A/N: Rugrats started in the early '90s. If "All Grown Up" starts 10 years later, that's 2001-2, so the last couple seasons of Rugrats with Taffy are like an AU. Add to that Charlotte actually disciplining Angelica, taking her Cynthia boat away, in the last season and it's apparent – writers can go a new direction with Angelica learning to be nice with the babies as babies in 2002 or so, the Point of Departure being Taffy coming.
Why a "Full House" crossover? Taffy isn't shown disciplining; she'd need someone to encourage her and help her. Since on "Full House" the dad was so inconsistent the oldest daughter had to be disciplining the youngest, Michelle, behind the scenes for Michelle to be anywhere near as good as she was (and she's even better in the Book Universe, where D.J. is the mother figure, not Uncle Jesse), they'd know how to explain to Taffy what Angelica needs. Even if Charlotte and Drew started to be consistent near age 4. But, you can develop your own ideas of how Taffy disciplines and builds that bond.Someone else will have to do stuff w/them actually forming that bond, I' too busy to do many others at all.
BTW, this is Book Universe; Michelle is more mature and babysits and helps Stephanie do it more much earlier. If you've never seen "Full House," catch my later stories – which fit more with the series since I'd watched more by then – and RKORadio's Sam Series, where Steph helps someone even more than Taffy would need to with Angelica.
The Legend of the Alone Ranger
Tommy Pickles, who just turned two, sat gloomily in a small chair away from the action.
"All right, Dear, you may get up now," the teenager said warmly. Her name was Taffy, and her sweet, loving voice sounded as if it belonged on stage – and she was in a band. But, more importantly to Tommy just then, it was a voice that said he was loved, no matter what he did wrong. "And remember, soap stays out of the toilet." He'd tried to flush it down there.
Tommy nodded; it was one of the first times he'd ever been sent to timeout. Taffy hugged him, and let him go.
"Hey, Chuckie," Tommy said, his smile slowly returning. Chuckie Finster was Tommy's best friend. Tommy and baby Dylan's parents, the Pickles, babysat Chuckie, his sister Kimi, and a number of other kids. Taffy had been hired to help because Tommy and Dylan's dad worked as an inventor, and their mother, Didi, was back in school.
Chuckie was thinking about where Tommy had been. "I wonder how he does it."
"Who?"
"The Alone Ranger." Chucki's dad and Tommy's grandpa had each told stories about the Lone Ranger. "It's scary being alone. Then again, it's scary to be with people, too, sometimes," Chuckie was scared of lots of things, though.
Tommy didn't think he was alone. "I thought he had an Indian who helped him. Or, was it a horse?" Tommy recalled stories of his grandpa's father distracting his kids if they were fighting by saying "Look, there goes Silver running down the street," and the children would run to the window to look. "Either way, it'll take someone like him to help Angelica." Angelica was Tommy and Dylan's cousin, an only child who at just past four was very spoiled. She could be quite mean, and seemed to enjoy being bad. Still, he held out hope. "Maybe Taffy will help her be nice someday," Tommy said.
Taffy hadn't had much chance to handle the kids when they were naughty. She hadn't babysat a lot till recently, and like most kids they tended to be wilder around people they knew at first. Angelica had been getting bolder around Taffy, though. As Tommy said this, he saw Dylan taking his first baby steps toward some cookies at the center of a table. Angelica tripped him as she zipped past him, and grabbed them herself.
"Angelica, that wasn't nice, was it?" Taffy said.
Angelica scowled as Taffy took the cookies from her and gave one to Dylan. Out of Taffy's earshot, she mumbled, "You dumb babies always get what you want. You know I'm the one who's supposed to always get what she wants."
Chuckie rolled his eyes toward Tommy. "Don't pick your hopes up, Tommy," he said.
Meanwhile, some visitors were driving down the street. "I'm really glad you girls could come down this way with me while I interview Dr. Carmichael," Danny Tanner said. He was the host of a morning talk show, "Wake Up, San Francisco." "It's not often we get the chance to do things together, with you in college, Steph, and you so busy with high school and everything, Michelle. And, of course, D.J.'s already off and married. Time goes by so fast, it's so easy to miss things…"
"You mean like the Carmichaels' house?" Michelle asked as Danny drove right past it while rambling.
