gone back to the car for a second load? No, no that is not what had happened. Perhaps he’d direly needed to make wee and was in the bathroom? That was not the answer either. Maybe he was done with the groceries and had gone to pick up his train set in the living room? No, none of these happened to be correct. In fact, the majority of the groceries were on the counter, but Crash was no where to be seen.

 You see, Crash had made the last in a series of bad decisions, and Mommy Khayla found him in the living room, sitting on the floor naked, caboose in hand. He’d frozen when he saw her illuminated in the doorway, but a smile slowly crept across half his face, highlighting a light smear of cookie butter on his baby cheeks. ”… choo, choo?” he asked, but Mommy was not having it. 

"…put the train down," Mommy said in her dangerous voice, and Crash was a bit ashamed that it excited him to be reminded that he was not The Sole Decider of Important Things. "Crawl to your blanket," commanded Mommy, and Crash crawled. Mommy Khayla was not even mad that he’d carelessly stripped down (he liked being naked and free at home), because he was all the cuter crawling to his blanket in the buff. He sat in the prone position that pleased her, knowing he’d gone to far, and waited to hear what she wanted from him. His cuffs and collars clicked as she set them in place, and she raised his left arm and clicked his wrist cuff onto his collar. Baby boys like to suck their thumbs, after all.

"I put the cold stuff away," he said lamely, and Khayla grabbed his collar loop and roughly dragged him to a standing position, then to the nursery, roughly directing him into his crib. "Get in the diaper position," she crooned and he did. "Spread your rosy cheeks, my dear," she said with a lilt, and jerked his thighs apart when he balked. By now, little Crash was beet red and starting to be really sorry. He closed his eyes, waiting for the light coolness of the baby powder on his exposed wee bits and the sticky snap of diaper tape closing him in to his thick, fluffy prison. That was not the plan, however. "knees up," Mommy commanded, and, complying (eyes still closed) he heard the decisive click of spreader bars. His eyes flew open and baby Crash squirmed… Only to find he couldn’t squirm at all. Naked and feeling entirely too exposed. He opened his mouth to protest, but Mommy Khayla took the opportunity to pop a large pacifier into his mouth. "Keep that pacifier in, or else I’ll strap it in and introduce your bummy hole to its own little *pacifier*" Mommy leered. Blinking back tears, Mommy looked scary, but somehow not having any control made him feel safe.

 ”yesh mhaam” he drooled around his dummy, and she tweaked his tiny exposed ”jingle bells,” and he squeaked.

 Retreating to the door and flipping the light, she said ”take this time to think about who’s in control here.” He nodded, getting a little choked up at his exposure and the knowledge he’d have nothing to do but suck his thumb and think for quite a while. Plus his bummy hole was cold and… He started to panic when he realized she hadn’t given him his rhino, but as if on cue, she was at his crib nestling rhino against him. She kissed his nose, and pausing in the doorway, flipped his color changing night light on. A wave of relief flooded him as he relaxed against his confines, and he was already grateful with the reminder that Mommy was in control and he could be free, if uncomfortable, exposed, and contrite. Plus she’d left the nightlight on, so at least he had something to look at. And rhino, yes, rhino. mommy was good to him, he decided, and hoped she’d free him soon and let him sit at her feet and play while she read.

The door closed, and with nothing to do but feel sorry and wait for a chance to make it up to her, he drifted off and woke up some time later, sans pacifier, and cold wet diaper beneath his bum. “Mommy?” he whispered into the dark, knowing she’d hear him through the baby monitor. ”I love you.”

Silence. “I know I might be caned for talking and spitting out my paci…” he continued. “but I love you. And also. The cookie butter was totally worth it.”

His nursery door opened a crack and Mommy’s hand appeared, made the sign of “I love you,” and flipped off his last lifeline of sensory stimulation- his night light.

He sighed. “Night night.”