I scowled at the book I was reading. While I admit my parenting knowledge is minimal, this book’s central conceit that “fillies and colts need to learn about the world in their own way, and that discipline stops them from learning” infuriated me. I understand that emotional and physical abuse are bad parenting tools (or tools in general), but certainly proper discipline is needed when raising a child. To me, that seems like a necessity, not something to be shunned. How else would they learn what is and isn’t appropriate? Without discipline, they would be little more than savages.
Of course, the pony who wrote this idiotic drivel would probably argue that there is no such thing as inappropriate, and that boundaries prevent ponies from expressing themselves properly, and… Who in Equestria wrote this? I checked the dust jacket for the about the author section to find it had been written by a pony named Tender Heart. Apparently, her ideas were revolutionary when it came to limitless child raising. However, they were ideas I vehemently disagreed with. Giving a sigh, I set the book down on the table and pushed it away from me. All my months of research on foal raising had led me to the conclusion that no two parents agreed on how to properly raise a foal, making my quest to find the right parenting style all the more infuriating. How could I raise my daughter in a loving and nurturing environment, while still properly disciplining her when she erred? Obviously, there had to be a way, but I was having trouble finding it.
Maybe Vinyl was right last night when she said that I should be the disciplinarian and let her do the fun stuff. I’m certainly far better at the former than I am the latter. No fillies or colts ever said I was fun; a few said they had learned a lot from me, or that I had made them better writers or musicians, but never had I received anything near the affection Vinyl had. The topic of Vinyl made me shudder in both pleasure and revulsion as I recalled my actions with her earlier today. It wasn’t… they weren’t dignified, and while I would love to spend a day in her company, the offer I made her was rather salacious. Unfortunately, just thinking about Vinyl gave my hormones the opening they needed, and I felt the familiar pangs of pregnancy-induced lust, making it difficult for me to think clearly.
Instead of doing anything proper or productive, I found myself fantasizing about how much I would enjoy grabbing her the second she got home, dragging her back to our bedroom, and making the both of us unable to walk for a week. As I thought about all the things I wanted to do with, for, or to her, I felt my body become pleasantly warm, as if I had been reading a book at the beach on a summer’s day. The feeling soon subsided and I instead found myself sobbing at the thought of her earlier rejection of me. Had I become that unattractive to her? Did she not want me anymore? Or were pregnancy hormones just terribly volatile things that destroyed reason and rationality wherever they found them?
Deciding that being on my own would just further invite madness, I waddled over to Woodhoof to see how he was doing this morning.
“Good morning, Miss Octavia,” he said, putting the finishing touches on breakfast. “Was I correct in hearing Miss Scratch leaving this morning? If so, I am afraid to say that I cooked too much.”
“It’s fine, Woodhoof,” I said to the ancient pony. He had helped raise both my mother and myself, possibly my grandmother, and now he was on track to help raise my daughter. Several times, I had tried to figure out how old he was, but he never celebrated his birthday and evaded my questions when I threw propriety aside and asked him how old he was directly. “You know, I’m not opposed to eating leftovers. Certainly, I don’t expect you to cook three meals a day.”
He laughed at that as he moved the poached eggs he had prepared on to a plate. “You’ve been saying that for the past four years, and while I might have humoured you earlier, you have a filly on the way. You need fresh food just as much as you need your rest. Now, do you have any special requests?”
I tilted my head in thought for a moment, as I tried to sort out just what taste was on the tip of my tongue. “Fried cherries served in pistachio ice cream. I would… there is a lot I would do for that. Also, if you could get a hayburger and put some vanilla creme on it, that would be divine.”
“Then I shall find the ingredients at once, I’m afraid I shall be a while, so until then, I hope a few poached egg shall tide you over?” he said as I absolutely devoured the eggs placed in front of me. I nodded at him, bits of egg yolk running down the corner of my mouth. Another wonderful thing about being pregnant beyond the bloating and nausea is that it turns you into an absolutely deranged madmare with no sense of decorum. Such thoughts were the furthest thing from my mind as I wolfed down enough eggs to feed a family of four in less time that it takes most ponies to eat one poached egg. When I looked back up from my meal, Woodhoof was gone, probably off to find my ingredients, leaving me alone in the house (Moldy was off visiting Canterlot for a few days to do something grossly improbable, I’m sure).
With nopony else in the house, I decided I might as well go back to the study and practice my cello playing for a while. It was the best (well, okay, second-best) way to ignore whatever madness my overly-hormonal body was trying to convince me to do. I managed to practice for an hour before I started sobbing over… I honestly can’t remember what made me cry. Thankfully, Woodhoof knocked on the door around that time with my vanilla hayburger, which lasted for all of five seconds. After I finished my meal, I looked up at him, thinking perhaps he could help me with one of my problems.
“Do you think I will be a good parent?” I asked as I licked the remains of the vanilla creme and burger sauce off my lips. “It’s just… I’m worried I will make the same mistakes my parents did.”
He frowned at me and gave me his best look of disappointment. “Octavia Melody, I’m surprised you would ask such a foalish question. You’ve cared more for your child in the last nine months than your parents did in all of ten years. While I can’t say you will be a flawless parent, I assure you, you will certainly make a better parent than them, and you just might be better than your Grandmother Philharmonica. Whatever happens, you can be sure that you and Miss Scratch will make wonderful parents, and I can assure you that if you stumble, I will be there to offer what wisdom I’ve accumulated while helping raise you, your mother, and your grandmother.”
“How much older than her, are you?” I asked, the long dormant curiosity about his age coming back to life.
He just chuckled and shook his head. “Old enough to help raise her, but not old enough to raise your great-grandmother. Now, try not to worry yourself. Miss Octavia. Your stress doesn’t impact just you, now – and if you ever doubt your ability to raise a child again, just remember that you’ll have me to lend a hoof.”
“Thanks,” I said, smiling at him. “You… it’s meant a lot to me to have you around here these past few years, you and grandmother are the only good things from my foalhood. Well, and Miss Minor.”
Woodhoof returned my smile. “And it was always my honor to serve and raise such a special filly. Now then, I have to go make your… meal before the ice cream melts. If you wish, you can join me in the kitchen.”
“That sounds lovely,” I said, as I followed him out into the main room of our house.
For a while, my day fell into a sort of uneventful routine. Not to say it was boring, my pregnancy made that impossible, but there was nothing that truly stood out past the general madness of pregnancy until Vinyl returned home. As soon as she burst through the study door, I could see a gleam of hunger in her eyes. Before I could even say a word, the mare was planting a string of kisses from my neck down across my side as the familiar desire from earlier that day returned. I shook my head, trying to clear such thoughts. As fun as it would be to indulge, I wanted to actually talk to my marefriend beforehoof.
“How was your trip to the market?” I asked, trying to pull myself away from her as my body reflexively started to heat up.
“Good,” she said, trying to draw me back to her. “Let’s go to bed.” It was getting harder for me to think clearly as her hoof lovingly stroked my flank. I shuddered as the pregnancy hormones intensified my arousal, and I suddenly found myself struggling not to draw her down onto the scratchy, study carpet and do a myriad of wonderful lovely things with her. I caught a mischievous glint in her eyes that let me know whatever she had in mind was equal parts fun and debauched. Last time I saw that look, it ended in an evening with lots of leather and several novel uses for rope. The last tiny bit of resistance in me gave up, and the two of us quickly scampered upstairs and locked the door to our room.
The rest of the day, while certainly enjoyable for both of us, does not need to be expounded upon in great detail.