Waking up:
He was warm. So very warm…
"Da-da."
Something was petting him, but he didn't want to wake up.
"Da! Da!" The little petting starting hitting harder, and he could help but shift in annoyance.
Instantly he was cold and wet. The stink of fresh ammonia hit his nostrils and though he willed his eyes open with urgency his eyelids slid apart slowly like they had connection latency issues.
Loan was staring at him with a sad face.
"Gotta go potty!"
His stomach dropped a bit (not nearly as much as it did months ago) when he glanced down and sure enough Loan's diaper was wet and yellow at the crotch, with some trickling down her bare leg onto his upper chest.
He gagged a bit and tried to raise his arm, only to find it weighed down. A slight hiss from a waking Lulu reminded him why.
Loan had had a nightmare and Luan couldn't calm her down, she wanted Lori. Of course Lori was miles away and couldn't answer her phone at one in the morning, so the next best thing was Lincoln.
So into his usually spawn free room she went until she felt better.
The problem was that Loan was an often literal crybaby.
She could be soothed by the usual techniques and seemed to feel better in his arms, but any time she seemed to sleep she would promptly start whimpering when he went to put her back to bed. Of course when Lari woke up for a midnight feeding (because babies are merciless little creatures) she'd noticed that Loan was in her father's arms and promptly demanded a pickup as well.
Unable to put Loan down he'd had no choice but to acquiesce upon pain of tantrum. Of course Lulu's sharp ears noticed the 'conflict' and promptly startled babbling, which woke up another child, who woke up another-
And then Luan just picked up every child in the room and told him he could sleep in the nursery that had once been Lori and Leni's room or his own. Eight jealous babies demanding attention would quickly wake up the six Lana had in the next nursery, and the seven Lucy held watch over in the one past that.
So here he was, his upper body covered in mostly sleeping infants. Luan can been kind enough to tuck him in with only a moderately bad pun before sneaking off to sleep in the now vacated nursery.
Of course now he had to get up, preferably without waking up his blanket of progeny.
"Potty…" Loan sniffled, big tears welling up in her eyes.
Oh no.
"It's okay," he quickly reassured her, or at least tried to. "I can change you-"
Loan let out a wet sob as another trickle went down her legs, and Lupa stirred. Her little nose wrinkled from the smell and she cracked open a disturbingly yellow eye (that Lisa promised she had nothing to do with) and hissed at her golden-blonde sibling who promptly burst into embarrassed tears.
Which of course woke up another sibling. Then another. This cycle continued and each one started yammering something in babyish babble that woke up the house at the ripe time of five in the morning.
"Dang it."
Breakfast time:
The big table was back.
And still it was not enough.
Crowded through the dining room were three tables in total, the big table serving as the main one, but with two others obtained from elsewhere in the house scattered around to seat the many children who needed feeding. Said children were seated in a combination of a few high chairs while the majority were propped up in baby car seats tied to regular chairs.
The two smaller tables had a parent each to them. Lucy was assigned to the triplets, Lupa and Leia as the established manager of the 'troublemakers'. Luan as usual had her own table filled with the five she had spawned, since the kids responded better to their own mothers and came and they always went as one anyway the five had gradually formed a little sub-unit that Luan was almost always assigned to. Lastly Lana was assigned to the big table where the rest of the children were seated along with the permanent caretakers (or at least resident of the house in the scientist's case) Lincoln and Lisa.
Lincoln himself was presently trying to convince a less co-operative than usual Lemy to eat rather than wear his mushy carrots. Lyra was dutifully munching away as usual but Lemy was sulking and avoiding the spoon.
"Ma-ma!" He complained.
"I'm sorry Lemy she's not here right now," Lincoln sighed. At this rate he'd have to take the carrots away until he got hungry, and that would screw up the entire schedule.
"Ma! Ma!" Lemy demanded and scooped up from damp orange mush to toss right into Lincoln's freshly changed shirt.
He really should have known better than to hope it would stay clean for more than a few minutes.
At least the colours matched.
Lynn Sr and Rita came out the kitchen, Lynn looking tired from having prepared so much mush despite years in the restaurant business.
"Alright kids," Rita walked over and ruffled Lincoln's mysteriously sticky hair. Mysterious in the sense that no one knew what made it sticky, not why considering the small army of mess makers surrounding them. "We're nearly out so your father and I are just popping down to get some more supplies-"
"Out?" Lincoln dropped his efforts with Lemy immediately, who grumpily picked up the small bowl and dumped it in his hair. "Out of what?"
