Dr. Mary Tyler finished making notes in her book and looked back down at Eric.

The thin 24-year-old,

the most brilliant student in the department,

creator of advanced research,

was sucking on a toy keys set,

saliva covering his chin and running in a rivulet down his cheek.

his thin pale legs waving about aimlessly,

his eyes were vacant and crossed, focused on the toy he was chewing on.

The drug had taken far too long to work in her opinion.

It should be used in higher doses for effectiveness.

At least Christie and Eric seemed happy.

And now the research was all hers.

As far as anyone would know Eric had dropped out of school and left the country for points unknown.

As an extra precaution, Christie decided to rename him baby Mikie.

She would tell her family he was her boyfriend who had been in a motorcycle accident.

Eric certainly wouldn’t mind the name change,

he’d be far too busy putting all his new toys in his mouth.

A month later Mary headed out to Western Springs Park to meet Christie and baby Mikie.

It had been a very disappointing month for her.

She had made no progress on the research even after performing countless tests on Mikie.

She would lay differently shaped blocks in front of him and see if he could fit them into the right holes.

He couldn’t.

Usually, he would simply stick the colorful blocks in his mouth and gaze innocently up at her while drool dripped from his suckling mouth to the floor.

She judged his mental capacity at 6 months.

She thought he might progress faster than a real baby back to normal, or regain his mind suddenly, neither happened.

A month later she judged his mental age to be 7 months.

It was a very warm day for September and lots of families were out playing in the park.

The Young were feeding the swans and parents having picnics.

It wasn’t hard to spot Christie and Mikie.

The twenty-something was sitting in a big stroller adorned with Elmo decals,

wearing a Big Bird T-shirt and a big nappy,

sucking away at a dummy while he swung his long bare legs,

with feet out into the air and slapped them against the footrest.

His eyes were gazing with excitement at all the people around the park.

He felt no embarrassment of course he was just curious.

“Hi Mary!” Christie exclaimed,

then grabbing Mikie’s hand said, “Can you say hi baby, say hi to auntie mary.”

She waved his limp hand for him but Mikie was craning around the other direction to gawk at a swan,

spitting out the dummy and babbling, “Ahahahabaaaa…mama,” at the animals.

“Hello dear, how is everything going?”

“Oh it is just wonderful, he really is just adorable, though it can be a handful.

I just can’t believe he was once a big university student, he’s such a happy baby.”

“That’s good to hear. Now here’s the thing, I haven’t had much luck making progress on the research, so what we need to do is get more subjects.

So I need you to talk to all your friends from the fertility clinic and get the names of other women who have had trouble conceiving, especially single ones.”

Christie nodded,

“No worries, I’ll get right to it, it would be wonderful to have a little playgroup,

I think Mikie is quite lonely sometimes.”

“Yes exactly.

I have very high hopes that with enough subject we can make progress.”

Back home again Christie cut up and mashed the food that Mikie would have for dinner.

It was hard work but she enjoyed it thoroughly.

It was very exciting to think that soon there would be other oversized babies like her ‘little’ one.

Every day was an adventure for Mikie, she really envied him.

He was perfectly happy and didn’t understand or care that he had lost something.

Right now he was sitting in a baby bouncer,

his toes just brushing the floor,

bouncing up and down with glee,

screeching his success, a smile that could light a city on his face.

Mikie loved his bouncy seat,

it was so fun to go up and down up and down over and over,

how could this ever get old.

He was glad mummy took his shirt off, it was scratchy and he liked feeling the air on his tummy.

The carpet was nice and soft on his toes too.

Then mummy came and took him out of the bouncy seat and he sat on his bottom on the carpet.

He sat up all by himself, he was very proud of that.

Mummy sat down with him and sang a silly song.

He didn’t know what she said but he liked her voice.

He smiled.

She wiggled his toes as she sang.

He liked that even more.

Mikie stuck his fingers in his mouth and sucked, that felt really nice.

He couldn’t imagine being happier.

Mary sat at home in front of her computer sipping tea.

The work with Christie had gone well and several women were interested, including one of her other students, Melanie.

Since most of the women were single of course that just left the problem of where to find suitable candidates.

But always a resourceful woman, she soon had a solution.

Mary logged on to another AB/DL site and typed in the personal section:

Looking for a break from the real world, want to enjoy the tender care of a mummy again.

Come spend the week at Nanny Mary’s Nursery in Mt. Eden.

It is an experience that can’t be missed.

Mary had several responses by that evening.

She smiled with success as she deleted their names and numbered the e-mails instead.

The names were irrelevant, they wouldn’t be needing them anymore.

She would have all the test subjects she needed. It was a small price to pay, after all, original research always requires sacrifice.