Okay, so being a “parent” for 25 hours? Terrifying. I mean, I thought I could handle it, but my sisters were already screaming over who got the first baby doll, and the camera was rolling, obviously, because this is content.

And then there’s her.

She’s calm. Scarily calm. Holding a baby doll like she’s been doing this her whole life. I, on the other hand, nearly dropped mine three seconds after we got started.

“Uh… is it supposed to cry that loud?” I whisper, fumbling with the tiny baby bottle.

She leans over, adjusting my hands. “Just hold it like this,” she says softly. Her hands brush mine. Just for a second. And my brain immediately forgets how to function.

I almost drop the doll again. She doesn’t laugh, but she doesn’t pull away either. Just steady, patient, guiding. And somehow that makes me feel… safe? Which is ridiculous because it’s a plastic baby.

My sisters are screaming about diaper changes in the background. I swear, this is a simulation of chaos. But every time I glance at her, she’s calmly feeding her doll, humming quietly, occasionally glancing at me like… like she’s waiting to see if I’ll survive.

I do. Mostly. But I’m hyper-aware of her proximity. The way her hand lightly touches my arm when she hands me a pacifier. The way she kneels down beside me during nap time, just… there. Not intrusive. Not dramatic. Just soft and steady.

At one point, I mess up a diaper change huge, catastrophic mess. I panic. She kneels beside me, helping me clean up, and I can’t stop noticing how close we are. Her shoulder brushes mine. Our hands meet while trying to wipe up the mess.

“Got it,” she says, smiling. Not teasing. Not patronizing. Just calm.

I laugh nervously, “Thanks. I’m… really bad at this.”

“You’re fine,” she says. “See? Survived round one.”

And my chest does that thing it always does. That too-fast, too-loud thing. I realize, again, that I like her. And maybe she likes me too.

By the time we’re doing bedtime routines for the dolls, my sisters have collapsed on the couch, exhausted. But she and I are still standing, quietly rocking our dolls. And for a second, it’s not chaotic. It’s not stressful. It’s just… us.

She looks at me and smiles softly. “We make a good team,” she says.

I nod, heart racing. “Yeah… we do.”

And in that moment, amidst the fake cries, spilled milk, and chaos, I realize something: maybe I like being “parenting partners” with her. Maybe I like her.

And somehow, that feels way more real than all the chaos around us.