“I did all the paperwork. I got a day pass waiting. What do you think?” I wouldn’t push. If he said no, steak it was.
“I didn’t bring any little clothes.”
I put the smaller of the two bags on the bed and opened it to reveal a backpack and a bunch of his little clothes and toys, including Oscar.
“I didn’t see you pack him!”
“Of course. I always take care of my boy. Now, the question is, should we leave him here, or should he come with us to Chained?”
He thought about that for a few seconds before saying, “I don’t want to lose him, so we can leave him here.”
I set him on the bed with a bit of the covers over him, to keep him warm, and then we picked out an outfit for tonight and placed it in the bag. “Dinner on the way?”
“Sure, Daddy. Where do you want to go?” I had the perfect restaurant in mind.
It was a spaghetti place, nothing fancy, but it was filled with model trains. They ran through the rafters. They ran around pillars. A little train lover’s dream. The crayons came in a box shaped like a choo-choo train, and everyone got them, so he wouldn’t have to feel uncomfortable about his little side showing in a crowd he wasn’t familiar with, in a place not designed for it.
Dinner was excellent, and I could see him relaxing and getting into that delicious in-between space he liked to live in, where he wasn’t big and wasn’t little. I’d never seen someone who could just dwell there so easily, and I loved it. It showed that he was finally able to be more authentic to himself than he ever was when working corporate in the city.
Ms. Lily met us at the front desk and showed us to the group changing room. We didn’t get anything fancy, but there was no one there when we were, and I helped him get dressed. He was wearing a cute onesie covered in little teddy bears, sweatpants printed with adorable rubber duckies, and, my favorite of all, a huge sweater with a big teddy bear on each side, separated by buttons shaped to look like their paws, holding hands.
“Ready, Daddy.”
Outside, Ms. Lily gave us a quick tour then took us to the little room.
It was like nothing I’d ever seen before. I’ve been to clubs in multiple parts of the country, and their little rooms were not much more than some mats and toys thrown in random places. This…this was the equivalent of a certain famous amusement park but for littles. I heard Collared, their sister club was just as fabulous, but hadn’t been there yet either. Maybe I’d put that on a list of things to do next break.
“What would you like to do first?”
He tapped his cheek. “I already colored. Oscar’s at the hotel.” He tapped his nose the way he did when he was really thinking. “I want to… You pick.”
I looked around the room for a place not overly crowded. “Do you want to play grocery store?”
“Yes!” He dropped to his knees and crawled over.
I’d only seen him do that once before, at home. We really needed to make a point of coming here more often or, better than that, making him his own little space at the cabin. We’d been talking about adding on to our living quarters, and we needed to move that discussion forward.
We got to the little play grocery store, where he filled a teeny-tiny cart with random foods made of plastic, wood, or paper. Then, one by one, he scanned them and put them on the conveyor belt, which actually moved. I would then placethem back on the shelf. Over and over again, he filled that cart—sometimes with all the same food, other times with what he wanted to eat for dinner, and a few times all using items starting with same letter. With his contagious enthusiasm, it wasn’t long before the corner filled up. He looked up at me with an expression indicating he was ready to move to the next activity.
They had a corner stocked with cushions of various shapes for building forts or other structures.
“How about Daddy tells you a story?”
He nodded. “About a dragon.”
“Always about a dragon,” I teased, but they really were always about a dragon.
I stacked the cushions into a little fort, and we crawled inside. I was barely able to sit, and he lay with his head on my lap as I told him the story about a dragon who wanted to go swimming with the dolphins. The stories kept getting more and more ridiculous, and the more they did, the more they became truly his. I had an idea for a Christmas dragon surprise that I was looking into.
We spent hours in the little room, some with friends we met, others playing by ourselves, with multiple breaks for eating fish-shaped crackers. By the time we got back to the hotel, my dear, sweet boy was slumped, sound asleep in his seat.
The weekend had just begun, and it was already a success.
Epilogue
Nico
This year, Pax and I decided that we would hold off on our own personal Christmas until after his family left. We went back and forth on whether we should have it earlier or later, and I opted to have it between Christmas and New Year’s. It felt like a final hurrah before we reopened. The bookings for this year were already solid. It was going to be a lot of go, go, go once January hit.
