202.)

When I got into Blossom's car, my eyes were puffy and red. I had been outright bawling for most of the session; I hadn't cried like that in a long time. Even when our time was up, Stephanie let me stay for another ten minutes so I could stop, so I didn't have to cry in the lobby of her office before going out to Blossom's car.

"How'd it go?" Blossom asked.

"It was exhausting," I said, and then laughed a little bit. Because feeling something - even deep sadness - had some relief to it. Catharsis. That was the word.

"Hey there's that pretty little laugh I love so much!" Blossom knew the victory would be short-lived, but she took what she could get. "Well let's get you to the beach house and put you down for a nap, given that you're so exhausted. How's that sound, cupcake?"

"I dunno. I slept a lot last night." Depression was a lot different than anxiety. I always thought the two went hand in hand, given the comorbidity. But nights like last night, I went to bed early, slept almost twelve hours, and didn't pick at my fingers at all. It was a different kind of Hell.

"Well, whatever you want," Blossom said. "I want you to feel okay."

"Thanks. I do. I think. For now." I still didn't want to do this baby thing, but maybe Blossom was right. Maybe anything was better than a zero percent chance of feeling better. Weirdly enough, after crying with Stephanie, I didn't feel like I had to stay sad quite so much. My feelings were real, and I'd felt them.

"Well, you just follow my lead and remember your colors: yellow if you need me to slow down, red if you want me to stop. I'm your Blossom and I'm going to take care of you."

We didn't really talk about it again until we got to the beach house. It was early March, and the weather was beginning to warm up a little. Or maybe it was because we were at the beach house four hours earlier than usual. There was still snow on the ground, but the sun was out. It felt like the house was heating up faster than usual.

A part of me was curious about what Blossom had planned. I was still against the idea of being Little, but that ageplay writer part of my brain wouldn't let it go. I thought about all those stories where some college girl comes home drunk and her parents decide she's "too irresponsible to be an adult" or something. Maybe Blossom planned on getting me drunk after all. Probably not, though.

Blossom had driven up to the beach house the day before to drop off some birthday plans. The drive was long, but she used her phone's voice recorder to make notes of some of her thoughts along the way. And it was just like Blossom Brixley to turn an inconvenience into a boon.

"Here's your blanket for the sofa," Blossom said. "You sit here for a bit and I'm going to get some stuff ready. I'll put something on the TV for you in the meantime. You just relax, cupcake."

Relax. Yeah, that was totally something I could do. I rolled my eyes and Blossom turned on Disney+. I expected Bluey, since that was our go-to Disney+ show, but she put on something different. Little Einsteins. I watched that show when I was younger, but I hadn't seen it in years. My mom thought all the classical music or something would make me smarter when I grew up.

The theme song started and I visibly cringed. Was the theme song always that bad? But the nostalgia resonated through me like the notes of Antonín Dvořák in the opening slides. The first episode was about returning one of Saturn's rings after it fell in June's garden.

Once Amy had transitioned from cynical to annoyed to somewhat-invested, Blossom went about getting some other things set up. She quietly moved the table over so it was behind the sofa for optimal TV viewing, and then she went to the bedroom to fetch a few packages she'd brought up the day before. And had she spent too much money? Maybe. But she could also comfortably couch this in the guise of Amy's birthday gift, so Amy would just have to accept it.

While the episode was on, Blossom dressed the table with a colorful tablecloth made out of soft cotton, and she laid out a few plastic trays with compartments. Finally, she sat down on the sofa next to her girlfriend with a smug smile.

"Come on, let's sit you up at the table. I've got some things for you to do, cupcake."

"Uh, alright..." I'd seen Blossom move the table. I wasn't sure what she was doing with it, but she'd dressed it in a pastel tablecloth. Regardless, I got up off the couch and followed her over to it, where she sat me down on a chair facing the television. It wasn't as comfortable as sitting on the couch.

I thought we were going to eat something. We didn't get food on the way up, but I had a snack at home before we left. There were also little plastic kid's plates on the table, the kind with sectioned off spots for different foods. But there wasn't any silverware.

