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Cooper Anderson has been a big brother for an entire year. He’s quite proud of the job he’s been doing. He’s managed to avoid diaper duty for the most part, but he has gotten really good at getting Blaine to eat his carrots and he knows his baby brother looks up to him. His first word was “Coo”. Not quite Cooper, but as Cooper tried to explain to his parents, he was clearly trying to say Cooper. Not “Mama” or “Dada” but “Coo”. It was obvious.
The only thing Cooper doesn’t like about Blaine is the fact that Blaine is super fast. As soon as he learned how to crawl, he was really good at crawling away as fast as his tiny legs would carry him, and sometimes, it took Cooper a long time to find him. One time, it took Cooper over and hour to find Blaine because he’d somehow managed to not only get into the kitchen pantry, but he locked the door too. When Cooper finally found him, he opened the door to find that Blaine had somehow managed to open three different boxes of cookies and he had flour all over his head.
One thing’s for sure, Blaine is going to be even more difficult to keep track of as he gets older. That’s why Cooper figures that his best plan is to make Blaine listen to him now, that way, by the time he gets big, he’ll do anything Cooper asks him.
And that’s why Cooper loves it when his parents leave him in charge of Blaine, if he trains him as a baby, little kid Blaine will be his little robot. Cooper is eleven, Blaine would have to be dumb not to listen to him.
On top of being fast, Blaine is smart, which Cooper learns one day at the mall. Their mom leaves Cooper and Blaine sitting on a bench in front of one of her lady underwear stores, (for which Cooper is relieved, because YUCK, he does not want to go in there.). Cooper hands Blaine one of his own toys and once Blaine is occupied with that, Cooper pulls out his Gameboy.
Cooper isn’t exactly sure how long he’s been playing, just that he’s on his way to beating his own high score. That is until some tiny hand smashes his screen, causing Cooper to look away and lose a life. He looks up only to be face to face with his chubby cheeked baby brother.
Cooper looks at Blaine, and then over to the stroller.
“Blaine, how did you get out of your stroller? Mom strapped you in.”
“Coo!” Blaine slaps the Gameboy.
“Did you unstrap yourself from the stroller?”
“Yes.” Blaine nods and then laughs as if his ability to magically remove himself from his stroller is uproariously funny. And if this were happening on TV, Cooper would probably agree.
“Mom’s gonna be mad at you for getting out of your stroller, Blaine.” Cooper puts his Gameboy on the bench and picks Blaine up to put him back in his stroller. Blaine’s face scrunches up in frustration, and Cooper knows that means one of two things. One, Blaine is going to be needing a diaper change soon, or two, that he is revving up for a tantrum. Frankly, Cooper has no plan for dealing with either of those. Not when Blaine is ruining his best game yet.
“Oh no you don’t, Blainey. No tantrum. No pooping.” Cooper straps Blaine into his stroller, and Blaine scowls at him, his cheeks turning red.
“No! No! No! No! No!”
“Yes! Stay in your stroller. Or I’m telling Mom that you’re being a terrible brat and ruining my high score.”
Cooper looks through the diaper bag that their Mom left behind and gets out Blaine’s binky and shoves it in his mouth. Blaine promptly yanks it out and throws it on the ground and starts to cry.
“I’m ignoring you now.”
Cooper pulls a pair of earbuds out of his pocket and plugs them into his Gameboy and starts to play again.
Two minutes later, he looks up to find Blaine standing in front of him, laughing.
Cooper looks down at his little brother, then at his Gameboy. He rolls his eyes and pulls Blaine into his lap. Blaine reaches for the Gameboy and Cooper raises it out of his way.
“Coo. Play, Coo play.” Blaine points up at the Gameboy.
“You want to watch me play? Okay. But no touching.”
And that’s how their Mom finds them, Cooper playing the Gameboy with Blaine in his lap, sucking on his finger, staring down at the pea green screen, completely engrossed in what Cooper is doing.
“Alright boys, one more stop. We need to get you some clothes for school.”
Their mother bends down and grabs Blaine from Cooper’s lap and sits him back in the stroller, strapping him in.
“Mom, I think something is wrong with that stroller, Blaine can get himself out of those straps.”
“Really? Is that true, Blainey Bear? Are you unhooking yourself from the harness?” She bends down and places a kiss on Blaine’s chubby cheek, and tickles his belly, he giggles and reaches his hands up, patting his Mom’s cheek.
************
When they finally arrive at the Gap Kids on the other side of the mall, Blaine has fallen asleep in his stroller, with a little bit of milk on his face and his bottle in his lap. Their Mom reclines Blaine’s seat in his stroller and Cooper watches as he falls back a little, making snuffling noises in his sleep. A sense of relief washes over Cooper, because this means he can pick out his clothes without having to chase his baby brother all over the store. <
Being a big brother is hard, and Cooper didn’t sign up for this. He still wishes his parents had listened to him and put Blaine up for adoption. But he doesn’t tell them that, because the first time he brought it up, he wound up being grounded for two weeks.