"Yes, just like..oh." He suddenly turned around in a driveway, having not paid close attention to the directions like his girls had. "I did miss it, didn't I? Listen, are you girls sure you'll be okay here? I'm going to be following Dr. Carmichael around the hospital with a camera crew for a while. I could drop you off at a mall or something."
"Don't worry, Dad. I took the call, remember? There will be plenty of little kids to help watch over at the Pickles'," Stephanie said.
Michelle agreed. "I might want to run a home daycare myself someday. I've had lots of practice with our cousins, and then helping Steph baby-sit."
"That's right; it'll be great to see how one is run and what things you'll need to know. It's a lot different than just babysitting one or two kids," Danny advised.
They got out of the car. As Danny spoke with Susie Carmichael's mother, Stephanie and Michelle introduced themselves. They instantly got into the fun dress-up play of four-year-old Susie. "She's so cute," Michelle said to Stephanie.
"Yep. She reminds me a lot of you when you were that age."
"Please, Steph, Dad talks about when we were little all the time as it is," Michelle responded. "Hey, you're putting a mask on her, don't I get something, too?" she joked playfully.
"You can be an Indian princess," Susie said as she handed Michelle a headband and feathers that she put on her head.
As if on cue, Danny walked into the living room. "Aw, look at my darling Lone Ranger and Tonto – isn't that the cutest thing you've ever seen, Dr. Carmichael?"
As Danny snapped a picture of Stephanie and Michelle, the girls wanted to complain that first, Susie's parents would probably say their daughter had done even cuter things, and second, they were much too old to be considered cute. However, they'd learned by now to simply put up with Danny's little quirks. D.J. had taught them well.
As Dr. Carmichael, Stephanie, and Michelle walked with Susie over to the Pickle home, they were about to see just how bad it could have been without D.J.'s work. Susie's mom explained about some of the children whom the Pickles watched.
Chuckie stood at the door till he saw Stephanie. He ran away screaming at the mask.
"Don't be such a scaredy-cat, you dumb baby," Angelica scolded loudly.
As Susie and her mother hugged and the doctor left, Michelle told Angelica simply, "That's not very nice."
"Well, that's what he is." Angelica didn't feel much concern about this new girl – Taffy was the boss, though Angelica was starting to feel like she was the boss even around her.
Taffy asked the Tanner girls to watch the babies for a moment while she took a call.
"Bad news?" Stephanie asked once Taffy hung up, then walked sullenly over to them.
"Yeah, my band wants me to write a song." Taffy sighed. "I know I promised, but still…"
"Yeah, and you're going to need to work extra hard with her," Michelle said lowly, pointing at Angelica. "She tried to make that boy," she said pointing at Chuckie, "eat a red crayon so he wouldn't get sick. She told him everyone had red cells and he needed more. He would have, too, if we hadn't stopped her."
"I can't believe you'd do that, Angelica," Taffy scolded, though in the back of her mind, she could. She was beginning to get frustrated with Angelica's increasingly naughty attitude, but also with the pressure her band was putting on her. The band had been concerned about her babysitting at all for a while.
Stephanie said she understood the problem. "Our Uncle Jesse felt the same way for a while at first. He and our dad's best friend moved in to help when our mom died, back when our sister D.J. was ten, I was five, and Michelle was a baby. D.J. was the only consistent one when it came to disciplining Michelle; thankfully she was very proactive. Dad didn't even start punishing Michelle till she was almost four, and the others didn't at all. He was maddeningly inconsistent at times later, too." Still, Michelle would have been far worse if never disciplined consistently by someone from the start.
They looked over to see that Angelica had swiped back the crayon Michelle had taken from her, and drawn a red streak down one of Michelle's pant legs.
"All right, young lady, you need a timeout," Taffy said loudly.
"I am not a young lady," Angelica screamed as Taffy carried her to the timeout chair.
"She's right about that," Michelle muttered.
Trying to ignore Angelica's loud protests, Taffy explained. "I know what you mean; her mother pays too much attention to business, and her dad's just too soft. You should have seen the battle of wills that started a few days after she disciplined her just once, taking one of her Cynthia toys away from her, after she was being mean to the other babies."
"Well, sure, if she hardly ever disciplines," Michelle said.
Stephanie lovingly placed a hand on Taffy's shoulders. "You don't have just an ordinary babysitting job when it comes to Angelica." They looked at Angelica, now defiantly standing instead of sitting. "You may have to form a much closer relationship; bond with her, show her you're punishing out of love."
