SilenceisGolden
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- Diaper Lover
Heartbreaking and yet I wait for more, good work
The Mystery of Disposition
- Thread starter apexv
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wetatnight
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Talk about embarrassing
more please
more please
LittleAcorn
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Good update - just the right amount of humiliation/embarrassment/shame for a diaper story.
Edit: loss of control too. My favorite diaper stories all involve a bit of embarrassment with some loss of control.
Edit: loss of control too. My favorite diaper stories all involve a bit of embarrassment with some loss of control.
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Chapter 7
The barely-wet diaper in the trash, Amy undressed and found what she needed for the shower. Then she spent the next 15 minutes feeling the warm, soothing water run over her before she'd done much besides wash her hair. Somehow the water seemed to be washing her frustrations and anxiety down the drain and she didn't really want that feeling to end. When she heard the bathroom door open and a few moments later close again, reality reared its ugly head. Deciding she should get to it, the rest of the shower went much faster and soon she was turning off the water and stepping out to dry off.
Amy noticed that a pile had appeared next to the towel she'd gotten for drying off. She found a t-shirt that looked altogether too big for her, a pair of shorts having the same problem, and...she couldn't believe it. At the bottom of the pile was one of JJ's pull-ups. Did Mrs. Chadwick seriously doubt her toilet training? No, this must be punishment for what Amy was putting her through. Still, this was too much. It was bad enough that she had exposed herself to the woman in a baby diaper clearly donned for the specific purpose to prevent a night time accident, but making her wear a pull-up during the day was just downright humiliating. As she was pondering this latest insult to her maturity, she heard a knock at the door. The woman was obviously checking to see how her punishment was being taken.
"Amy sweetheart, are you finished with your shower?" Her tone seemed roughly equivalent to how she'd acted back in the bedroom, so if there was malevolence, it wasn't overt. Maybe she put the pull-up in there by mistake.
"Umm, I guess so. I...did you mean to..."
"Are you asking about the pull-up honey?" She did mean to.
No response.
"Amy, I don't have any underwear that would fit you. I looked. And...I have to be honest honey, I'm a little afraid that if you are sitting on my good furniture and fall asleep we're going to have more messes. My husband is very particular about the house and I'm already worried about the bed so I can't deal with any more of this."
"I...I never have daytime accidents, Mrs. Chadwick. This...this is unfair to treat me like a toddler. What will JJ think?" Amy didn't know what else to say, but she knew she couldn't give up her underwear without a protest. However, Betty had already made up her mind.
"Oh don't you worry dear, I've thought about it already and I'd like you to try and wear the pull-up for me today. Ok sweetheart? Just think of it as underwear with a bit more padding just in case. JJ won't care, he thinks they're normal underwear and you don't have to show him if you don't want to."
"But they might not even fit!" Amy knew they probably would seeing as she'd barely fit one of JJ's diapers and the pull-ups were a noticeable step up in size on JJ but she had to try.
"Oh, well let's try for me and then we'll see honey."
Amy was staling for time, but she knew Betty's patience wouldn't last forever. She decided to go ahead and get it over with and grabbed the pull-up from the pile. It was the boy version which made them even worse, but at this point it was a small difference. She opened up the garment, and stepped inside her new toddler underwear for the day. As she suspected, the pull-up was snug, but otherwise felt like a smaller version of her Goodnites. Whereas the Goodnites came up past her waistline and had plenty of room with very little stretch, the pull-up rode slightly below her waistline and definitely felt closer to the diaper for fit. Unfortunately, she knew it wasn't tight enough to put up a huge fight, so she quickly threw on the shirt and pulled up the shorts, the latter of which she couldn't get to stay up so she held them in place while she opened the door to continue her protests.
"These shorts don't fit. Do you have anything smaller?" Amy's response was subdued and tentative as she hoped somehow to find a way out of her current situation. Having no obvious recourse, she simply felt the need to distract from her current undergarment since complaining hadn't worked so far.
"Let's see about the pull-up first sweetheart, you said it wouldn't fit?" Betty's tone was almost mocking of Amy's prior complaint, but her ever-present sugary-sweetness once again came out to be the predominate flavor of the conversation.
Amy let go of the over-sized shorts and let them fall to the ground with a large sigh, allowing the woman to claim victory.
"Oh, don't you look like a little tomboy!" Betty smiled, but then realized she'd taken things a bit too far for a moment. This was her way of lightheartedly dealing with things like this. "Oh, I'm sorry, I was just trying to get you to laugh dear. Those are snug, but they'll be ok for you today. I'm not sure what we're going to do about bottoms for you though..." Her voice trailed off as she pondered the situation. "Hmm, well I don't think my belts will fit you either. Well we can't have you running around the house like that, so let me go see what I can come up with..."
"Umm, can't I...just have my jeans back?" Amy hadn't thought that one through.
"Oh no, of course not, they're going to need to be washed. I can't have you sitting around the house in peed clothes, that would just defeat the whole purpose of getting you cleaned up, now wouldn't it?" Betty chuckled at herself before continuing, "I'll start a load right away, but I need to get you taken care of first. Just wait, I'll be back as soon as I find you something sweetheart."
As she watched Betty walk back down the hallway, Amy realized that for the entire morning, and especially in that conversation, she'd been made to feel more like a late potty-training kindergartner than a teenager. Betty's tone and word choice had changed into something between her usual tone with Amy and the tone she used with her son. It was clear that Amy wasn't being punished by wearing the pull-up, but that Betty genuinely believed this was the best thing for her to wear right now as a girl with questionable control of her bladder.
Now that Betty had disappeared, Amy wasn't sure what she was supposed to do, but standing in the hallway outside the bathroom for an unspecified amount of time wearing a baggy shirt and pull-up seemed like a silly idea, so she turned to walk back to her room. Even though the shirt came a few inches below the bottom of the pull-up, she didn't feel comfortable being seen, so sitting alone in her room seemed to be the safest option. As she reached out to open the door, she heard JJ's door open and little feet shuffling towards her. She turned and saw her little friend come around the corner, holding a stuffed bear and smiling at her before a slightly confused look spread across his face.
"Mommy change your diaper?" JJ looked inquisitively at Amy, still trying to reconcile this new development in his world. In his mind, Amy changed his diapers and pull-ups, so in some ways she was a grown up like his mommy. However, he'd seen her with wet pants and going to the bathroom wearing a diaper, so she must be a kid like him too. He didn't know how that worked, but he was trying to figure it out as best he could.
"Oh, ummm...no JJ, I don't wear diapers, that was just a one time thing." Amy saw the young boy wasn't understanding this explanation, so she tried again. "I have accidents at night sometimes JJ, like you do, so I wear big girl pull-ups to bed when I'm at home. My mommy couldn't pick me up last night after you went to bed, so I had to sleep here, but I didn't have any pull-ups so I borrowed one of your diapers but it didn't work." She could see he understood a little more.
"Amy you can have my pull-ups for night nights!" JJ beamed at the opportunity to help his friend Amy who had helped him before many times and played with him when his mommy and daddy were gone. He at least understood she didn't need diapers like he did sometimes, so she must still be older than him and kind of like his mommy. But she still needed big kid pull-ups like him, so she was a kid too.
Amy cringed at JJ's offer of his pull-ups, knowing she was already wearing a pair but the over-sized t-shirt was barely covering them. She debated on just telling JJ about the pull-ups, but decided she'd let him believe that she only used his pull-ups at night since he seemed tentatively settled on that idea.
"Thank you JJ, that's very sweet of you honey. Now, go ahead and play and I'll see you a little later, ok?" Amy turned to go into the room and await her lower coverings.
"But Amy! You never seen my houses!" The pleading look of little boy cuteness always persuaded her, and this time was no different. She turned and let him take her hand to drag her off to the playroom. As they entered, she could see a mess of Legos in several areas and one middle section with crude structures, each having two stuffed animals nearby. She listened as the boy explained each house and each make-believe couple that was going to move into each house. All the while, she was looking at the sea of pieces which caused her mind to wander off into a Lego-building fantasy. She had enjoyed helping JJ build yesterday, and the events of this morning had left her begging for a distraction. Legos were, in fact, about the best thing to hold Amy's attention for endless hours. Before long, Amy was sitting on the floor with JJ, starting to put together some of her own creations, all the while showing him new tricks and asking him for help in constructing a massive resort for all the animal couples to come and visit when they wanted a vacation.
Meanwhile, Betty had looked through all the old clothes she could think of, and hadn't found anything close to Amy's size. The fact of the matter was that Betty was a slightly overweight woman of 40 and Amy was a slightly petite girl of 16. Their clothing sizes and styles were very far apart. Betty did have some clothes from 20 years ago that might have fit Amy, but after JJ was born she'd realized the large amount of baby weight had put her hopelessly far from ever fitting into those clothes again. Instead of entertaining wishful thinking, she purged her wardrobe and gave everything that didn't fit to the local Goodwill. At this point, the only option she had that might work was an old pair sweat pants of her husbands with a waist string for tightening. However, the pair looked terrible and smelled of the garage where she'd found them in a bin of work clothes.
As Betty reluctantly took the sad pair of pants up the stairs, she could hear giggling and chatter in JJ's playroom. Deciding to peak in on them and observe, she could see Amy sitting on the floor next to JJ building something with the Legos. She also noticed that Amy had used the long t-shirt like a tent covering over her enough to completely hide the pull-up. Seeing that the two of them appeared to be having a great time playing together, she decided to leave well enough alone. Rather than introduce yet another struggle into the morning by making Amy wear some ratty old pants, she figured as long as her husband was gone and Amy was content to be upstairs playing with her son, it wouldn't hurt to forgo the pants for now. Amy's own clothes would be cleaned and dried in a couple of hours anyway.
As Betty looked at the clock, she noticed that it was nearly 10:00am and she hadn't heard from Meredith yet on when she'd be coming to pick up Amy. She decided to call and see if there was any progress on the car situation.
"Hello, Meredith?"
"Yes, how are you Betty...I hope Amy isn't being too much of a hassle since I know she really wanted to come home last night."