"Nearly out." Rita corrected. "Food, bleach, that kind of thing-"
"Do we have enough toilet paper Mom?" Lana bluntly inquired, "you know what's coming."
"I… I think so," Rita tried to assure.
"But just to be sure we're going now, the sooner we go the sooner we come back!" Lynn grasped his wife by the shoulder and practically dragged her to the door. "Try to go easy on the double ply!"
Potty Time:
It came as an inevitability.
Kids eat a lot.
Babies eat a lot.
The food goes into them, it nourishes their growing bodies and lets them coo and giggle and do all the nice things that gets their cheeks pinched for how cute they are. It also lets them do all the not so nice things that drive parents to ask if they were in purgatory for their literal fuckery. Then, after all the play and learning all that nice food is all used up.
And it comes out.
Half an hour on the dot after every the start of every mealtime was the established Potty Time in the Loud House. While no one was out of diapers yet the elder set of siblings were at least trying to get the older of their progeny used to holding it until they got to the potties.
Now only a few minutes after their own parents had fled Lincoln and Lisa were in the original bathroom. Ten cheap potties arranged in rows were being filled with young butts and whatever contents they deigned to disperse.
"Unng!" Loan's little face screwed up and turned red.
"Don't push it Loan," Lincoln knelt down to stroke her hair, resisting the urge to gag as the smell intensified. "You'll give yourself a tummy ache."
Loan looked up with her big, seemingly ever watery eyes. "Can't go!"
"As she previously expelled a stool and large quantity of urine, Loan is unlikely to need to 'go' as you put it." Lisa confirmed from within a section of the bathroom cordoned off with a sheet, Lulu's 'relief' being only handled by herself and occasionally a very sad Lincoln. "I would advise letting her 'hold it' until after the routine bathing has been completed instead."
Loan of course understood none of this, except that apparently she'd failed at something, and as per usual promptly started blubbering. "I Sowwy!"
Lincoln would spend the next few minutes calming the near toddler down, giving Lisa dirty looks through the sheet and convincing Lupa not to try and get Lemy to eat her poop.
Then Lisa would depart with the children for their lessons, leaving him to carefully empty the potties down the toilet and desperately try not to gag on the scent from The Brown Wave.
Lesson time:
"A…" Lisa's eye twitched as she pointed to the letter on the projector screen.
They were in the living room, a small army of children surrounding her and mouthing (some clearly just pretending) the name of each letter she pointed to on her projector.
"B…" she continued. Her fellow 'inmates' as Luan dubbed them were gathered behind the couch, looking down on those sitting on the couch proper and sitting on the rug immediately before it in two rows. They had to watch just in case someone tried something, not that it was likely with the troublemakers making up the row closest to Lisa. But nonetheless Luan, Lana and Lucy kept a close eye on a row each to make sure no overt shenanigans began.
"C…" Lisa could feel her sanity start to fray at the banality of it all. Oh how she longed for the more advanced method she had been banned from…
Still, there were good students obediently following her instructions; Lyra, Lynn III, Liena, Loan, Leia and Liby openly paid attention.
Everyone else however…
Lani's little voice yelped up for a moment as Lulu's stretchy and segmented arm flopped out from the stool she sat next to her mother upon to give her sibling a light smack. Reluctantly mollified the possibly demonic child started actually saying the letter names as they were issued.
Some part of Lisa was gratified as her clearly superior offspring disciplined the home grown spawn of her most perverse sister. But the rest of her being could not help but groan in despair at the nonsensical punishment her own mother had set her to;
"No 'special methods' Lisa!" Her mother admonished, the education helmets having been confiscated in a pile, consigned to the garage until further notice. "This is part of your punishment!"
"Parental Unit this is asinine," Lisa countered with annoyance. "You are impeding the fulfilment of the very task you set me to. Additionally I am well into adulthood therefor-"
"Therefore you are fully responsible for tricking the girls and Lincoln into parenthood!" Rita snapped. "You are going to make up for it by helping them through this, and not just by using our grandchildren as your test subjects!"
"Bah?" Lulu asked in recognition.
"Ignore her S-12," Lisa assured her pride. "My parental unit is being irrational again."