"I've got some things for us to do together while we watch TV, and I think we're gonna have a great time," Blossom said.

Blossom reached down into one of the shopping totes next to the table and pulled out a large, colorful box, which rattled like it was full of little pieces. She set the box down: a Lego set, of a street scene with a flower shop and a design studio. Blossom had picked it out because it had multiple parts to build that they could do together, and because it wasn't over-the-top "baby". Maybe it would help Amy settle into things.

"How much did you spend on this?" I asked, picking up the box in my hands. It felt like a birthday present. I really didn't want a birthday present. But Blossom took the box from me and turned it over.

"Look, you make two buildings," Blossom said, ignoring Amy's question. "The flower shop and the design studio. I'll make one and you can make the other."

"I haven't done a lot of these before," I admitted. I never really got into Lego stuff when I was younger. But knowing Blossom's engineering brain, they seemed like a perfect toy for her. I made a mental note to remember that.

"Don't worry, I'll be right here sitting next to you. If you need help with any part of it, I'm here. I got some little trays to help you sort the pieces, and we can watch anything you'd like on the TV while we build. If you need food or water, I'll take care of that, alright?

"Think of me today as like… a big sister, or a cool auntie. The Legos are for you, but I'll do them with you so we can spend the time together. But you don't have to think, or talk, or worry about silences or anything like that. Sound good?"

"Yeah, alright..." It wasn't exactly what I had in mind. None of my fantasies involved doing a Lego set. And Blossom hadn't even insisted on dressing me up in diapers or baby clothes. Maybe I misunderstood what Blossom meant about a baby day.

Thankfully, the set came with three instruction booklets. I let her take the design studio, because it seemed like her kind of thing. I took the flower shop. All the pieces were divided up into plastic bags, and the plastic bags had numbers on them. Blossom helped me read the instructions for a few pages, then started on her own thing.

It was a lot harder than I thought it would be. The instructions sometimes had me place things in very specific locations, and I would be off by one stud. I had to take it apart twice before I got the hang of it. Then I got to a part that wanted me to put a sticker on something.

"I'll do that for you," Blossom said sweetly. "This part is really hard, so a grown up should do it."

I rolled my eyes and shrugged. Whatever.

Blossom gave me the piece back with an expertly placed sticker and I kept building. The character who ran the flower shop had a pet cat, so the front door had a little cat door on it. I thought that was cute. Then I outlined the window in colorful blocks. I had to triple check that I was using the right colors.

"I didn't know Legos were this intense," I muttered. I'd been at it for half an hour.

"This is a pretty advanced set for a little girl, but I'm here to supervise, so as long as nobody tells the Lego Police I think we'll be fine."

Blossom winked and smiled. Truthfully, this was part of the process: she planned to start the day with this Lego set, and then move to other things that were progressively a little more juvenile. Today was about not forcing things.

"You did so good on the colors around the window, too, goodness."

"Yeah, they're pretty cute. How's your thing?"

Blossom was ahead of me. Significantly. She was already on the second floor of her building, which was impressive given how many tiny little pieces she had to put together. Blossom had clearly done Lego sets before.

"Oh I think it's coming along pretty well," Blossom said. "What do you think?"

She held up her lego set with abundant carelessness, but just enough carelessness that the whole thing didn't fall apart. Clearly, Blossom knew the limits of what the little Lego buildings could endure.

"What's your favorite part of your build so far, cupcake?"

"Uh, I like that the door has a little cat thingy?"

"What about the building experience?" Blossom asked.

"I have no idea what you mean by that."

"I'll try to explain this in a way that isn't boring - I know that toddlers don't have the best attention spans - but the building experience is like…" Blossom paused to think. "Okay, you're building a house. It has four walls. Are all four walls built the exact same way? That's a boring building experience. A good building experience has lots of different techniques and ways to put bricks together, to keep your brain from dozing off."