"Well it's been an interesting morning dearie, but Amy is doing alright. I was wondering though how the car situation is working out, have you gotten the lock taken care of yet?"
"Actually I just got off the phone with that friend of mine that told me about this fix-it man last night. Apparently, he's helping a neighbor install a garage door opener and he's going to come help me as soon as he's done. No time estimate I'm afraid, but how long can it take to install one of those things?"
"Well Amy will be fine here until you can come to pick her up. Just if you would Meredith, let me know if it's looking like dinner time or later."
"Oh my I certainly hope not. If it goes that long, I'll try and get someone else to pick her up. I feel bad enough imposing on you this long. And I'm sorry, but I have to ask, was there something that happened this morning that was my Amy's fault? It sounded like..."
"I'll catch you up later on that Meredith. I've handled it for now dear."
"I don't like the sound of that Betty, but we'll talk about it later then. Thank you again, I'll update you as soon as I know something."
"Of course, thank you dearie. Bye now."
She didn't want to admit it, but Betty was somewhat annoyed with Meredith and if she had to cast blame for the wetting situation she would put the blame solely on the shoulders of Meredith, not Amy. It was clear that Amy knew this might happen and tried to handle it with one of JJ's diapers, so that meant that Meredith obviously was aware of the problem and failed to tell her about it the night before. She suspected that Meredith either was totally oblivious, or intentionally didn't say anything for fear Amy wouldn't be allowed to stay the night.
Despite Amy's ability to keep track of a 3-year-old for a few hours and take care of his basic needs, this situation only further established in Betty's mind that Amy was still a child and one who had parents of questionable character and standards, at least where Meredith was concerned. She further supposed Amy's wetting was a product of her parents' fighting or otherwise not providing a home life conducive for a child to grow and mature within. As children are reflections of their parents, when children misbehave or fail to mature properly, she believed ultimately the parents were largely to blame. Yes, in only a few moments, Betty supposed she had the whole thing figured out.
As for Amy, she wouldn't punish her for this situation by ending the babysitting relationship. She'd spoken with the cleaning company and they were fairly certain a wetting of the size she described could be cleaned today without much harm to the mattress, so she wasn't as worried about that anymore. However, she would insist that if Amy was to babysit again into the later parts of the evening, she was to wear a pull-up diaper in case she fell asleep or had to sleep over again. If Amy wouldn't agree to that, she'd unfortunately have to find someone else. She continued to ponder the situation as she started a load of laundry including Amy's peed clothes.
While the women were talking and Betty was solving the world's problems, Amy had completely warmed up to playing Legos with JJ. She was back to her old self of 12, totally immersed in building and tweaking her creations, only this time she had a little playmate with her. For his part, JJ was eating up the attention, considering that his mom did lots of things with him, but rarely played with him directly. His dad on the other hand constantly looked for ways to teach him things and even sat down with him one night using Legos to demonstrate how certain things worked. Most of it was way over the little guy's head, and somehow Amy was the perfect blend of teacher and playmate. He couldn't get enough.
Amy was incredibly focused on the engineering problem of their second floor in the resort and how she was going to allow them to have a second floor closing off some access to the first floor while still being able to put little Lego people down there. She decided on making the second floor a partial floor with a balcony-like design so they could still see and interact with the people on the bottom floor. As she got up to get some extra flooring pieces she saw across the room, she gave JJ a view of her crotch and the pull-up she was wearing. Up until now, she'd been using the big shirt to cover her like a tent, but this time JJ saw the pull-up and like any young child he needed to point such things out.
"Amy, you wearing pull-ups?"
"Oh, ummm yeah. Your mommy said I should." Amy thought briefly about explaining that she didn't have dry underwear, but right now it didn't seem to matter. JJ was in a pull-up and so was she, and they were having fun building an awesome resort. Before, she'd been worried he'd think less of her, but the look on his face just confirmed he was only curious and didn't care what she was wearing. JJ thought she was awesome, and short of her daddy, she didn't think anyone else in the world shared that opinion right now. And besides all that, she knew his mommy insisted Amy should wear one "just in case" anyway, so after this morning's events she hardly felt like arguing. Playing with Legos was so much more fun than dealing with adults and their criticisms and all the ways she was required to please them. Amy was content to ignore the adult world for today and instead play with her little buddy JJ until her mother decided to show up.
"It's ok Amy, I wearing pull-ups too." The little boy smiled and patted Amy on the leg. Yes, he still loved her and didn't care if she wore underwear, diapers, or pull-ups. That was the kind of love she wished other people in the world had, and at this moment she didn't really feel the need to further explain to him that she didn't need to wear pull-ups for daytime.
As the morning wore on, she realized that they'd been playing for a while and Betty had never returned with pants for her to wear. It seemed odd that she'd not have a single pair of pants in the house that could fit her, but as she looked over at JJ intently connecting a series of pieces together, she saw that he was wearing only a shirt and pull-up just like her. "I guess she doesn't think I need them." Amy thought. It only further served to frustrate her about the situation. Not only did Betty think Amy had reason to be wearing pull-ups during the day, but she was content to leave her dressed like her toddler son as well.
Though she didn't realize what was happening, Amy was beginning to feel the same sort of frustration she had felt with her mother over the years when her mother treated her like she couldn't make any decisions for herself and didn't trust her with responsibility. Meredith had claimed Amy needed to earn the responsibility, but Amy often felt the standards were out of her reach so she just gave up, and instead fought her mother to get attention by acting out. Now in her mind, Betty was both controlling the entire situation and insisting that Amy couldn't make a single decision for herself. It wasn't her fault, but no one seemed to understand that! If only her mother hadn't left her there to fend for herself with no Goodnites on top of everything...
JJ noticed that Amy was losing interest in their Lego dream resort and he gently poked her with a little person. "Amy, hey. Hey. Amy!" He persisted until she turned her head towards him.
"Yes JJ, what's up little guy?"
"Umm...let's play?" He smiled all too cutely and held up a whole section of wall he'd built just like she'd shown him.
"Oh, good job buddy!" The little boy had succeeded in pulling Amy back into the Lego world for the moment. They continued to finish the second floor and started talking about more floors or perhaps constructing other buildings for their resort. Finally, they settled on other buildings, since Amy didn't want to have to make yet another difficult engineering decision just yet.
Amy suggested that JJ should put the next building together himself using some of the new techniques she'd taught him. She especially hoped to get him to stop his bad habit of stacking 2s on top of each other, building unsteady walls that weren't tightly locking to provide stability. "I'm gonna check that when you're done silly boy." Amy giggled and tickled him a bit.
"Teehee Amy stop it. Hehehe!" He continued giggling and she continued tickling, enjoying seeing him squirming to get away from her loving torture. Then she noticed his eyes widened slightly and he stopped wiggling the same way, so she stopped as well.
"What's wrong buddy, did I hurt you?" She hoped she hadn't made him fall on a rough edge of a Lego piece or something, but she didn't see any tears.
"I went pee pee. Oopsies." The boy had a slight frown on his face that told Amy what she suspected was true. Betty had always said "Oopsies" when he had an accident, so he'd copied her for the longest time and it was usually a clear indicator that JJ had had a genuine accident and hadn't just gotten too busy playing.
"It's ok buddy, that was probably my fault for tickling you so much. Let me see how much you went." JJ crawled over into her lap and she felt the front of the pull-up for wetness. "Not too bad kiddo, do you still have to go?"
"No! I wanna build!" Clearly excited by the prospect of building something totally for Amy's approval, he set about to create another building for the resort. Normally as the babysitter, Amy would have dutifully taken JJ to the potty to make sure he'd actually completely emptied his bladder, but right now she didn't feel much like a babysitter, and she instead felt like JJ should get to do something he wanted to do instead of following every silly little rule.
Shortly thereafter, Betty came up with a healthy brunch of bananas and peanut butter along with a sippy cup of milk for JJ and a water bottle converted to a milk bottle for Amy, for which she gave a funny look when Betty handed it to her.
"Unless you want yours in a sippy too honey, that's all I have for your drink other than glasses. There's really no flat surfaces here and I'm uncomfortable with you two playing and accidentally knocking glasses of milk over onto the carpet." Amy could mostly see the reasoning, but it still felt like she wasn't trusted, despite any good sense behind it. Betty left, and the two ate their food and drank their milk while continuing to play.
For the next hour, they built several extra resort buildings and Amy inspected JJ's building. She saw much room for improvement, but taking his age into consideration, she showered him with praise and enjoyed watching his beaming response to her accolades.
Soon it became time to determine what each part of the resort would be used for. Amy had already been thinking about this, but she wanted her building partner's input. Much of it was unrealistic (a zoo next to the bedrooms?), but she tried to incorporate as many of his ideas into the project as she could. She was intently focused on making sure that every detail was correct and factoring in JJ's input that she barely noticed the building pressure in her bladder until she shifted around to take a look at the far side of the main building.
She knew she could hold it for a little while longer, but the discomfort was distracting her from the important decisions she was responsible for making. She was afraid that leaving now she'd lose her ideas and JJ might also lose interest, so she held on for a few more minutes before an impulse popped into her head that hadn't for a long time.
Not only did she want to stay focused on their project, but in the back of her mind in a place she had temporarily repressed with Legos, she was still very frustrated with the whole day's situation. She'd done everything she knew how to please her mother and JJ's mother, and still she was being treated like a child and the only one giving her any attention and consideration was a 3-year-old. The impulse to do something to get an adult's attention came back to her much the same way she'd gotten her mother's attention over the years by punishing her with wet beds. Betty had put her in pull-ups, ignoring her insistence that she didn't need them during the day. Yet, she was expected to stay dry and be a big girl even though she was being treated like a little girl with a similar level of consideration.
All of these thoughts were only partially processing in the front of Amy's head while she continued to plan and build with JJ. She half-consciously decided that it was ok to be a little girl today since no one seemed to think otherwise anyway. She even started hoping her pull-up would leak and Betty would have to clean up the mess. If she complained, Amy would just act the part that Betty was already creating for her.