"Right now, you're close enough in age, she thinks of you as a friend. Though that could make it easier in the long run."
Taffy exhaled sharply as she walked over and plopped Angelica into the timeout chair. Meanwhile, Stephanie and Michelle walked to the kitchen, where the other Rugrats were.
"She needs to get control of Angelica," Michelle spouted.
"I know." Stephanie turned abruptly. "See what you can find out from the others about this Cynthia thing, maybe we'll find a clue there. I'm going to try and give Taffy some pointers from some of the tougher cases I've dealt with."
Once she left, Michelle bent down to the others' level. "Hey, can we talk?" she asked as the others enjoyed some cookies.
"I think we got everything," Tommy said.
Chuckie agreed. "We gots mouths, lungs, vocal corns…yeah, we can talk."
"Do you need me to translate?" Susie, four like Angelica, asked politely, noticing Michelle's quizzical look. Chuckie was somewhat intelligible, but not quite at the age where he'd have an explosion of coherent vocabulary. The others were younger.
"Sure, thanks," Michelle said appreciatively.
"How come she gots a mask on?" Chuckie asked, pointing in toward Stephanie.
"I know that probably scares you, but what's on the inside is what's important. And, she's trying to help Taffy deal with Angelica."
Kimi explained that, "Angelica's probably mad because we got into some cookies and she can't get any."
"She gets mad about lots of stuff," Chuckie added.
"Is she ever nice?"
The babies considered Michelle's question. "She doesn't like to be, but…she can be," Tommy said. "Sometimes it's not because she wants to be."
"This may sound weird, but do her parents talk like her?" The babies shook their heads – Drew and Charlotte were always very nice. "Tell me some stuff she's done."
While the others relayed some tales from Angelica's past, Stephanie was telling Taffy, "I can't help but notice you're starting to yell back."
"I know, but I can't help it; not only is she driving me crazy, I feel like I have to do it all now, so our band can practice tonight."
"This is more important."
Angelica stood up again. "I don't have to listen to this…hey!" Taffy plopped her in the chair hard enough it tingled for a second. "That hurt," she complained.
"You need to stay in the corner!"
"I don't want to! I want you to be Happy Taffy, not Mean Taffy!"
Stephanie figured Angelica was trying to make Taffy lose control, too. "Whoa, calm down, both of you," she whispered after a bit more of their shouting.
"Huh?" The whispering got their attention.
Stephanie kept whispering to defuse the yelling; they were forced to be quiet so they could hear her. Then, she told Angelica to sit in the chair, and held her down for a second. "Rules are rules. It was not nice to try to make Chuckie eat that crayon, and it was not nice to color on someone. You need a timeout," Stephanie said quietly.
Angelica finally relented. Folding her arms, she said, "I'll sit on the outside, but I'm standing up on the inside!"
Taffy and Stephanie talked a couple more minutes. Once she'd sat there for a few minutes, Taffy gave her a hug and let Angelica get up. Angelica stomped away.
"Taffy, it sounds to me like this is more than just normal limit testing." How? "Well, look, she was arguing that you'd gone from Happy Taffy to Mean Taffy."
"Yeah, so?"
"So, now that she's decided it's safe to test your limits, she wants to see if you'll enforce them. But, if nobody else has been doing that, you not only need to show her the limits, you need to convince her you love her more than anything; and get her to want to behave because of that, not just because you're bigger than her, like when I held her down."
Taffy shook her head. "But… I know Didi's punished her."
After discussing it for a moment, Stephanie saw Michelle walking up to them. "Let's see what she found."
"I talked to her after she came out there. As far as I can tell, she's got a good relationship with her mom. But, on the other hand, she doesn't think much even of Didi's rules, let alone her mom's. Her mom praised her for coloring all over the walls once."
Stephanie sighed. "She probably figures love means letting her do anything. It sounds like she obeyed Didi some, but probably snuck around doing things behind her back. And, now that Didi's back in school anyway…"
Taffy sank into a chair, looking quite deflated.
"Not what you hoped for, huh?" Stephanie said with a smile.
"It was so great at first; the babies still love me. Even Angelica and I had lots of fun together." Taffy muttered, "Is that what they mean by a honeymoon phase?"
"That's right," Stephanie agreed. "It's easy to love a sleeping baby, or one playing nicely. But, what about when she's eight and crashes a car into your kitchen; like I did once," Stephanie finished sheepishly.
