Tag Archives: infantilism

Part One: The Five Reallys and the Promise

We pulled into a parking space, and directly in front of us was a bronze statue of a lion.  It wasn’t as big as the one on Penn State Main Campus, but her eyes became glued to it.  She got out of the car, and ran up to it.  I got out of the car, grabbing the diaper bag, and following after her.

She was still as spontaneous and as energetic as the moment I met her five years ago and she was a BabyGirl at heart, always.  Perhaps that’s why I felt the need to frequently take her on little trips like this one, just so she would have the chance to let that little girl out in a setting which would make it an instant and lasting memory for her.

On that day, I took her to the Nittany Lion State Park.  

She walked all around the statue with eyes as big as could be.  “And dats a ninny lion?” she asked.

“Yes, Sweetheart.  There used to be lions just like that one all over this mountain range at one point,” I answered, taking her hand and leading her down the trail.

“Where’d they all go?” she asked innocently.

“Probably away from us, as fast as they could,” I answered.

At the base of the trail was a plaque.  We walked up to it, and I said: “And here it is.  The Legend of Mount Nittany.”

“Read it to me, Daddy,” she asked sweetly as she brought my arms over her shoulders and pressed herself against my body.  “Please?”

“Certainly, Sweetheart,” I replied as I read the word on the plaque:

“The Legend of Mount Nittany: Nit-A-Nee, which means ‘single mountain,’ was an Indian maiden whose lover, Lion’s Paw, was killed…

Nit-A-Nee enfolded him into her arms and carried his still erect body back to a place in the center of the Valley where she laid the strong Brave in his grave and built a mound of honor over his strength.

On the last night of the full moon, after she had finally raised the last of the soil and stone over his high mound, a terrible storm came up unleashing itself with thunder and lightning and the wailing of a horrendous wind from the depths of the earth. Every Indian in the Valley shuddered and all eyes were directed to the Indian Brave’s high mound upon which the strong maiden Princess Nit-A-Nee was mounted with arms outstretched to touch the sources of the lightning bolts in the sky.

Through the night they watched with awe as the Indian Brave’s burial mound grew and rose into a Mountain penetrating the center of the big valley between the two legs of the Tussey and Bald Eagle Ridges. When the dawn finally came, a huge Mountain was found standing erect in the center of the Valley.

And that’s all it says. Let’s see where the trail takes us.”

So we started walking up the trail.  I put my hand behind her back, and we skipped a few steps, but I could see she was bored by it.  So I placed my hand on her diapered bottom to “check”.  She looked up at me and a big grin came across her face.  She smashed herself into the side of my body like a shy four-year-old.

“You have no idea what’s ahead of us, do you?” I asked.

She looked ahead, and said: “Trees.”

I let out a laugh at her quick, yet honest answer.

“Yes.  There are a lot of trees,” I stated while still laughing, “But look!”

I stopped and pointed off to the left.

“What’s under those trees?”

Her eyes grew great big and wide once again.  She leapt into my arms, and hugged my neck while exclaiming: “Swings!  Will you push me in one of them?”

“Will you be a good girl and hold on tightly to the swing if I do?” I playfully asked while carrying her over to the swing set.

“Yep!” she cried out while leaping out of my arms and running over to the swing.

I stopped dead in my tracks and put a fat-lipped, sad face on.  She looked back at me, rolled her eyes up in her head, ran back to me, grabbed me by the hand, and ran us back to the swing.

“Come on, Daddy!” she said while laughing.

She jumped into the swing without a moment to lose.

“High. I wanna go really, really, really, really, really high!” she said with excitement.

“How many reallys was that?” I asked.

She counted out the number on her fingers, then showed me her hand.

“Five,” she answered.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Why? What’s wrong?”

“BabyGirls should never go higher than four reallys. This many,” I said while showing her four fingers.

She touched her left pointer finger to her lip, and went deep into thought.  Then, she thought of a comeback line.  She snapped her fingers when she thought of it.

“But good BabyGirls are allowed to do five reallys high.  And I said I would be good. So five it is,” she answered with sincerity.

“That’s true.  I can’t argue with that,” I said admitting defeat. (-wink-)

Content that she had won, she sat straight up in the swing, grabbed the chains on each side, and readied herself to be pushed.  I grabbed the swing on either side, pulled her way back up high (five reallys high, mind you, not four!), and I let her go.   She swung through the air like a bird.  And with each pass, I heard her laughter increasing.

Her hair fluttered in the wind, and the sun shined through the trees and down over her dress with golden beams.  She was an angel that seemed to have wings all of the sudden.  Her smile, which always lit up her entire face and the room she was in, was now lighting up everything around us.  Her laughter echoed up and down the mountainside.

When I slowed her up, and stopped the swing, I could tell she had been made happy by the experience.  She got off the swing and embraced me.

“I love you Daddy.  I love you so much,” she said.  “Can I have a Coke?”

“You certainly may,” I said while opening the diaper bag.

She reached in, grabbed a Coke, and handed it to me with the most precious ‘Please!’ face in the world.  I smiled, and opened the can.  She grabbed it, chugged the thing right down, and then let out a burp.

“Do you feel better?” I asked as I took the empty can and put it back in the bag.

“Uh-huh,” she responded as we started up the trail.

“You know what’s so wonderful about BabyGirls?” I asked.

She smiled.  “Tell me,” she said.

“They’re emotional.  They just want to be loved.  They want to feel loved and they want to know that they will always be loved.  They want to be taken care of and they never want to feel like they are a burden.  They never are a burden, but they never let a moment go by where they don’t cherish how someone makes them feel.”

She smiled sweetly.

I continued on.

“Her smile makes her beautiful.  Her dimples and tiny nose make her adorable.  Her pigtails make her happy.  Her pacifier makes her comfortable.  Her clothing makes her feel little.  Her bib tells her it’s okay to be messy.  Her crib tells her it’s time to settle down.  Her diaper makes her feel like a baby.  Her stuffed animals surround her and she hugs them all. And her Daddy makes her the happiest BabyGirl in the world.”

She smiled a lot wider and added, “and her Daddy knows best.  She wants to make him happy, too.”

“She does.  Every morning she wakes up, and opens her beautiful eyes and looks at me with a burning love I can’t describe.  She may be a little baby, but her effect is really huge.”

“I don’t ever want to know anything other than the way you make me feel, Daddy.”

“My promise, BabyGirl:  You never will.”

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Part Two: The Shirt off His Back

We walked up to another plaque alongside the trail.

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Rock-A-Bye BabyGirls: Short and Sweet Stories Stories about “The Daddy’s Girl” Dynamic, from a Daddy.

Paperback – PDF Ebook – Kindle – Nook – I-Book – Smashwords – Kobo

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The Rock-A-Bye Series