A few minutes later, the pang of a full bladder returned, and Amy decided to just let it happen. Instead of clamping down when the next wave hit, she made a half-hearted attempt to close off the impending flood. Soon, Amy felt the trickle of her little girl act warming the pull-up. She continued to put roof pieces together and examine the resort, albeit with a slightly distracted, distant look in her eyes that was too subtle for JJ to pick up on. She finished sooner than she expected, and when she moved from her previous spot on the floor, she didn't notice any wetness, causing a small frown to spread across her face. No matter, it meant more play time with JJ.
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It was now 1:00 in the afternoon and Meredith still didn't have any options for getting her car unlocked. Apparently this handy man was slow as well as free.
She decided to give Betty a call to let her know she was going to try and get her sister-in-law to pick Amy up. The conversation with Betty was short, but the call to her brother and sister-in-law resulted in a 20 minute conversation about family matters before Meredith could even ask for the favor she had called for. When she did, she was frustrated that her sister-in-law made up some far-fetched excuse about her back bothering her and not wanting to drive for a few days. Apparently her brother was with his daughter Tara at some party and couldn't be torn away from that either, so that left her with two options. Either she waited on the free option, or quickly paid for someone before it became off-hours again. She decided to wait.
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Amy had been sitting in a peed pull-up for nearly two hours. Every once in a while she noticed the clammy feeling on her skin, but she ignored it. She'd never worn a wet Goodnite this long after waking up, so the slightly cold and squishy feeling was a new experience. For that matter, the last couple of times she'd woken up wet, she'd actually noticed that, apart from the frustration of wetting beyond her control, she actually found the Goodnite to be almost cozy, and the squishy feeling against her girl parts was oddly...nice. The pull-up had been even squishier since she'd wet it significantly more than her Goodnites, and she'd caught herself wiggling on the floor enjoying the feeling of the soaked pull-up against her. But that feeling was fading the longer she sat there, being replaced with a clammy lump.
She was debating on changing herself, since she was getting uncomfortable and her plan to annoy Betty was starting to seem like less of a good idea. Her teen mind had again failed to think through things and now she couldn't decide what she should do. Amy was also suspecting that Betty might still be expecting her to continue to babysit free for the day and take care of JJ and any pull-ups he might need, which she hadn't. She didn't have any idea what Betty expected as far as her own pull-up. Another few minutes making some patio furniture near the resort pool, and then she'd take care of both their pull-ups.
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The cleaning crew had left shortly after 1:00 and it was now nearly 2:00. Betty knew it was going to be a late lunch, but she still felt like serving lunch even if dinner was at 6. She hadn't checked in on the kids for several hours, but she knew they'd be fine together considering Amy was babysitting after all. This allowed her to enjoy some personal time after the cleaning crew visit. As she was heating up soup, she considered whether or not Amy would be handling JJ's potty needs considering her own episode. For that matter, she briefly thought to make sure Amy was dry, but she quickly dismissed that thought as silly, realizing the pull-up was really just Amy's underwear for the day and a remote precautionary measure. She determined to check JJ for herself, however, when she went up to call the kids down for lunch in a few minutes.
The soup was set out on the table to cool and the rest of the table was set including JJ's booster seat. Heading upstairs, she heard the familiar sound of her son's giggles and Amy's chatter indicating the two of them were still very much enjoying the Legos. As she entered the room, they were so focused that it took them a second to even look up at her, but finally JJ bounced with excitement, wanting to tell his mommy about all the amazing things they had built together.
Betty took this opportunity to announce that it was time for a potty break which meant a pull-up check. JJ immediately began to whine.
"I don't wanna, wanna play pweeeease mommy..." He started picking up Legos, thinking by doing so his mommy would just ignore her previous idea of potty time and move on with life. His 3-year-old hopes were quickly dashed.
"No JJ, it's time for you to be a good little boy and come to mommy sweetheart." Betty was caring, but stern.
"I don't wanna, do Amy first!" He hadn't meant to throw his best buddy under the bus, but he just had. Amy blushed suddenly, and Betty assumed it was because she was embarrassed that JJ knew about her pull-ups and was pointing it out. However, she also saw a quick opportunity to show JJ that Amy was dry and get back to taking care of her little man who appeared to be wet. Betty stepped up the sugar in what she meant as a show intended for JJ.
"Ok, come here Amy honey, let me check your pull-up to see if you went pee pees." Betty gave a slight knowing look at Amy, assuming she'd realize it was a show intended for JJ. However, Amy's reaction was far from what Betty expected.
"No, I'm dry...I didn't go pee pee Mrs. Chadwick." Amy knew that came out sounding silly, but she was focusing on not crying or appearing guilty and the events of the morning combined with the last four hours of playing Legos with a 3-year-old and wetting her pull-up had moved her solidly out of her babysitter role. Suddenly she felt every bit the guilty child in a wet pull-up.
"Amy dear it's ok, I just need to make sure you're dry...and then you can get right back to playing." Once again, the show and tone were for JJ's benefit, but Amy still showed a pouty look of frustration and worry she was unable to hide, despite looking away from Betty and idly keeping her hands busy with Legos.
"Check JJ first, you said you would start with him!" Amy burst out, moments from tears. She was returning the favor to JJ who had ratted her out.
Betty didn't understand why the girl wasn't catching on. At this point, she figured she'd have to go check her anyway or JJ would call foul for letting her off, but as soon as Amy was pronounced dry she'd be back to JJ and Amy's confusion would be cleared up.
Betty moved over to Amy and knelt down beside her, quickly lifting up one edge of the large shirt to reveal the pull-up before Amy could react. When she saw the bulge of a soaked pull-up, the woman was first surprised and then suddenly understanding of why Amy was reacting as she was. Betty wasn't completely sure what to think of this development, but somehow the jump from bedwetter to pants-wetter wasn't much of a stretch for her. What she had was a child with a wetting problem, and her mothering was always quick to kick in any time the situation required it.
"Oh dear honey, it seems you did go pee pee. Let's get you changed Amy." Betty reached out her hand for the girl to take, but Amy pulled her hand back and folded both her arms in defiance.
"I didn't go pee pee!" Amy knew it sounded stupid, but for some reason she had to contradict everything this woman was saying.
"Amy dear, I've seen many wet diapers and pull-ups, and I know what they look like. I know it's been a rough day for you and you probably were so focused on playing with JJ that you didn't notice you had to go so bad, right?"
Desperately needing an out and frustrated at her lack of forethought, Amy's clouded head saw this as the out she needed. Certainly she couldn't tell the woman that she could have made it to the bathroom if she had really wanted to. Looking slowly up to Betty with a tear in her eye, she nodded slowly before putting her head back down.
"It's ok sweetheart, I'm just glad now that I decided to have you wear pull-ups today. Now, are you going to be a big girl and come with me for a change?" Betty wasn't completely aware of her tone and word choice, but subconsciously she'd further re-categorized Amy and now spoke to her much as she would a child struggling with her potty training.
Amy knew in the back of her mind that something wasn't right, but she was too lost in the situation to put it all together. Truth be told, she was sick of this clammy diaper. She wanted out of it and Betty was taking her to get changed. As they entered JJ's room, Betty walked over to the changing table and reached underneath for a fresh pull-up, a tube of cream, and the baby wipes.
"Now honey, I know you know how to do this, so I'll leave you to it. Make sure you wipe yourself clean and put cream on so you don't get a rash, ok?"
"Yes ma'am." Amy answered without much thought and took the objects before looking them over. She'd used them many times for JJ, but never for herself. At this point, it didn't much matter...she wanted out of this pull-up and she was getting her wish, albeit not in the way she had originally envisioned.
She removed the sodden garment, letting it fall to the floor before grabbing some wipes and cleaning herself. Finally, after applying salve, she opened up the new, dry pull-up and stepped into it. As she was turning to leave, Betty came into the room carrying JJ towards the changing table. Amy continued walking and was almost out of the room when she heard...
"Amy! Is this where we put our dirty pull-ups?" She raised her voice and pointed to the floor where Amy's wet pull-up had fallen. Amy had meant to pick it up after cleaning herself, but the whole experience was very new for her and she'd forgotten.
"I'm...I'm sorry, I'll get it." She moved towards the changing table, but Betty had already grabbed up the used pull-up and added it to the diaper pail.
"It's ok honey, you did a good job changing yourself after your accident, I'm sorry for yelling at you." Betty's frustration quickly subsided and she hoped the small apology would make Amy know she wasn't angry with her. "Lunch is ready Amy, we'll be down as soon as we get JJ all cleaned up."
Amy nodded and headed downstairs. Though only a small bit of praise from Betty, it made Amy feel good to be praised for something in her entire time at the Chadwick house. She entered the dining room and found a spot at the table. Soon, everyone was sitting at the table and they had a relatively uneventful lunch, though Amy certainly enjoyed Betty's cooking. After lunch, the phone rang and Betty went to answer it. A moment after answering, she covered the phone with her hand, asking Amy to help clean JJ up and indicating that the two of them could go back upstairs and play.
It was Amy's mom on the phone telling Betty that she'd be over around 5:00 to pick Amy up. After a brief exchange of details over the locked car situation, the conversation ended and Betty went about her household duties. The children played a while longer and at 4:00 Betty went up to check on them. Without the fanfare of last time, she checked JJ who was still dry, but instructed him to use the potty just in case, and she followed him there to help him if he needed it. Once they were back, Betty asked Amy to come into the room she'd slept in for a few moments, leaving JJ to play by himself for a bit.
When they entered, Betty took Amy over to the stripped bed and showed her the cleaned mattress.
"The cleaning crew did a fine job...they said it's as good as new, so you don't have to worry."
"Oh, I'm glad it's ok...I didn't want to ruin anything Mrs. Chadwick."
"I know honey, you couldn't help it. And I did want to talk to you about a few things. But first, are you dry? Please tell me the truth Amy, I shouldn't have to check a big girl like you if you have an accident."
"No, I'm dry...promise."
"Ok, that's good to know. Amy honey, I have to be honest that I'm a little concerned about you continuing to babysit JJ after today." She could see the look of dread and frustration spreading over the girl's face, just as she added: "But as long as you obey a few rules for me, I think we can allow you to keep watching JJ for now." Amy's eyes lit up immediately.
"What's that?"