"That…would take a special kind of love," Taffy said pensively.
"My family had that kind of love, even though I didn't think anyone could at the time. I think Angelica wants to see how much you will love her, even at her worst."
"Okay…so how does that translate into how to punish her?"
Stephanie admitted that, "We've always had very tender hearts. Angelica's might be a lot tougher. You have to go with what you think will be effective. Don't just go by an expert, like you mention everyone you know following this one guy. Every child is different. And, don't think of it as just figuring out how to write the rules so she follows them." Stephanie sighed as she saw Michelle returning again, trying to hold a squirming Angelica's hand; finally, she picked her up and carried her. Stephanie quickly finished by telling Taffy, "Think of it as showing your love toward her. What is it, Michelle?"
'Don't listen to her!" Angelica demanded.
"Angelica didn't know I was watching her, so she tried to blame Chuckie for breaking some eggs when she tried to throw them up in the air and catch them."
"It's not fair. There's too many sitters here!" she complained as Taffy calmly sat her in the corner, trying not to react once more.
As Taffy stood behind the chair watching her, Michelle and Stephanie went out and cleaned up the mess. "This could take a while," Stephanie acknowledged.
They spent a few hours of playing with the babies – during which time Michelle spoke to Didi, who came home for a short time. They didn't want her to overuse timeouts or lost privileges, so Taffy didn't use those every time. But, they – especially Taffy - watched and lovingly corrected Angelica every time Angelica insulted the babies, or tripped Dylan, or something else. Stephanie and Michelle figured they were making progress, though they could tell Angelica was getting very frustrated with Taffy.
Angelica had tired of things and was supposedly watching a video with Susie, while the younger children took naps; the four-year-olds sometimes needed them, sometimes not.
"You don't think I should be watching her?" Taffy said.
"She's old enough to play by herself," Stephanie pointed out. "This time was important because you're trying to build that bond. But, now we need to test her."
"I know; I've actually had time to write some stuff, too. What you said about that special kind of love is what inspired me." Taffy showed her what she had; they liked it. "This is the last of the worst stage, right? I mean, it won't be a walk in the park, but I should be able to get back with my band this evening, right?"
"Well…" Stephanie saw Susie running up to them, with Angelica right behind her saying, "I didn't do it!" "We'll see."
"We were eating cookies," Susie said, pulling Taffy into the living room, and Angelica said she was gonna play with her Cynthia doll, and look!" The couch they'd been sitting on had crayon marks all over the back.
Taffy glared at Angelica. "I could see Susie sitting quietly, but when you were out of view I trusted you to behave. You just had to pull something, huh?" she said as she carried Angelica into the timeout place.
This time, Angelica sat sullenly, but as soon as Taffy's back was turned she zoomed outside and started playing, with Taffy in hot pursuit.
"Now what?" Stephanie told Michelle to simply wait and see how Taffy handled it.
Angelica had a very hot temper. She threw a block at Taffy, striking her in the arm at close range, then turned the chair over when Taffy tried to make her sit in it. She also kicked Taffy. "I hate you," she screamed, frustrated and angry that she was suddenly so unable to get her own way with Taffy around.
Taffy looked at Stephanie and Michelle, but they simply motioned for her to handle it. Taffy tried to figure out how to respond, and finally said, "But, I love you."
She thought to herself – was it really love? As she looked at the tantruming girl below her, Taffy tried to imagine the kind of love Stephanie had described that had been unconditional despite having a car crashed through the kitchen. It was hard to fathom.
And yet, as she sat the chair upright and evaded flying fists and feet to calmly sit Angelica in it, she thought about how few limits Angelica really had, and how she needed someone to model niceness who would enforce things.
Once she let Angelica up – she'd calmed down since nobody was paying attention to the tantrum – Taffy calmly handed her a rag. "Now, we're going to clean this off together."
"No, you're cleaning it!' Angelica threw the rag down.
"You made the mess, you have to help clean it," Taffy insisted. Angelica threw the rag at her this time. "Angelica, I mean it I have tried to model being nice to you and help you to copy, but you have got to learn to obey the rules!"
"You can't make me!"
Taffy took her hand and tried to rub some of the coloring off with her, but Angelica surprised her with her strength. She squirmed out of Taffy's grip, accidentally hitting her again. The harder Taffy tried, the louder Angelica's tantrum got, till she was screaming, kicking, and flailing once more. "I don't like your rules!' Angelica screamed.
