Leap Year (Patreon)

A multi-picture caption from an anonymous Patron to do the Leap Year idea from last month's Community Caption poll. Pictures property of DiaperedOnline.

Cici was already tired of her fourth birthday, although, to be fair, that had been true four years ago as well. 

She knew her mother still had the same banner, would probably order the same balloons, had the same numeral four candle waiting to put into the cake. Maybe, at some point, it had been cute, or fun... Perhaps it still was, to other people. To Cici, as far as she could remember, it had always been embarrassing, having to celebrate the same birthday over and over.

She was, technically, about to be nineteen years old, and they all knew it, but, since this wasn't a leap year, her birthday wasn't really going to come, so, in a way, she was still four years old, for the fourth year in a row. It wasn't quite as bad now, she had to admit, than when she'd been younger, and it really upset her, having her parents invite everyone from her class over, only for the party to indicate she was so much younger than them, the same ages as their younger siblings, probably. At least now, they mostly stuck to the family, who knew what was going on, and even if one of her friends showed up, she could rely on them being smart enough to know why she was only four.

Eventually, her family would get tired of this whole thing, and celebrate her real age on her birthday... That, or they'd either bore of throwing her a party every year, or she'd move away and they wouldn't have the option. For now, however, while she was attending college in the city, and couldn't afford to pay for a dorm herself - and her parents told her it was silly for them to do it when she could easily stay with them instead - she was stuck giving into their whims.

She'd known something was up when her mom asked her if she was free one evening the week of the party. Cici considered lying, hanging out with one of her friends that night, or just going to a movie, but she made the mistake of telling the truth, and her mother drove her over to Cici's aunt's house.

"What are we doing here?" Cici sighed, staring out the car window. "It doesn't look like they're home."

"They aren't," her mother confirmed. "They took Angelica out for ice cream so we could do this."

"What are we doing?" Cici frowned.

"It's not going to take long," her mom told her cryptically, heading inside, grabbing a key from the fake rock in front of their porch. Cici followed uncertainly, still unsure what the point of all this was, why they were here. She knew they were having the party here this year, supposedly because it was bigger than their own home, but her parents had never made her decorate for her own party before. Besides, it was too early for that... Her aunt wouldn't want the decorations up for the rest of the week, would she? They headed through the house, back to the bedroom of Cici's 'little' cousin, Angelica.

Angelica was actually four, and a big brat. She was also relatively large in general, at least to Cici's eyes, though she'd always been pretty petite herself, so it was hard to judge. Despite the differences in their actual ages, they were far closer in size than Cici liked to think about, or admit. "Why are we here?" she whined, looking around the baby room uncomfortably.

"Cici," her mother said, her tone already making the girl nervous, contrary to what it was meant to do. Any time she spoke like that, it meant she was getting ready to ask Cici to do something she wouldn't want to do... "I have a little favor to ask of you."

"No, I don't want to babysit her," Cici rolled her eyes. "It isn't even about not knowing how to change diapers, I just don't..."

"It's not that," her mom interrupted her. "Actually, after this, you probably wouldn't be able to babysit Angelica for a while..."

"Well, now I'm listening," Cici smirked, only half joking. "What is it?"

Her mother blushed slightly, taking a second to catch her breath, clearly recalling the pitch she'd pre-written in her mind for this occasion. "Obviously, you know your cousin is still in diapers," she started, Cici nodding, biting back her snarky comments about that for the moment. "She's feeling very self-conscious about it, and, since you're the same age..."

"No, we aren't!" Cici grumbled. 

"As far as she's concerned, you are," her mom shrugged. "You'll be celebrating the same birthday she just did... So, we came up with a little plan to make her feel better..."

To say Cici wasn't thrilled by the plan would be the understatement of the century. "Are you serious?!" she gasped, shaking her head. "No way!"

"It's going to be family only this year," her mom explained. "And they'll all know. They'll all think it's very sweet, you doing this for your cousin."

"I don't care!" Cici pouted, crossing her arms. "It's my birthday! I'm not going to spend it..."

"It would mean so much to her," her mother told her. "Maybe, if you do it, we can see about getting you a dorm room next semester after all."

"Really?" Cici's eyes lit up.

"Maybe," the older woman repeated. "This would help show you were mature enough to handle being on your own... Well, somewhat on your own."

It was right across town, so it wouldn't be that much more independence, but she could at least go to as many parties as she wanted and not worry about sneaking home without them seeing what state she was in, and she wouldn't be the one person in their group of friends who still lived at home with her mommy... As an only child, she wasn't the biggest fan of having to live with a roommate, though it would probably be worth it in the end.

"Okay," she nodded. "I guess if it's just for one afternoon..."

"Perfect!" her mom beamed. "Now, we just have to make sure they're going to fit, and then take one with us... You'll have to show up in one, of course, or she might get suspicious..."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

"Oh, come on!" Cici rolled her eyes, stomping her foot as she looked at her reflection. "I'm supposed to look four, not two!"

"There's not much point in doing it if she doesn't notice," her mother reassured her, carefully hanging up the skirt she'd just taken away from the girl and putting it in her closet. 

"This is stupid!" Cici blushed, tugging at the hem of her shirt, trying to make it stretch down over the bulky, crinkly diaper around her waist. Her family was all supposed to know, but that didn't mean they had to make it so easy for them to see her like this! Between the 'outfit', her knee socks, and the pair of ponytails her mother had pulled her hair into, she really did look about four years old, tops.

"Cici, you agreed," her mom sighed. "It's too late to back out now..."

"I'm not trying to back out!" Cici stomped again. "I just want my skirt!"