"Well, you seem to know that you're a bedwetter at least since you tried to use one of JJ's diapers, so I assume you wear diapers at home, is that right?"
"Umm, I wear Goodnites to bed, they're like pull-ups."
"Yes honey, I'm familiar with them and they probably fit you better than JJ's pull-ups, right?"
Amy nodded.
"Ok, well you know the house rules about keeping things in as good or better shape than when you left. So that means we can't have any accidents on our carpets or furniture. So from now on, if you want to come over to watch JJ, you'll need be wearing your Goodnites and bringing a change or two in case you have trouble making it to the potty or have to stay overnight."
Amy wasn't sure what her parents would think about this, but she was sure they would be hearing about the day's events anyway, so it seemed like something there was no point in fighting if she could still keep the job.
"I guess that'll be ok."
"Very good then, and there's one more thing I want to make clear. You need to be good about changing yourself if you wet. Check yourself every time you check JJ in case you don't notice your accident when it happens. You need to make sure you do, because the next time something gets soaked honey...I won't be able to continue letting you watch JJ."
"Yes ma'am." Amy wasn't thinking too much about the rules, she just wanted to say what she needed to say to keep the job and she now realized just how close her little stunt had been to getting her fired. But at this point, if she'd been told to juggle kittens to keep the job, she'd probably have agreed to it regardless of whether or not she could make good on her promise. Not only did she need the money, but she'd had more fun today than she'd had in months and she didn't want to give that up either.
"Well then, your mother will be here in 45 minutes, so why don't you put these on and go play with JJ until she gets here." Following her direction to the chair in the corner, Amy noticed her jeans and underwear neatly folded and sitting on the chair. Taking the items, she moved to the bathroom to change.
"Oh and Amy, please leave that pull-up on until you leave...just in case, ok sweetie?"
"Ok, yes ma'am." Again, Amy wasn't really listening, just acknowledging. She had half a mind to ignore her and leave the pull-up off knowing she wouldn't have another "accident" today, but with the off-chance that Betty decided to check her, she didn't want to risk immediately losing the job either.
Soon 5:00 rolled around and Amy was saying her goodbyes to JJ. A few moments after, Amy got into her mother's car and they headed home. Just as they were merging onto the highway, Meredith broke the silence.
"So honey, did you have any problems with your bedwetting last night?"
The barely-wet diaper in the trash, Amy undressed and found what she needed for the shower. Then she spent the next 15 minutes feeling the warm, soothing water run over her before she'd done much besides wash her hair. Somehow the water seemed to be washing her frustrations and anxiety down the drain and she didn't really want that feeling to end. When she heard the bathroom door open and a few moments later close again, reality reared its ugly head. Deciding she should get to it, the rest of the shower went much faster and soon she was turning off the water and stepping out to dry off.
Amy noticed that a pile had appeared next to the towel she'd gotten for drying off. She found a t-shirt that looked altogether too big for her, a pair of shorts having the same problem, and...she couldn't believe it. At the bottom of the pile was one of JJ's pull-ups. Did Mrs. Chadwick seriously doubt her toilet training? No, this must be punishment for what Amy was putting her through. Still, this was too much. It was bad enough that she had exposed herself to the woman in a baby diaper clearly donned for the specific purpose to prevent a night time accident, but making her wear a pull-up during the day was just downright humiliating. As she was pondering this latest insult to her maturity, she heard a knock at the door. The woman was obviously checking to see how her punishment was being taken.
"Amy sweetheart, are you finished with your shower?" Her tone seemed roughly equivalent to how she'd acted back in the bedroom, so if there was malevolence, it wasn't overt. Maybe she put the pull-up in there by mistake.
"Umm, I guess so. I...did you mean to..."
"Are you asking about the pull-up honey?" She did mean to.
No response.
"Amy, I don't have any underwear that would fit you. I looked. And...I have to be honest honey, I'm a little afraid that if you are sitting on my good furniture and fall asleep we're going to have more messes. My husband is very particular about the house and I'm already worried about the bed so I can't deal with any more of this."
"I...I never have daytime accidents, Mrs. Chadwick. This...this is unfair to treat me like a toddler. What will JJ think?" Amy didn't know what else to say, but she knew she couldn't give up her underwear without a protest. However, Betty had already made up her mind.
"Oh don't you worry dear, I've thought about it already and I'd like you to try and wear the pull-up for me today. Ok sweetheart? Just think of it as underwear with a bit more padding just in case. JJ won't care, he thinks they're normal underwear and you don't have to show him if you don't want to."
"But they might not even fit!" Amy knew they probably would seeing as she'd barely fit one of JJ's diapers and the pull-ups were a noticeable step up in size on JJ but she had to try.
"Oh, well let's try for me and then we'll see honey."
Amy was staling for time, but she knew Betty's patience wouldn't last forever. She decided to go ahead and get it over with and grabbed the pull-up from the pile. It was the boy version which made them even worse, but at this point it was a small difference. She opened up the garment, and stepped inside her new toddler underwear for the day. As she suspected, the pull-up was snug, but otherwise felt like a smaller version of her Goodnites. Whereas the Goodnites came up past her waistline and had plenty of room with very little stretch, the pull-up rode slightly below her waistline and definitely felt closer to the diaper for fit. Unfortunately, she knew it wasn't tight enough to put up a huge fight, so she quickly threw on the shirt and pulled up the shorts, the latter of which she couldn't get to stay up so she held them in place while she opened the door to continue her protests.
"These shorts don't fit. Do you have anything smaller?" Amy's response was subdued and tentative as she hoped somehow to find a way out of her current situation. Having no obvious recourse, she simply felt the need to distract from her current undergarment since complaining hadn't worked so far.
"Let's see about the pull-up first sweetheart, you said it wouldn't fit?" Betty's tone was almost mocking of Amy's prior complaint, but her ever-present sugary-sweetness once again came out to be the predominate flavor of the conversation.
Amy let go of the over-sized shorts and let them fall to the ground with a large sigh, allowing the woman to claim victory.
"Oh, don't you look like a little tomboy!" Betty smiled, but then realized she'd taken things a bit too far for a moment. This was her way of lightheartedly dealing with things like this. "Oh, I'm sorry, I was just trying to get you to laugh dear. Those are snug, but they'll be ok for you today. I'm not sure what we're going to do about bottoms for you though..." Her voice trailed off as she pondered the situation. "Hmm, well I don't think my belts will fit you either. Well we can't have you running around the house like that, so let me go see what I can come up with..."
"Umm, can't I...just have my jeans back?" Amy hadn't thought that one through.
"Oh no, of course not, they're going to need to be washed. I can't have you sitting around the house in peed clothes, that would just defeat the whole purpose of getting you cleaned up, now wouldn't it?" Betty chuckled at herself before continuing, "I'll start a load right away, but I need to get you taken care of first. Just wait, I'll be back as soon as I find you something sweetheart."
As she watched Betty walk back down the hallway, Amy realized that for the entire morning, and especially in that conversation, she'd been made to feel more like a late potty-training kindergartner than a teenager. Betty's tone and word choice had changed into something between her usual tone with Amy and the tone she used with her son. It was clear that Amy wasn't being punished by wearing the pull-up, but that Betty genuinely believed this was the best thing for her to wear right now as a girl with questionable control of her bladder.
Now that Betty had disappeared, Amy wasn't sure what she was supposed to do, but standing in the hallway outside the bathroom for an unspecified amount of time wearing a baggy shirt and pull-up seemed like a silly idea, so she turned to walk back to her room. Even though the shirt came a few inches below the bottom of the pull-up, she didn't feel comfortable being seen, so sitting alone in her room seemed to be the safest option. As she reached out to open the door, she heard JJ's door open and little feet shuffling towards her. She turned and saw her little friend come around the corner, holding a stuffed bear and smiling at her before a slightly confused look spread across his face.
"Mommy change your diaper?" JJ looked inquisitively at Amy, still trying to reconcile this new development in his world. In his mind, Amy changed his diapers and pull-ups, so in some ways she was a grown up like his mommy. However, he'd seen her with wet pants and going to the bathroom wearing a diaper, so she must be a kid like him too. He didn't know how that worked, but he was trying to figure it out as best he could.
"Oh, ummm...no JJ, I don't wear diapers, that was just a one time thing." Amy saw the young boy wasn't understanding this explanation, so she tried again. "I have accidents at night sometimes JJ, like you do, so I wear big girl pull-ups to bed when I'm at home. My mommy couldn't pick me up last night after you went to bed, so I had to sleep here, but I didn't have any pull-ups so I borrowed one of your diapers but it didn't work." She could see he understood a little more.
"Amy you can have my pull-ups for night nights!" JJ beamed at the opportunity to help his friend Amy who had helped him before many times and played with him when his mommy and daddy were gone. He at least understood she didn't need diapers like he did sometimes, so she must still be older than him and kind of like his mommy. But she still needed big kid pull-ups like him, so she was a kid too.
Amy cringed at JJ's offer of his pull-ups, knowing she was already wearing a pair but the over-sized t-shirt was barely covering them. She debated on just telling JJ about the pull-ups, but decided she'd let him believe that she only used his pull-ups at night since he seemed tentatively settled on that idea.
"Thank you JJ, that's very sweet of you honey. Now, go ahead and play and I'll see you a little later, ok?" Amy turned to go into the room and await her lower coverings.
"But Amy! You never seen my houses!" The pleading look of little boy cuteness always persuaded her, and this time was no different. She turned and let him take her hand to drag her off to the playroom. As they entered, she could see a mess of Legos in several areas and one middle section with crude structures, each having two stuffed animals nearby. She listened as the boy explained each house and each make-believe couple that was going to move into each house. All the while, she was looking at the sea of pieces which caused her mind to wander off into a Lego-building fantasy. She had enjoyed helping JJ build yesterday, and the events of this morning had left her begging for a distraction. Legos were, in fact, about the best thing to hold Amy's attention for endless hours. Before long, Amy was sitting on the floor with JJ, starting to put together some of her own creations, all the while showing him new tricks and asking him for help in constructing a massive resort for all the animal couples to come and visit when they wanted a vacation.