Stephanie and Michelle had gone to check on the others; they were awake by this time. "Kids back home in San Francisco are probably awake by this time," Michelle joked.
They came down with the others to see Taffy sighing as Angelica flailed and kicked on the ground by where she was trying to make her help clean the many marks on the couch.
Taffy's heart was suddenly overcome with feeling as she thought about that little girl. Angelica was totally out of control, and it hurt Taffy to see it. Taffy didn't know why she was releasing so much anger and frustration, but that sense of love continued to grow as she pondered it. Stephanie was right; this was much more important. Her band was just writing songs and having fun. But, this little girl below her was in real need of rules mixed with mercy and grace, just like Stephanie had mentioned.
Taffy slowly scooped Angelica up, wrapping her legs around Angelica's legs, and her arms around Angelica's arms, trying to dodge them while whispering "I love you" to her. She got her in such a tight squeeze that the four-year-old could no longer flail or kick. All that energy was forced to come out the front, in the form of tears.
Once Angelica stopped trying to use her muscles, Taffy turned her around and gently cuddled her, letting Angelica cry in her lap. Once she felt Angelica was calm enough to understand and listen, she said sweetly, "I love you very much, Angelica. And, I promise, I will always love you, no matter what you do. Part of that love is teaching you right from wrong, and how to control yourself. But, I promise that no matter what you do, I will always love you."
Angelica sniffled. "You mean forever and ever?" She did. "Even after I said I hate you and kicked you and stuff?" She wasn't really sure why she had done that – except that she wanted her way, and figured this would be a good way to get it, if she tried hard enough; just like when she wanted something of the babies', especially Chuckie.
"Even after that. There is nothing you can do that will make me stop loving you," Taffy said, realizing that she really meant it sincerely. She had pondered the idea of a kid crashing a car through the kitchen, and decided that if that family could love even then, she should be able to love no matter what, if she really wanted to help Angelica. And, the notion of such unconditional love was so sweet, so wonderful, she knew she wanted to help her like that. "I have to teach you to behave. I might have to get very tough to make you obey the rules. But, I will, because I want you to grow up to be a wonderful person. One who will always do what's right and be kind to others. Even to the babies."
"Even to the babies?" Angelica whined, much less complaining in her voice than there might have been. That warm, tender embrace, and the knowledge that she would always be loved, was somehow very reassuring to the four-year-old, as much as she fought it. She only now realized that Tommy, Chuckie, Kimi, and Dylan had gathered around her, at the others' suggestion trying to comfort her as she wept and sniffled. She felt like she was a baby, too, with how much she'd cried. And yet, she was loved even then. Maybe it wasn't that bad to show some tenderness, and be a little nice to them.
Taffy agreed. "Even to the babies. We're going to work together, and you're going to learn to be as nice to them as I am. Because I love you," Taffy said again, feeling even more sure of it this time.
Angelica sniffled. She knew she wasn't always going to like it – she figured Taffy would make her clean that couch with her, for instance. But, whereas before she only thought of herself, there was something about that idea of unconditional love that sparked a tiny bit of compassion in her heart. Compassion that she'd hidden, not wanting to show any amount of vulnerability, but that she knew was important. It was what was being shown to her. She couldn't hide her meanness, bossiness, and disobedience from Taffy the way she could the others, it seemed. She hadn't liked how Taffy was watching and making her be nice. But, she'd met her match, so to speak, and realized that maybe it wasn't so bad.
She found it hard to let go of that attitude, but admitted, "I'll try, I guess." She buried her head in Taffy's chest again, grateful for that tender embrace while she said that, because somehow, she felt the need to have that assurance as she promised that.
The girls grinned broadly as they noticed their dad waiting in the car outside. Stephanie quietly said, "Let's go," to Michelle. They left, with Stephanie handing the mask and fathers to Dr. Carmichael only when they were out of view of the others.
Chuckie was amazed. As Taffy quietly cuddled Angelica and sang to her, he looked out the door, his eyes growing wide as the masked one and the one with the Indian headdresss disappeared. He turned toward Tommy. "Tommy, can you believe it?!'
"What did I tell you, Chuckie? I knew Angelica could start to be nice someday."
"Yeah. I guess anything can happen, with a little help from the Alone Ranger," Chuckie said.