Rita's eye twitched, "love and care are an important part of growing up Lisa. I'm sorry to hear that you find that 'irrational'."
"Only in the context of handicapping the potential gains for both the offspring and science as a whole," Lisa rolled her eyes. "You are letting your personal feelings overcome your good sense, just look at S-12'; she has made extensive use of the helmet and now will not require schooling until Grade 4 at least. A few more sessions and she will be the equivalent of a university graduate!"
Lulu titled her head at that.
"And by skipping all the shared experience of learning with her friends and family she'll be stunted as a person!" Rita groaned. "She has to be able to grow in her own way, with her family, with you Lisa."
"Well I hardly see why she can't do both," Lisa huffed. "S-12 has managed well enough so far, better than her peers I might add!"
Rita's eyes narrowed. "You haven't been watching her properly have you?"
"I have made many obersvations-
"Lulu?" Rita interrupted Lisa. "Do you like the helmet?"
Lulu twisted her neck one hundred and eight degrees to look at her grandmother in curiosity.
"When Mommy puts the helmet on you, do you like it?"
Lulu seemed to consider this for a moment.
"Clearly S-12 appreciates her enrichment," Lisa rolled her eyes. "Learning such quantities of information at such speed is-"
Lulu crawled up to her grandmother and shook her head.
"Is.. is a superior method of information transfer…" Lisa's confused tone dropped.
Rita picked up the crawling tot and turned her to face Lisa. "She's not learning Lisa, she's having all that information dumped into her head without any context or choice. She can't enjoy that kind of experience.
Your helmet takes the joy out of learning."
Lisa felt like she'd been slapped. "I- you-"
"Lulu?" Rita looked down. "Would you like to put the helmet on again?"
Lulu shook her head.
"Would you like to learn with Mommy like the other kids?"
Lulu nodded.
Rita looked at the flabbergasted Lisa with satisfaction. "Well it's two to one my little genius, there's a lesson plan on the kitchen table and some juice for the kids after.
Try to have fun."
She was not having fun.
After the pointless and frustrating task of going over the alphabet song with infants was finally done, Lisa swapped with Lucy for guard duty while the pale goth sat on the couch for Storytime. Her voice entranced the children, rising in just the right places to keep their attention on her.
Finally, when she was done, the children were satisfied and sleepy. Just in time for Naptime.
Naptime:
Lincoln of course had disappeared after dealing with The Brown Wave, by unofficial consensus it was agreed that whoever had to empty the potties got to take an hour or so off afterwards. Lincoln promptly used that time to get some more sleep in his freshly child free room.
Couple that with naptime being the general recuperation period for the adults, and thus generally needing only one mostly stationary adult, and he was safely left alone for a whole three to four hours!
Once again, mostly used for sleep.
The man needed his rest.
So had Lynn and Rita; the couple pulled up in the ancient and held together with duct tape Vanzilla. The van was stuffed with toilet paper and other supplies, but they had only needed ten minutes for that. Thanks to Lynn Sr's business connections they could easily bulk buy the supplies they needed relatively cheaply and have them ready and waiting when they arrived at the ware-house like store.
Instead of spending that time finding and hauling goods around, the two just went to a park and became potatoes for an hour. Then moved on to separate paths to a talk with friends at a café and music store (Lynn was proud as ever to see Luna's band still selling on Vinyl), before finally coming together at the pre-agreed time to head back into the fray with the badly needed supplies.
They hadn't left it truly urgent of course, there were easily enough supplies left for the day unless the kids all got diarrhoea at once. Only a monster would condemn their children to handling twenty one dirty bottoms with only water to clean them with but, gosh darn it they needed a break too!
This was supposed to be their golden years, not their 'go back to start' years!
Except it wasn't going back to the start, it was hard mode.
"Ready to rumble dear?" Rita asked her greying husband.
"About as much as you sweetheart." Lynn half heartedly laughed.
"That bad?"
"It's lunchtime dear."
Rita checked her watch, and sure enough it was just about time for the children to awaken from their slumber and form the multi-headed beast that ate through their seemingly bountiful stocks like piranhas. She quickly leaned over to her husband…
"Do you think we could just back out before they see us? Maybe say we got stuck in traffic?"
"Doubt it dear," Lynn pointed to a tired looking Lana marching to them with eager anticipation. The frazzled look in her eyes told them she was looking for volunteers to feed the Hungry Hydra awaiting indoors.
"Dang it."