"Well, you aren't getting it," her mother snapped. "And if you keep acting like you really are four, you'll have a nice, fresh red bottom to complete your little get-up. You're doing this to set a good example for your cousin... Your aunt will kill me if you show her it's okay to behave like even more of a brat."

"I am not a brat!" Cici gasped at the implication, cheeks flushing. "Especially not more than Angelica!" From the look on her mom's face, the woman wasn't convinced. 

Unfortunately, despite it being her birthday, this was an argument Cici wasn't going to win, so, to her chagrin, she was marched out to the car with no skirt, or shorts, or anything to cover her diaper, driven over to her aunt's house, and led inside to face her family.

"Wow!" Angelica exclaimed, rushing over, pushing through the crowd in her poofy dress, so big it would have been impossible to tell for sure if she was really diapered under it or not. "You're still in diapers, too?"

Cici groaned, cheeks warming as she looked around at the rest of her relatives gathered around. She forced a smile, nodded. "Y-Yeah," she nodded.

The girl beamed, and, for a moment, Cici thought that, maybe, it had all been worth it. Then, Angelica wrapped a sticky hand around Cici's and asked, "Do you wanna play dolls with me?"

"No!" Cici shook her head, wrinkling her nose, not wanting to know why the girl's hand felt like that, where it had been, and certainly not wanting to spend her own birthday party playing with her.

"Cici!" her mother scolded, giving her a lap smack on the diapered bottom. "Go play with your cousin."

"No!" Cici repeated, glaring up at her mother. 

"Cici," her mom said warningly, kneeling down next to her, "Angelica had her birthday party a few weeks ago, and you're just having yours now... That means she's older than you, doesn't it? So she's in charge, and you're going to do whatever she says, aren't you?"

"Mom!" Cici whined, hardly able to believe the woman wanted her to go through with this, to pretend she was the younger of the two, to spend her whole party playing with the brat. But Angelica had already heard that, and, grinning, she took off, pulling the older girl away, back to the room Cici had visited a few days earlier. Reluctantly, Cici played with the girl, sitting through a boring tea party until Angelica started to dig through her party, looking for another of her stuffed animals to join in, when the older girl made her escape.

Cici joined the group of adults, feeling embarrassed about her outfit, of course, but ready to get some praise for being so brave, sacrificing her own birthday to make her cousin feel better... Only for the first interaction to be a pat on the bottom as an older relative cooed, "Now, don't you look cute today, Angelica? Still dry, too!"

"I am not Angelica!" Cici fumed, offended to have been mistaken for the brat, even from behind. "And of course my diaper's dry, I..."

Her mother swooped in from out of nowhere, covering her mouth and finishing for her, "She just got changed!" Cici glared up at her, then followed the woman's eyes over to where Angelica had toddled back in, looking for her. "You have to be careful what you say," she instructed her daughter. "She can't know the truth, or that defeats the whole purpose."

"Fine," Cici rolled her eyes. "Can you at least take me to the bathroom?"

"After we go home," her mom promised. "Until then, we don't want her to suspect anything."

"You didn't say that before we left!" Cici hissed, pressing her legs together. "How long are we staying here?!"

"You haven't even had your cake yet," her mother reminded her.

"Well, let's do that!" Cici insisted.

"Fine, fine," her mom sighed, going to find her sister to tell her, before announcing, "The birthday girl is getting impatient, so we're going to do cake now!" 

To Cici's surprise, she wasn't taken to the dining room, where they usually doled out birthday cake... She was led back to Angelica's room, where, to her horror, her mother took away her shirt - "We don't want you making a mess, do we?" - and replaced it with an over-sized Elmo bib before helping her into Angelica's high chair, the unhappy teenager not at all pleased to find she fit in it perfectly. She was sung to, then given a slice of cake, with no silverware, along with a sippy cup of juice.

She tried, a few times, to get people to listen to her, to give her a fork, but, after being ignored, she gave up, eating the cake with her hands, something that it was very hard not to make a mess while doing. She thought it was probably another part of fooling Angelica... Until she saw the girl, standing up, with a plastic fork to eat her cake with. "Mom!" she wailed in frustration. "Why does she get a fork?!" However, her mother wasn't listening to her, and she was stuck in the chair. She kicked her legs angrily, then did the only thing she could, which was throw a handful of her cake at the brat.

Nobody was particularly happy with Cici after that... Not Angelica, whose new party dress had been ruined, or the little girl's mother, or Cici's parents. The spanking she'd been threatened with earlier was delivered then, before she was dumped into Angelica's crib for a nap. She made the mistake of whining, "I'm not tired!" then, instead of leading with, "Can't I go to the bathroom first?"

"I don't want to hear another peep out of you, or you're going back over your father's knee," her mother silenced her, the girl squirming uncomfortably in her crib, hoping she could hold it until her naptime was over, but feeling more and more certain that wasn't going to happen.

"I'm so sorry," she could hear her mother tell her aunt on the other side of the bedroom door. "I don't know what's gotten into her lately..."

"I understand," Cici's aunt said. "Angelica was like that, too... She's gotten so much better lately, though. I really think she's on the verge of being ready for training pants, so if you want to take some diapers home with you, I think she'll be fine... And, if you still need them, you can have the rest when she's done. Honestly, if you think you'll need it, you could have most of her old furniture, her big girl bed is going to be delivered next week..."

Why would Cici's mom need all this stuff? She wasn't pregnant, was she?! Cici wiggled in the crib, getting closer and closer to wetting herself, trying to pretend there was no way it could be for her. Her reward for doing this was supposed to be a new room, sure, but one in a college dorm, not a nursery! And yet, when she heard her mother say, "That might be a good idea," she had a bad feeling this would not be the last nap she took in this crib... Or the last diaper she wore.