“Did you make it to the potty on time at all today, honey?” His pull-up, peeking out from his unzipped fly, is completely soaked even though I know for sure that he didn’t have a real all-at-once accident.
“I think I couldn’t make it every time…” His legs shift on the closed lid of the toilet. I had to follow him into the bathroom and get him sitting down before he would let me look at his pull-up. I could still hear him saying, “no…don’t look!” in my head.
“You peed a little bit in your pants every time you were on your way to the bathroom?”
He nods, looking up at me with sad eyes and that worried little crease between his eyebrows.
“No wonder you were so reluctant to let me check you.”
He squirms. “It’s not because I peed myself. It was just a little bit every time.”
“Well, it doesn’t matter how it happened. You’re still soaked.” I stand him up to his feet. I pull his pants down to his ankles while he watches me, thumb in his mouth and fingers hooked around his nose.
I help him kick his pants off and straighten up, meeting his eyes. “Aw…”
His thumb comes out of his mouth. “What?”
“Nothing. You just looked cute.”
He frowns, lips pouty, and looks away.
I cup my hand over his pull-up and feel its weight, pushing it up against him. “This is absolutely drenched. How much did you use it every time you didn’t make it all the way?”
“I didn’t use it. I had little leaks in it.”
“And that’s different from using it because…?”
“Because it’s not all at once. I wasn’t using it; it was helping me when I couldn’t make it. It was like back-up.” Thumb is back in his mouth.
“Uh huh…okay…” I slip my fingers between the sides of the pull-up and his little hips, gently pulling it down.
I drop it in his diaper pail. Now he’s standing naked in the middle of the bathroom.
“Do you think you’re really ready for pull-ups, baby?”
“Do you think soaking your pull-up from little accidents all day means you’re ready? You don’t think it would be easier if you had a diaper?”
“You sure? It’s okay to ask for a diaper if it’s easier.” I reach up and smooth his hair. “It’s fine if you can’t make it, okay? You know that, right? I’m not expecting you to always hold it all the way. We both know you’re little.”
He puffs his chest up. “I don’t need you to not expect it from me! I can stay dry! I’m all ready.”
“I’m gonna stay dry this time. I can do it. It’s not even hard.”
“It isn’t hard? Even though you didn’t do it almost at all today?”
He shakes his head. “It’s not hard. I can do it just fine this time, and you’ll say how proud of me you are and you’ll let me buy new underwear.”
“Okay, sure. And the underwear won’t get ruined this time, I presume?”
“No, this time I’m gonna be a dry boy. All day.”
“You won’t miss diapers?”
“I might believe you more if your thumb wasn’t in your mouth.”
He doesn’t acknowledge this.
“Okay, baby, let me wipe you down and we’ll try a pull-up again. Do you want the boy style or the girl style?”
“Okay, sure.” I take a pull-up out of the box under the counter and then open the pack of wipes we keep on the counter by the sink.
He shakes his head. I finish up by rubbing lotion on him and then he pulls his pull-up on by himself.
We get him into pajamas that don’t have any little wet spots on them, unlike the pants he left on the bathroom floor, and I go to my bedroom to tidy up a little.
I hear him stand up and go to the kitchen. The cupboard opens and shuts and then I hear the fridge door.
As I’m walking over to the kitchen, I see his shape on the couch in my peripheral vision. He’s sitting on the couch and I’m pretty sure he’s picked out a sippy cup for himself. I open the cupboard and notice that there are plenty of clean glasses.
I shake some chips into a bowl for myself and then fill another bowl with dry cereal for him. He’s cozied up on the couch, watching old school Sesame Street with one hand between his legs and the other around the handle of his sippy cup.
“Nice choice of cup,” I say as I sit down and set the snacks on the coffee table, and he jumps a little, so invested in the show that he must not have noticed me come in.
“Oh, yeah, um, not a lot of stuff was clean.”