Meanwhile, Betty had looked through all the old clothes she could think of, and hadn't found anything close to Amy's size. The fact of the matter was that Betty was a slightly overweight woman of 40 and Amy was a slightly petite girl of 16. Their clothing sizes and styles were very far apart. Betty did have some clothes from 20 years ago that might have fit Amy, but after JJ was born she'd realized the large amount of baby weight had put her hopelessly far from ever fitting into those clothes again. Instead of entertaining wishful thinking, she purged her wardrobe and gave everything that didn't fit to the local Goodwill. At this point, the only option she had that might work was an old pair sweat pants of her husbands with a waist string for tightening. However, the pair looked terrible and smelled of the garage where she'd found them in a bin of work clothes.
As Betty reluctantly took the sad pair of pants up the stairs, she could hear giggling and chatter in JJ's playroom. Deciding to peak in on them and observe, she could see Amy sitting on the floor next to JJ building something with the Legos. She also noticed that Amy had used the long t-shirt like a tent covering over her enough to completely hide the pull-up. Seeing that the two of them appeared to be having a great time playing together, she decided to leave well enough alone. Rather than introduce yet another struggle into the morning by making Amy wear some ratty old pants, she figured as long as her husband was gone and Amy was content to be upstairs playing with her son, it wouldn't hurt to forgo the pants for now. Amy's own clothes would be cleaned and dried in a couple of hours anyway.
As Betty looked at the clock, she noticed that it was nearly 10:00am and she hadn't heard from Meredith yet on when she'd be coming to pick up Amy. She decided to call and see if there was any progress on the car situation.
"Hello, Meredith?"
"Yes, how are you Betty...I hope Amy isn't being too much of a hassle since I know she really wanted to come home last night."
"Well it's been an interesting morning dearie, but Amy is doing alright. I was wondering though how the car situation is working out, have you gotten the lock taken care of yet?"
"Actually I just got off the phone with that friend of mine that told me about this fix-it man last night. Apparently, he's helping a neighbor install a garage door opener and he's going to come help me as soon as he's done. No time estimate I'm afraid, but how long can it take to install one of those things?"
"Well Amy will be fine here until you can come to pick her up. Just if you would Meredith, let me know if it's looking like dinner time or later."
"Oh my I certainly hope not. If it goes that long, I'll try and get someone else to pick her up. I feel bad enough imposing on you this long. And I'm sorry, but I have to ask, was there something that happened this morning that was my Amy's fault? It sounded like..."
"I'll catch you up later on that Meredith. I've handled it for now dear."
"I don't like the sound of that Betty, but we'll talk about it later then. Thank you again, I'll update you as soon as I know something."
"Of course, thank you dearie. Bye now."
She didn't want to admit it, but Betty was somewhat annoyed with Meredith and if she had to cast blame for the wetting situation she would put the blame solely on the shoulders of Meredith, not Amy. It was clear that Amy knew this might happen and tried to handle it with one of JJ's diapers, so that meant that Meredith obviously was aware of the problem and failed to tell her about it the night before. She suspected that Meredith either was totally oblivious, or intentionally didn't say anything for fear Amy wouldn't be allowed to stay the night.
Despite Amy's ability to keep track of a 3-year-old for a few hours and take care of his basic needs, this situation only further established in Betty's mind that Amy was still a child and one who had parents of questionable character and standards, at least where Meredith was concerned. She further supposed Amy's wetting was a product of her parents' fighting or otherwise not providing a home life conducive for a child to grow and mature within. As children are reflections of their parents, when children misbehave or fail to mature properly, she believed ultimately the parents were largely to blame. Yes, in only a few moments, Betty supposed she had the whole thing figured out.
As for Amy, she wouldn't punish her for this situation by ending the babysitting relationship. She'd spoken with the cleaning company and they were fairly certain a wetting of the size she described could be cleaned today without much harm to the mattress, so she wasn't as worried about that anymore. However, she would insist that if Amy was to babysit again into the later parts of the evening, she was to wear a pull-up diaper in case she fell asleep or had to sleep over again. If Amy wouldn't agree to that, she'd unfortunately have to find someone else. She continued to ponder the situation as she started a load of laundry including Amy's peed clothes.
While the women were talking and Betty was solving the world's problems, Amy had completely warmed up to playing Legos with JJ. She was back to her old self of 12, totally immersed in building and tweaking her creations, only this time she had a little playmate with her. For his part, JJ was eating up the attention, considering that his mom did lots of things with him, but rarely played with him directly. His dad on the other hand constantly looked for ways to teach him things and even sat down with him one night using Legos to demonstrate how certain things worked. Most of it was way over the little guy's head, and somehow Amy was the perfect blend of teacher and playmate. He couldn't get enough.
Amy was incredibly focused on the engineering problem of their second floor in the resort and how she was going to allow them to have a second floor closing off some access to the first floor while still being able to put little Lego people down there. She decided on making the second floor a partial floor with a balcony-like design so they could still see and interact with the people on the bottom floor. As she got up to get some extra flooring pieces she saw across the room, she gave JJ a view of her crotch and the pull-up she was wearing. Up until now, she'd been using the big shirt to cover her like a tent, but this time JJ saw the pull-up and like any young child he needed to point such things out.
"Amy, you wearing pull-ups?"
"Oh, ummm yeah. Your mommy said I should." Amy thought briefly about explaining that she didn't have dry underwear, but right now it didn't seem to matter. JJ was in a pull-up and so was she, and they were having fun building an awesome resort. Before, she'd been worried he'd think less of her, but the look on his face just confirmed he was only curious and didn't care what she was wearing. JJ thought she was awesome, and short of her daddy, she didn't think anyone else in the world shared that opinion right now. And besides all that, she knew his mommy insisted Amy should wear one "just in case" anyway, so after this morning's events she hardly felt like arguing. Playing with Legos was so much more fun than dealing with adults and their criticisms and all the ways she was required to please them. Amy was content to ignore the adult world for today and instead play with her little buddy JJ until her mother decided to show up.
"It's ok Amy, I wearing pull-ups too." The little boy smiled and patted Amy on the leg. Yes, he still loved her and didn't care if she wore underwear, diapers, or pull-ups. That was the kind of love she wished other people in the world had, and at this moment she didn't really feel the need to further explain to him that she didn't need to wear pull-ups for daytime.
As the morning wore on, she realized that they'd been playing for a while and Betty had never returned with pants for her to wear. It seemed odd that she'd not have a single pair of pants in the house that could fit her, but as she looked over at JJ intently connecting a series of pieces together, she saw that he was wearing only a shirt and pull-up just like her. "I guess she doesn't think I need them." Amy thought. It only further served to frustrate her about the situation. Not only did Betty think Amy had reason to be wearing pull-ups during the day, but she was content to leave her dressed like her toddler son as well.
Though she didn't realize what was happening, Amy was beginning to feel the same sort of frustration she had felt with her mother over the years when her mother treated her like she couldn't make any decisions for herself and didn't trust her with responsibility. Meredith had claimed Amy needed to earn the responsibility, but Amy often felt the standards were out of her reach so she just gave up, and instead fought her mother to get attention by acting out. Now in her mind, Betty was both controlling the entire situation and insisting that Amy couldn't make a single decision for herself. It wasn't her fault, but no one seemed to understand that! If only her mother hadn't left her there to fend for herself with no Goodnites on top of everything...
JJ noticed that Amy was losing interest in their Lego dream resort and he gently poked her with a little person. "Amy, hey. Hey. Amy!" He persisted until she turned her head towards him.
"Yes JJ, what's up little guy?"
"Umm...let's play?" He smiled all too cutely and held up a whole section of wall he'd built just like she'd shown him.
"Oh, good job buddy!" The little boy had succeeded in pulling Amy back into the Lego world for the moment. They continued to finish the second floor and started talking about more floors or perhaps constructing other buildings for their resort. Finally, they settled on other buildings, since Amy didn't want to have to make yet another difficult engineering decision just yet.
Amy suggested that JJ should put the next building together himself using some of the new techniques she'd taught him. She especially hoped to get him to stop his bad habit of stacking 2s on top of each other, building unsteady walls that weren't tightly locking to provide stability. "I'm gonna check that when you're done silly boy." Amy giggled and tickled him a bit.
"Teehee Amy stop it. Hehehe!" He continued giggling and she continued tickling, enjoying seeing him squirming to get away from her loving torture. Then she noticed his eyes widened slightly and he stopped wiggling the same way, so she stopped as well.
"What's wrong buddy, did I hurt you?" She hoped she hadn't made him fall on a rough edge of a Lego piece or something, but she didn't see any tears.
"I went pee pee. Oopsies." The boy had a slight frown on his face that told Amy what she suspected was true. Betty had always said "Oopsies" when he had an accident, so he'd copied her for the longest time and it was usually a clear indicator that JJ had had a genuine accident and hadn't just gotten too busy playing.
"It's ok buddy, that was probably my fault for tickling you so much. Let me see how much you went." JJ crawled over into her lap and she felt the front of the pull-up for wetness. "Not too bad kiddo, do you still have to go?"
"No! I wanna build!" Clearly excited by the prospect of building something totally for Amy's approval, he set about to create another building for the resort. Normally as the babysitter, Amy would have dutifully taken JJ to the potty to make sure he'd actually completely emptied his bladder, but right now she didn't feel much like a babysitter, and she instead felt like JJ should get to do something he wanted to do instead of following every silly little rule.
Shortly thereafter, Betty came up with a healthy brunch of bananas and peanut butter along with a sippy cup of milk for JJ and a water bottle converted to a milk bottle for Amy, for which she gave a funny look when Betty handed it to her.
"Unless you want yours in a sippy too honey, that's all I have for your drink other than glasses. There's really no flat surfaces here and I'm uncomfortable with you two playing and accidentally knocking glasses of milk over onto the carpet." Amy could mostly see the reasoning, but it still felt like she wasn't trusted, despite any good sense behind it. Betty left, and the two ate their food and drank their milk while continuing to play.
For the next hour, they built several extra resort buildings and Amy inspected JJ's building. She saw much room for improvement, but taking his age into consideration, she showered him with praise and enjoyed watching his beaming response to her accolades.