"Huh... that's smart..." It was like anti-dissociation built into the instructions. Why couldn't I find anti-dissociation baking recipes? Like, maybe a recipe that required you to do it differently each time? Maybe I could just pick four different recipes for the same thing and see which one was best. I'd have to run that idea by Stephanie.

It took me another hour to finish the flower shop. Blossom finished her design studio and the little town square thing that connected our stores together. Then she showed me around her building and I showed her around mine.

"Your top floor is pretty empty," Blossom pouted. "They usually give you more furniture."

"Yeah, uh... it says here in the booklet that I'm supposed to pick furniture from your store and put it in the room. Like, I get to design the space myself. There are some examples."

"Oh that's super cool!" Blossom's eyes went wide with excitement. That hadn't been part of her plan.

"Okay, so pick a mini doll who lives there, and you can be her. I'll play the one who works at the design studio and we can dress up your apartment?"

"Uh..." I didn't really play with dolls. Even when I was younger, I was more into reading or writing.

"Come on, it's like roleplaying," Blossom assured me. "Just get your girl and come over to my shop."

With a deep sigh of resignation, I picked up the tiny toy and pretended to walk her across the sidewalk in front of the buildings. This was so silly.

Blossom picked up one of the boy figures - his name was Olly, she decided, and he had a good sense of fashion and design - and held him in front of the building.

"Oh good day Miss! Are you here for some furniture? I saw you moving in."

Blossom went all out on her Olly voice, with a bit of haughtiness in his tones.

"Uh... hi," I said, using my normal talking voice. This kind of pretend play was a lot weirder than roleplaying, for some reason. "Yes, uh... I'm looking for some furniture for my new home."

"Oh, well what are you looking for? We have..."

Blossom took stock of what was in her store and continued.

"We have a bed, and a sofa, and some love seats, some killer side tables, and a dining table. Uhh… and a lamp. Some art, and some rugs, too. Dang girl, we sell everything."

"Oh, uh... well, what do you recommend?" I asked. There were a lot of furniture options, and they weren't all together in sets like they were in the instruction booklets. Was I supposed to mix and match? Or just follow the book?

"Well, this bed, bedside, sofa, and loveseat, are a matched set," Blossom said, moving her little boy figure around, gesturing to all the different pieces of the color block furniture. Clearly Blossom was having a lot of fun with this.

"And this lamp is very in right now."

"Oh, um... do you think those are a little childish?" I asked, because Blossom basically picked out a group of furniture that I could only assume was for a kid. Or maybe I just really didn't understand decor.

"Hmm…"

Blossom moved her doll around Amy's with awkward jumpy motions the way one did when playing with Legos, and then shook her real-life head.

"Ordinarily I'd say so, but for you I think they're perfect."

I rolled my eyes at Blossom. What a brat.

"Well, you're the expert," I said in character. "So I'll take it."

"Rad! I'll be over there to deliver it for you soon." Because that was how furniture purchases worked, right?

Blossom started packing up all the furniture in the color block set and I leafed through the instruction book to see what it had to say. The bed went to the left, and the couch behind it. The chair on the right. But by the look of it, I could really put the furniture in whatever layout I wanted. That was pretty cool.

A few moments later, Blossom's little Lego boy arrived at the front door of the flower shop with the furniture.

Blossom helped me decorate. She thought the bed would look better up against the wall, and that freed up a lot of space for the rest of the furniture. It didn't take long to set up the room, and then we had to add some finishing touches to the overall set. A string of lights between the two buildings. Some grass areas out front. That kind of thing.

"Looks good," I said, when we were done. It was a lot more fun to build than I expected.

"You did a great job, babes! And hey, look at that: we just furnished our first place together!" Blossom was so smugly proud of herself. Her eyes glistened with whimsy. "Did you enjoy building with me?"

"Yeah, it was fun. You're also really good at it."

"Lots of practice," Blossom laughed.

I sat awkwardly as Blossom cleaned up the spare pieces. I didn't want to tell her, but the Lego experience wasn't very baby for me. It was kind of meditative, like Blossom described it. And I was feeling a little more present. But I think the Lego set was meant for older kids.