Cooper shops around, looking for a dark blue jean jacket, (this year, Cooper is going for a Dylan McKay look. But he can’t tell his Mom that, because he’s technically not allowed to watch Beverly Hills, 90210.) thankful for the peace that Blaine being asleep gives him. He grabs a few pairs of jeans and some button down t shirts and heads for the fitting room. He’s going into middle school and that means that his parents have given him complete creative control over his wardrobe. For which Cooper is thankful, because if the way they’ve been dressing Blaine is any indication, they’ve got a thing for the Urkel look and no way will Cooper continue his reign as the most popular kid in school dressing like a complete nerd.
As Cooper stands in the dressing room, posing in the mirror, admiring his denim on denim style, there’s a bang on the door.
“Mom! You said I could do this myself, stop!”
There’s no response, just more banging. Suddenly, the door rattles and Cooper looks down to see Blaine crawling under the door, with his bottle in his hand.
“Coo!”
Cooper stomps his feet in frustration.
“I thought you were asleep!” He knows he’s whining, but if Blaine is allowed to ruin his life all the time, he’s allowed to whine about it.
“Coo! Milk!” Blaine hands Cooper his bottle and smiles at him.
“Blaine, I’m trying on clothes, go bother Mom.” Cooper refuses the bottle, Blaine pouts before crawling back under the door. Cooper goes back to posing in the mirror, trying his best brooding heartthrob expression.
***********
When Cooper comes out of the fitting room, he notices a few people gathered around the front of the store. He sees Blaine’s empty stroller in the corner but he doesn’t see his brother or their mom.
Cooper approaches the crowd and notices what all the commotion is. Blaine is sitting on the floor in the front of the store, and another little boy, around Blaine’s age with bright blue eyes and a bowtie is sitting on the floor with him and they’re yapping back and forth to each other, neither making much sense, a few actual words are being said, but for the most part, it’s just babies babbling. Cooper’s mom is talking to another woman, who Cooper assumes is the other baby’s mother.
Of course, Cooper thinks. Blaine is the only baby on Earth that can get the attention of an entire store just for playing with another baby. Cooper would be proud if he weren’t so jealous. Cooper has high hopes that Blaine will outgrow these attention growing tendencies.
Cooper waves at his Mom, who gestures for him to go get in line.
Cooper walks over to get in line, but looks back at his baby brother who’s offering his bottle to the other baby and smiles, he knows his brother is cute, even if he is a life ruiner.
After Cooper has paid for his clothes, he goes over to where Blaine is sitting and bends down to his level.
“Coo!” Blaine reaches out and boops Blaine on the nose.
“Say bye bye to your friend, Blainey.” Cooper picks Blaine up and Blaine waves at the other baby, who waves back.
“You’re gonna be pretty popular when you grow up, Blainey. Just like your big brother.” Cooper heads towards their Mom when someone taps him on the shoulder. He turns around to see a girl with long blonde hair standing behind him.
“Hi, Cooper.” She smiles, shyly.
“Frannie. Hi.” Cooper tries not to blush, but Frannie is one of the most popular girls in school and also one of the only ones who ever ignored him.
“Is that your baby brother?”
“Yeah. I watch out for him sometimes, my mom can’t keep up with him by herself.”
“He’s adorable. Can I hold him?” She reaches out for Blaine, who hides his face in Cooper’s shoulder.
“Oh, now you wanna be shy,” Cooper grumbles.
“How old is he? He’s so cute!” She reaches out and tickles Blaine’s belly, he tries to wiggle away from her.
“He’s one. He’s actually pretty advanced, he knows how to let himself out of his stroller, and his cries are pretty musical, he probably gets it from me.”
Frannie smiles and runs her fingers through Blaine’s curly hair.
“You’re going to Bellville Middle School, right?”
“Yeah. You too, right?” Frannie nods and smiles, and pushes her hair behind her ears.
“So, listen, Cooper, I know school starts in a couple of weeks, but I have a baby sister around your brother’s age, and sometimes I take her to the park while my mom’s at work. Maybe you can bring your brother and they could play together and we could hang out?”
Cooper hates taking Blaine to the park. He always ends up getting sand everywhere, including in his mouth, and then Cooper ends up having to give him a bath.
However, he would be able to start school having already hung out with Frannie Fabray. If he plays this right, he might be able to start school with a girlfriend. And he’d be the first one out of all his friends to have a girlfriend and a popular girlfriend at that.
“That would be cool. I could meet you at the park. Tomorrow.”
“I’d like that. I have to go, but I’ll see you tomorrow, Cooper.”
Frannie smiles coyly before walking away. Cooper waits until she’d turned the corner before hugging Blaine tightly. He grabs his little brother under his arms and tosses him in the air before catching him. Blaine laughs loudly, before burying his face in Cooper’s neck and wrapping his chubby arms around him. Cooper kisses Blaine’s cheek.
Baby brothers are ridiculous. They cry and poop a lot, and they get you in trouble and make you lose your high score on Pokemon Red. But they’re also adorable girl magnets. So while Cooper sometimes toys with the idea of putting Blaine in a box with airholes and shipping him to their grandmother in Manila, he thinks for once, Blaine might be worth keeping around. And if Frannie Fabray lets him hold her hand tomorrow, he’ll even teach Blaine some of what he knows.