Soon it became time to determine what each part of the resort would be used for. Amy had already been thinking about this, but she wanted her building partner's input. Much of it was unrealistic (a zoo next to the bedrooms?), but she tried to incorporate as many of his ideas into the project as she could. She was intently focused on making sure that every detail was correct and factoring in JJ's input that she barely noticed the building pressure in her bladder until she shifted around to take a look at the far side of the main building.
She knew she could hold it for a little while longer, but the discomfort was distracting her from the important decisions she was responsible for making. She was afraid that leaving now she'd lose her ideas and JJ might also lose interest, so she held on for a few more minutes before an impulse popped into her head that hadn't for a long time.
Not only did she want to stay focused on their project, but in the back of her mind in a place she had temporarily repressed with Legos, she was still very frustrated with the whole day's situation. She'd done everything she knew how to please her mother and JJ's mother, and still she was being treated like a child and the only one giving her any attention and consideration was a 3-year-old. The impulse to do something to get an adult's attention came back to her much the same way she'd gotten her mother's attention over the years by punishing her with wet beds. Betty had put her in pull-ups, ignoring her insistence that she didn't need them during the day. Yet, she was expected to stay dry and be a big girl even though she was being treated like a little girl with a similar level of consideration.
All of these thoughts were only partially processing in the front of Amy's head while she continued to plan and build with JJ. She half-consciously decided that it was ok to be a little girl today since no one seemed to think otherwise anyway. She even started hoping her pull-up would leak and Betty would have to clean up the mess. If she complained, Amy would just act the part that Betty was already creating for her.
A few minutes later, the pang of a full bladder returned, and Amy decided to just let it happen. Instead of clamping down when the next wave hit, she made a half-hearted attempt to close off the impending flood. Soon, Amy felt the trickle of her little girl act warming the pull-up. She continued to put roof pieces together and examine the resort, albeit with a slightly distracted, distant look in her eyes that was too subtle for JJ to pick up on. She finished sooner than she expected, and when she moved from her previous spot on the floor, she didn't notice any wetness, causing a small frown to spread across her face. No matter, it meant more play time with JJ.
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It was now 1:00 in the afternoon and Meredith still didn't have any options for getting her car unlocked. Apparently this handy man was slow as well as free.
She decided to give Betty a call to let her know she was going to try and get her sister-in-law to pick Amy up. The conversation with Betty was short, but the call to her brother and sister-in-law resulted in a 20 minute conversation about family matters before Meredith could even ask for the favor she had called for. When she did, she was frustrated that her sister-in-law made up some far-fetched excuse about her back bothering her and not wanting to drive for a few days. Apparently her brother was with his daughter Tara at some party and couldn't be torn away from that either, so that left her with two options. Either she waited on the free option, or quickly paid for someone before it became off-hours again. She decided to wait.
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Amy had been sitting in a peed pull-up for nearly two hours. Every once in a while she noticed the clammy feeling on her skin, but she ignored it. She'd never worn a wet Goodnite this long after waking up, so the slightly cold and squishy feeling was a new experience. For that matter, the last couple of times she'd woken up wet, she'd actually noticed that, apart from the frustration of wetting beyond her control, she actually found the Goodnite to be almost cozy, and the squishy feeling against her girl parts was oddly...nice. The pull-up had been even squishier since she'd wet it significantly more than her Goodnites, and she'd caught herself wiggling on the floor enjoying the feeling of the soaked pull-up against her. But that feeling was fading the longer she sat there, being replaced with a clammy lump.
She was debating on changing herself, since she was getting uncomfortable and her plan to annoy Betty was starting to seem like less of a good idea. Her teen mind had again failed to think through things and now she couldn't decide what she should do. Amy was also suspecting that Betty might still be expecting her to continue to babysit free for the day and take care of JJ and any pull-ups he might need, which she hadn't. She didn't have any idea what Betty expected as far as her own pull-up. Another few minutes making some patio furniture near the resort pool, and then she'd take care of both their pull-ups.
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The cleaning crew had left shortly after 1:00 and it was now nearly 2:00. Betty knew it was going to be a late lunch, but she still felt like serving lunch even if dinner was at 6. She hadn't checked in on the kids for several hours, but she knew they'd be fine together considering Amy was babysitting after all. This allowed her to enjoy some personal time after the cleaning crew visit. As she was heating up soup, she considered whether or not Amy would be handling JJ's potty needs considering her own episode. For that matter, she briefly thought to make sure Amy was dry, but she quickly dismissed that thought as silly, realizing the pull-up was really just Amy's underwear for the day and a remote precautionary measure. She determined to check JJ for herself, however, when she went up to call the kids down for lunch in a few minutes.
The soup was set out on the table to cool and the rest of the table was set including JJ's booster seat. Heading upstairs, she heard the familiar sound of her son's giggles and Amy's chatter indicating the two of them were still very much enjoying the Legos. As she entered the room, they were so focused that it took them a second to even look up at her, but finally JJ bounced with excitement, wanting to tell his mommy about all the amazing things they had built together.
Betty took this opportunity to announce that it was time for a potty break which meant a pull-up check. JJ immediately began to whine.
"I don't wanna, wanna play pweeeease mommy..." He started picking up Legos, thinking by doing so his mommy would just ignore her previous idea of potty time and move on with life. His 3-year-old hopes were quickly dashed.
"No JJ, it's time for you to be a good little boy and come to mommy sweetheart." Betty was caring, but stern.
"I don't wanna, do Amy first!" He hadn't meant to throw his best buddy under the bus, but he just had. Amy blushed suddenly, and Betty assumed it was because she was embarrassed that JJ knew about her pull-ups and was pointing it out. However, she also saw a quick opportunity to show JJ that Amy was dry and get back to taking care of her little man who appeared to be wet. Betty stepped up the sugar in what she meant as a show intended for JJ.
"Ok, come here Amy honey, let me check your pull-up to see if you went pee pees." Betty gave a slight knowing look at Amy, assuming she'd realize it was a show intended for JJ. However, Amy's reaction was far from what Betty expected.
"No, I'm dry...I didn't go pee pee Mrs. Chadwick." Amy knew that came out sounding silly, but she was focusing on not crying or appearing guilty and the events of the morning combined with the last four hours of playing Legos with a 3-year-old and wetting her pull-up had moved her solidly out of her babysitter role. Suddenly she felt every bit the guilty child in a wet pull-up.
"Amy dear it's ok, I just need to make sure you're dry...and then you can get right back to playing." Once again, the show and tone were for JJ's benefit, but Amy still showed a pouty look of frustration and worry she was unable to hide, despite looking away from Betty and idly keeping her hands busy with Legos.
"Check JJ first, you said you would start with him!" Amy burst out, moments from tears. She was returning the favor to JJ who had ratted her out.
Betty didn't understand why the girl wasn't catching on. At this point, she figured she'd have to go check her anyway or JJ would call foul for letting her off, but as soon as Amy was pronounced dry she'd be back to JJ and Amy's confusion would be cleared up.
Betty moved over to Amy and knelt down beside her, quickly lifting up one edge of the large shirt to reveal the pull-up before Amy could react. When she saw the bulge of a soaked pull-up, the woman was first surprised and then suddenly understanding of why Amy was reacting as she was. Betty wasn't completely sure what to think of this development, but somehow the jump from bedwetter to pants-wetter wasn't much of a stretch for her. What she had was a child with a wetting problem, and her mothering was always quick to kick in any time the situation required it.
"Oh dear honey, it seems you did go pee pee. Let's get you changed Amy." Betty reached out her hand for the girl to take, but Amy pulled her hand back and folded both her arms in defiance.
"I didn't go pee pee!" Amy knew it sounded stupid, but for some reason she had to contradict everything this woman was saying.
"Amy dear, I've seen many wet diapers and pull-ups, and I know what they look like. I know it's been a rough day for you and you probably were so focused on playing with JJ that you didn't notice you had to go so bad, right?"
Desperately needing an out and frustrated at her lack of forethought, Amy's clouded head saw this as the out she needed. Certainly she couldn't tell the woman that she could have made it to the bathroom if she had really wanted to. Looking slowly up to Betty with a tear in her eye, she nodded slowly before putting her head back down.
"It's ok sweetheart, I'm just glad now that I decided to have you wear pull-ups today. Now, are you going to be a big girl and come with me for a change?" Betty wasn't completely aware of her tone and word choice, but subconsciously she'd further re-categorized Amy and now spoke to her much as she would a child struggling with her potty training.
Amy knew in the back of her mind that something wasn't right, but she was too lost in the situation to put it all together. Truth be told, she was sick of this clammy diaper. She wanted out of it and Betty was taking her to get changed. As they entered JJ's room, Betty walked over to the changing table and reached underneath for a fresh pull-up, a tube of cream, and the baby wipes.
"Now honey, I know you know how to do this, so I'll leave you to it. Make sure you wipe yourself clean and put cream on so you don't get a rash, ok?"
"Yes ma'am." Amy answered without much thought and took the objects before looking them over. She'd used them many times for JJ, but never for herself. At this point, it didn't much matter...she wanted out of this pull-up and she was getting her wish, albeit not in the way she had originally envisioned.
She removed the sodden garment, letting it fall to the floor before grabbing some wipes and cleaning herself. Finally, after applying salve, she opened up the new, dry pull-up and stepped into it. As she was turning to leave, Betty came into the room carrying JJ towards the changing table. Amy continued walking and was almost out of the room when she heard...
"Amy! Is this where we put our dirty pull-ups?" She raised her voice and pointed to the floor where Amy's wet pull-up had fallen. Amy had meant to pick it up after cleaning herself, but the whole experience was very new for her and she'd forgotten.
"I'm...I'm sorry, I'll get it." She moved towards the changing table, but Betty had already grabbed up the used pull-up and added it to the diaper pail.
"It's ok honey, you did a good job changing yourself after your accident, I'm sorry for yelling at you." Betty's frustration quickly subsided and she hoped the small apology would make Amy know she wasn't angry with her. "Lunch is ready Amy, we'll be down as soon as we get JJ all cleaned up."