“That’s not true. There were plenty of clean glasses. The coke bottle one, and the one with the cow on it, and the Guinness monkey one, and…”
He turns red. “Stooop-uh. You’re distracting me from the show.”
“Stop chewing on it.” I force the sippy cup out of his hands and he whines. “So much whining. Am I meant to believe you’re really so big that you can keep that padding dry?” I push him gently in the shoulder.
“What are you drinking?” I take a little sip from his sippy cup.
“You’re getting cooties on it!” he protests, reaching out to try to get me to hand it back to him.
I lean over and wrap one hand around the back of his head, leaning in and kissing him briefly on the lips. “Is that cooties?”
He sinks into the couch, pulling his shirt over his mouth. “No…”
“Why not? Because you liked it?”
He shakes it off and grabs at the cup again. “Give me my juice back. Ugh, you’re going to make me have to rewind.”
I unscrew the lid from the sippy cup and take one more drink. “Apple and grape juice?”
“Mhm.” He reaches out again and I finally pass him the cup. “Ugggh, you unscrewed it. Screw the lid back on for me.” He shoves it back to me.
“My goodness. Somebody who can apparently keep his pants dry needs me to help him put his sippy cup back together?”
“You’re being very mouthy tonight. Do you want to keep that up?”
Now he looks a little guilty, chewing on one finger while I screw his cup back together. I pass it to him and he raises it to his lips immediately, starting to suck.
“There, that’s better. No more being naughty.” I decide to be kind and pick the remote up off the coffee table and rewind for him. “Is this where you were?”
He suddenly stands up, pulling a blanket off the couch with him, and sets his cup down on the table so fast that it tips over.
“Baby, that’ll roll off the table and spill,” I say, grabbing the cup and setting it upright. But he doesn’t say anything. He’s standing very still, one hand on his crotch.
“Uh-oh,” he says, eyes wide.
“What’s wrong? Ohh, are you peeing?”
He turns and starts to run towards the bathroom. “I can make it!” he yells.
I stand up and follow him. He’s standing in front of the toilet, pull-up around his thighs and a steady stream of pee hissing into the toilet bowl. I give his bare bottom a smack and then pull at the back of his pull-up.
“No! I made it! Look! I’m going in the toilet!”
“You’re finishing up in the toilet,” I correct him. “Was that what you call a ‘little leak’?”
“No! That one was bigger. He’s finished peeing and goes to pull his pull-up back up. “But it’s your fault! You made me distracted.”
“Hey, you’re not planning on just pulling that back up and wearing it, are you? That’s not happening. You’ll leak for sure.”
He whines as I pull it off and go for the wipes again. After I’ve cleaned him up I reach under the sink again, but it isn’t a pull-up that I’m holding when I stand back up.
“No!!” His eyes are wide and scared. “No!! I don’t need that! I don’t need to wear a diaper like a baby!”
“Evidence would suggest otherwise.” I grab his hand and lead him to the bedroom.
“No!! I’m not lying down! You can’t make me! I’m not putting that on!”
I push him onto the bed and he starts to cry.
“Oh my god, dude. Dramatic much? It’s literally just a diaper.” I push his legs up until I can see his bottom and give him a couple more smacks. He quiets down, thumb back in his mouth suck-suck-sucking. Little tear tracks run from his eyes to his chin.
He helps me holding his knees up so that I can diaper him properly. “Look at that good boy.”
“You’re good now? You’re going to be good and not bad anymore?”
He looks up at me, glassy-eyed.
“Let’s go back in the living room and finish that episode, okay, honey? And now you won’t need to worry if you have to go pee. You can just use your diaper!”
“Mhmm.” He squeezes my hand as I pull him up off the bed. I help him back into his pajamas and follow him to the couch.
It isn’t long before he hugs his knees to his chest, expression vacant and eyes unfocused on the tv, and I know he’s peeing himself again already.
“Comfier, isn’t it? Admit it.”
“Okay, fine,” he says quietly. “It’s more comfortable. And…and…I like it.”