Amy nodded and headed downstairs. Though only a small bit of praise from Betty, it made Amy feel good to be praised for something in her entire time at the Chadwick house. She entered the dining room and found a spot at the table. Soon, everyone was sitting at the table and they had a relatively uneventful lunch, though Amy certainly enjoyed Betty's cooking. After lunch, the phone rang and Betty went to answer it. A moment after answering, she covered the phone with her hand, asking Amy to help clean JJ up and indicating that the two of them could go back upstairs and play.
It was Amy's mom on the phone telling Betty that she'd be over around 5:00 to pick Amy up. After a brief exchange of details over the locked car situation, the conversation ended and Betty went about her household duties. The children played a while longer and at 4:00 Betty went up to check on them. Without the fanfare of last time, she checked JJ who was still dry, but instructed him to use the potty just in case, and she followed him there to help him if he needed it. Once they were back, Betty asked Amy to come into the room she'd slept in for a few moments, leaving JJ to play by himself for a bit.
When they entered, Betty took Amy over to the stripped bed and showed her the cleaned mattress.
"The cleaning crew did a fine job...they said it's as good as new, so you don't have to worry."
"Oh, I'm glad it's ok...I didn't want to ruin anything Mrs. Chadwick."
"I know honey, you couldn't help it. And I did want to talk to you about a few things. But first, are you dry? Please tell me the truth Amy, I shouldn't have to check a big girl like you if you have an accident."
"No, I'm dry...promise."
"Ok, that's good to know. Amy honey, I have to be honest that I'm a little concerned about you continuing to babysit JJ after today." She could see the look of dread and frustration spreading over the girl's face, just as she added: "But as long as you obey a few rules for me, I think we can allow you to keep watching JJ for now." Amy's eyes lit up immediately.
"What's that?"
"Well, you seem to know that you're a bedwetter at least since you tried to use one of JJ's diapers, so I assume you wear diapers at home, is that right?"
"Umm, I wear Goodnites to bed, they're like pull-ups."
"Yes honey, I'm familiar with them and they probably fit you better than JJ's pull-ups, right?"
Amy nodded.
"Ok, well you know the house rules about keeping things in as good or better shape than when you left. So that means we can't have any accidents on our carpets or furniture. So from now on, if you want to come over to watch JJ, you'll need be wearing your Goodnites and bringing a change or two in case you have trouble making it to the potty or have to stay overnight."
Amy wasn't sure what her parents would think about this, but she was sure they would be hearing about the day's events anyway, so it seemed like something there was no point in fighting if she could still keep the job.
"I guess that'll be ok."
"Very good then, and there's one more thing I want to make clear. You need to be good about changing yourself if you wet. Check yourself every time you check JJ in case you don't notice your accident when it happens. You need to make sure you do, because the next time something gets soaked honey...I won't be able to continue letting you watch JJ."
"Yes ma'am." Amy wasn't thinking too much about the rules, she just wanted to say what she needed to say to keep the job and she now realized just how close her little stunt had been to getting her fired. But at this point, if she'd been told to juggle kittens to keep the job, she'd probably have agreed to it regardless of whether or not she could make good on her promise. Not only did she need the money, but she'd had more fun today than she'd had in months and she didn't want to give that up either.
"Well then, your mother will be here in 45 minutes, so why don't you put these on and go play with JJ until she gets here." Following her direction to the chair in the corner, Amy noticed her jeans and underwear neatly folded and sitting on the chair. Taking the items, she moved to the bathroom to change.
"Oh and Amy, please leave that pull-up on until you leave...just in case, ok sweetie?"
"Ok, yes ma'am." Again, Amy wasn't really listening, just acknowledging. She had half a mind to ignore her and leave the pull-up off knowing she wouldn't have another "accident" today, but with the off-chance that Betty decided to check her, she didn't want to risk immediately losing the job either.
Soon 5:00 rolled around and Amy was saying her goodbyes to JJ. A few moments after, Amy got into her mother's car and they headed home. Just as they were merging onto the highway, Meredith broke the silence.
"So honey, did you have any problems with your bedwetting last night?"
LittleAcorn
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Wow, that's a massive update. I read it on my phone this morning, and tapatalk had some problems with such a long post 
. I'm liking this story more even more than I did in the beginning now.
. I'm liking this story more even more than I did in the beginning now.Hmm, somehow this addition to my post got removed.
Also, glad to hear you enjoyed it LittleAcorn.
apexv said:- - - Updated - - -
Author's Note: This chapter was substantial in both the amount and nature of the content, and as such it's taken several weeks worth of effort to complete. My goal was to move the story in this direction in a realistic way and I hope I've done that through the multiple editing passes. I hope you all enjoy it, though I will probably need several weeks to recover after this chapter.
Also, glad to hear you enjoyed it LittleAcorn.
Chapter 8
"When did I go wrong Trish? I mean seriously, a girl ready to get her driver's license just peeing herself in the middle of the day?"
"Mere, I feel so bad for her, it sounds like a really rough day and that Chadwick woman doesn't seem like the most helpful sort."
"You're making excuses for her again like you always do. I left her over there for one extra day and she manages to embarrass me by acting like a 4-year-old and making me sit through a lecture by Betty Chadwick yesterday about how I should do this and that differently. For goodness sake, she might as well have said my parenting skills suck. I know I'm far from a saint, but I think I've done pretty well by Amy considering." Meredith's voice trailed off.
"You're doing it again Mere."
"So you do think this is my fault, don't you?"
"I could name a few things, but we've been down that road before." The other woman paused, then with a serious, placid look, completed her thought. "Meredith, you don't want to hear what I have to say and you know it."
"You're going to tell me how I've said many times that I've done ok raising Amy and this really means that I'm insecure about it myself. Well maybe if my best friend was a little more supportive then I wouldn't feel like I have to go around explaining myself. Sometimes it does feel like no one appreciates how hard it is."
"Well until you realize that not dealing with the root issue causes everything to churn away inside of you making your insecurities worse, we won't get past this conversation for another 15 years."
Meredith paused and looked up from her porch surveying a nearby tree seemingly oblivious to her friend's last statement for what felt like an eternity. However, her response nearly a full minute later revealed that her attention hadn't drifted.
"The past few weeks I've...had nightmares about...her...again. I've honestly started thinking, and maybe I should..." Her voice trailing off, Meredith looked at her best friend knowing what the next words would have been, but she was unable to bring herself to say them.
"Go on, say it. Say you need to tell Amy something you should have told her a long time ago. Say you've been selfish and didn't want to deal with your pain all over again so you've let that poor girl believe a lie for all these years." The room carried a distinct air of an argument rehashed a half-dozen times over many years. The two women were friends, very good friends. But Trish was once again trying to share tough love with her friend and pulling no punches in the process.
"You think Amy wants to know the truth? You think this is all about me? How would you know Trisha, when your husband's been a deacon for years in the church and hasn't slept with another woman? Another woman! You don't know what it's like, you don't...so you can stop pretending you do." Meredith was emotional, but still holding herself together. Deep down, she knew her best friend was right that her hesitation to have this conversation with Amy was mainly due to her own fear, but she'd always managed to convince herself in the past that she was protecting Amy and even now she had begun to slip back into that tired old explanation. Trish wasn't buying it.
"I don't have to be cheated on to know how horrible that would be or how much pain that caused you. But you've pitied yourself long enough and ignoring what happened has only caused you undue stress and hurt your relationship with Amy."
"I don't believe what I'm hearing. So Amy's bedwetting and now this pants wetting episode are somehow my fault? Please Trish. I know you love her and you've been hounding me for years to tell her what happened, but that's not causing her issues. She's always marched to the beat of her own drum and sometimes I think she's in her own world more than she's in this one so I've got to make her toe the line or she'll never make it in life and she'll turn out like..." Her voice trailing off briefly, she quickly shifted the subject back a step. "I've tried to raise her as best I could, but Lord knows she's got the crazy gene in there somewhere."
"Lana wasn't crazy. You demonize her because of what happened, but I met the girl, and she wasn't crazy. Distraught, hopeless, and very insecure is what she was. But wouldn't you be if your husband tied you up, ranted at you for 30 minutes blaming you for all his problems and then finally killed himself right in front of you? That girl went through hell and back and her poor husband was so screwed up in the head from combat stress that he didn't know what he was saying half the time." Trish took Meredith's hands in hers and squeezed, showing her love for her friend was still strong despite the hard words she felt the need to share once again.
"I still hate her Trish. I know it's wrong, but I do." A single tear slowly began to trickle down from Meredith's left eye as the emotional waves finally broke and the shoreline of mascara began to drift slowly along with the tear.
"I know, and you have to forgive her Mere, you just can't keep holding onto this. It makes you bitter and makes you resent Amy for who she is. It makes you feel the need to prove you're a better mother who can protect her from the big bad world, while still feeling the need to compete against her for your husband's affections because you've also never forgiven him for falling to the temptation of the moment." Firmly grasping both of her friend's hands, Trish's gaze met Meredith's as she finally said, "I love you, and this is why you must let this go Mere. You must forgive Lana and David. Pray about it at least, will you?"
"What is there to pray about? I know I should forgive everyone that's wronged me, but it's easy for God to tell people to do things when he's perfect. I'm not perfect, and today I'm definitely not ready for that." Meredith had nearly regained her composure and managed to matter-of-factly justify her current state of bitterness to herself once again.
"So you know you're wrong, you don't want to pray for God to change you, and you're ok with that. Sounds really dangerous to me Mere, and I wouldn't want to be in your shoes when you tell God that." Trish's disappointment and frustration were evident, but she backed off realizing that badgering her friend wouldn't change a thing.
"Why don't you pray that God will fix all the stuff that's wrong with my life?" Meredith shared a weak, half-hearted smile back to her friend.
"I almost feel guilty praying that, but I'll do my best to genuinely keep you in my prayers. And don't let those dreams go by without considering maybe that's a sign you're supposed to finally tell her."
"I'm thinking about it Trish, don't worry." Her smile was almost genuine, but still carried enough of a forceful hint that her friend knew major issues still remained for another day's chat.
"Well Mere, thanks for the tea. I haven't had darjeeling in quite a while and that hit the spot."
"Glad you liked it, I'll get you a few bags to take home with you." Meredith retrieved the tea for her friend from the kitchen before seeing her off with a somewhat forced hug.
A few moments later Meredith was checking the clock to see how much time she had left before picking up Amy from babysitting.
------
It was nearly 4pm and Amy was quite ready to be done with this kid. Mandy was a whiny and moody 5-year-old whom Amy had agreed to watch on short notice for the afternoon by reference of one of her more steady clients. This child, however, would try the patience of any babysitter. Whereas JJ was a pleasure to watch, and even gave Amy secret enjoyment in playing with him, Mandy was a hassle and made Amy work for every penny she earned. She couldn't wait to have her mother pick her up and rescue her from this girl.
Thinking of her mother brought her back to the thoughts she'd been replaying in her mind for the past two days since the incident on the ride home from the Chadwicks'. After telling her mother about the bedwetting, Meredith had asked too many questions for which Amy had insufficient answers before Meredith got the whole story including how Amy managed without underwear most of the day. But the conversation hadn't taken a serious turn for the worse until Amy decided she'd better tell her mother about the "accident" since her mother had just finished mentioning that Betty was going to call her to fill her in at some point and Amy assumed it would be worse to let her mother hear about it that way.
The rest of the ride home consisted of a series of exchanges between the two. Meredith began with the always-trustworthy "Let's get one thing straight little girl" line and ended by telling her that her father was going to hear about all of what happened and then he would find out how childish his daughter really was. For her part, Amy made sure Meredith knew that she blamed her mother's lack of foresight in leaving her at the Chadwicks' for the entire situation to begin with. The two of them didn't speak a single word to each other until the next morning when they got up for church and even then engaged in only limited conversation.
"Amy! Ammmmmy-ee-ee, I want ice cream!" Mandy's whines broke her out of her thoughts temporarily.
"You're not getting ice cream Mandy, we've already talked about this three times today. Ice cream is not a before dinner thing." Amy knew that wouldn't totally shut her up, but she still had to say it.
"But why not, I want it! Mommy gives me ice cream! You're mean, I'm telling mommy!" The little girl made a dramatic exit by crossing her arms, huffing loudly, and then stomping off towards the play room. Again, Mandy's attempts at guilting and threatening Amy fell on deaf ears. At this point, Amy didn't really care if Mandy liked her or not, merely that she didn't get into anything or hurt herself while Amy was there.
Less than 30 minutes later, Mandy's parents arrived followed shortly by Meredith. The adults had their brief, cordial exchanges and Amy was thanked, paid, and relieved of her shift as juvenile warden.
As they pulled out of the driveway, Amy had to exclaim her frustration, even if she didn't expect all that much sympathy from her mother. "I'm glad that's over with, Mandy is a handful and just so whiny. I hope I wasn't like that!" Amy added, hoping to hear that she was never that annoying to her own mother.
"Well honey, every kid goes through some amount of whining, but I would say you did have a period where yours was pretty bad around age 4 or 5. Thankfully I loved you enough to discipline that out of you." Meredith added with an almost forced smile that Amy interpreted as her mother's real attitude towards disciplining her in those former years or perhaps residual frustration from last Saturday. She couldn't be sure where her mother's mood swings came from, so she was resigned to wonder.
"Uhh, thanks, I'm sorry I guess?" Amy didn't know what the appropriate response was to what had now become a somewhat awkward conversation.
"It's part of being a mother..." Her voice trailed off as she suddenly began pondering the conversation she'd had earlier with Trish. Then suddenly she remembered that she had something to tell Amy that she figured would put a smile on her daughter's face, though not immediately.
"So Betty called and told me all about what happened." She saw Amy's gaze in the rear view mirror sink slightly. "Don't worry, she didn't actually have much bad to say about you at all actually. She seems to think it's all my fault that I'm such a bad mother." The fake grin re-appeared.
Amy was both encouraged to hear that Mrs. Chadwick didn't hate her, but she also felt bad that her mother was being accused of something by some other person outside the family. As much as she had disagreements with her mother, she still loved her and didn't want other people attacking her.
"Mom you know she's just a little odd." Amy smiled, hoping some humor would lighten the mood.
"Yeah, I know. Anyway, the other thing is that apparently JJ has been asking about you and yesterday wouldn't stop begging Betty to have you come over. So Betty was wondering if you'd mind coming over a couple of days this week just to play with him even though she'll be at the house. She promised that you wouldn't have to deal with him at all and she'd still pay you half of the normal amount. I'm not sure why you wouldn't just take care of him for her if she's paying you at all, but I guess that's her call."
Some part of Amy leaped with excitement inside that her little buddy missed her and wanted her to come and give him some attention. However, she was somewhat slighted that it seemed Betty was perhaps questioning her responsibility. Still it was money and she was sure she'd have a blast playing with JJ either way.
"Yeah, I guess I can do that." Amy added, careful to not seem to excited at the prospect of playing with a 3-year-old.
"Alright, I'll let her know then. Also, apparently you two made some sort of deal? She said to remember not to break it." Amy's thoughts of what she would be wearing were a confusing mix of frustration and intrigue. She didn't understand what she was feeling, but the immediate result was far less trepidation than she'd previously imagined.
"Yeah, umm, she said her husband freaks about messes so she wanted me to bring some Goodnites." Amy hoped her mother wouldn't ask too many more questions or connect the dots that she was actually talking about daytime use.
"Also, don't forget next week camp starts.” Apparently her mother didn't care to think about it or at the very least declined to probe further.
“Yeah, I didn't forget.” Amy was happy for the change in topic.
“I want you to get your stuff together early in the week so you’re ready to head out by Saturday night, alright?"
"Yeah I'll be ready." Amy said without thinking much about what she was answering to. Camp was curiously the furthest thing from her mind.
"When did I go wrong Trish? I mean seriously, a girl ready to get her driver's license just peeing herself in the middle of the day?"
"Mere, I feel so bad for her, it sounds like a really rough day and that Chadwick woman doesn't seem like the most helpful sort."
"You're making excuses for her again like you always do. I left her over there for one extra day and she manages to embarrass me by acting like a 4-year-old and making me sit through a lecture by Betty Chadwick yesterday about how I should do this and that differently. For goodness sake, she might as well have said my parenting skills suck. I know I'm far from a saint, but I think I've done pretty well by Amy considering." Meredith's voice trailed off.
"You're doing it again Mere."
"So you do think this is my fault, don't you?"
"I could name a few things, but we've been down that road before." The other woman paused, then with a serious, placid look, completed her thought. "Meredith, you don't want to hear what I have to say and you know it."
"You're going to tell me how I've said many times that I've done ok raising Amy and this really means that I'm insecure about it myself. Well maybe if my best friend was a little more supportive then I wouldn't feel like I have to go around explaining myself. Sometimes it does feel like no one appreciates how hard it is."
"Well until you realize that not dealing with the root issue causes everything to churn away inside of you making your insecurities worse, we won't get past this conversation for another 15 years."
Meredith paused and looked up from her porch surveying a nearby tree seemingly oblivious to her friend's last statement for what felt like an eternity. However, her response nearly a full minute later revealed that her attention hadn't drifted.
"The past few weeks I've...had nightmares about...her...again. I've honestly started thinking, and maybe I should..." Her voice trailing off, Meredith looked at her best friend knowing what the next words would have been, but she was unable to bring herself to say them.
"Go on, say it. Say you need to tell Amy something you should have told her a long time ago. Say you've been selfish and didn't want to deal with your pain all over again so you've let that poor girl believe a lie for all these years." The room carried a distinct air of an argument rehashed a half-dozen times over many years. The two women were friends, very good friends. But Trish was once again trying to share tough love with her friend and pulling no punches in the process.
"You think Amy wants to know the truth? You think this is all about me? How would you know Trisha, when your husband's been a deacon for years in the church and hasn't slept with another woman? Another woman! You don't know what it's like, you don't...so you can stop pretending you do." Meredith was emotional, but still holding herself together. Deep down, she knew her best friend was right that her hesitation to have this conversation with Amy was mainly due to her own fear, but she'd always managed to convince herself in the past that she was protecting Amy and even now she had begun to slip back into that tired old explanation. Trish wasn't buying it.
"I don't have to be cheated on to know how horrible that would be or how much pain that caused you. But you've pitied yourself long enough and ignoring what happened has only caused you undue stress and hurt your relationship with Amy."
"I don't believe what I'm hearing. So Amy's bedwetting and now this pants wetting episode are somehow my fault? Please Trish. I know you love her and you've been hounding me for years to tell her what happened, but that's not causing her issues. She's always marched to the beat of her own drum and sometimes I think she's in her own world more than she's in this one so I've got to make her toe the line or she'll never make it in life and she'll turn out like..." Her voice trailing off briefly, she quickly shifted the subject back a step. "I've tried to raise her as best I could, but Lord knows she's got the crazy gene in there somewhere."
"Lana wasn't crazy. You demonize her because of what happened, but I met the girl, and she wasn't crazy. Distraught, hopeless, and very insecure is what she was. But wouldn't you be if your husband tied you up, ranted at you for 30 minutes blaming you for all his problems and then finally killed himself right in front of you? That girl went through hell and back and her poor husband was so screwed up in the head from combat stress that he didn't know what he was saying half the time." Trish took Meredith's hands in hers and squeezed, showing her love for her friend was still strong despite the hard words she felt the need to share once again.
"I still hate her Trish. I know it's wrong, but I do." A single tear slowly began to trickle down from Meredith's left eye as the emotional waves finally broke and the shoreline of mascara began to drift slowly along with the tear.
"I know, and you have to forgive her Mere, you just can't keep holding onto this. It makes you bitter and makes you resent Amy for who she is. It makes you feel the need to prove you're a better mother who can protect her from the big bad world, while still feeling the need to compete against her for your husband's affections because you've also never forgiven him for falling to the temptation of the moment." Firmly grasping both of her friend's hands, Trish's gaze met Meredith's as she finally said, "I love you, and this is why you must let this go Mere. You must forgive Lana and David. Pray about it at least, will you?"
"What is there to pray about? I know I should forgive everyone that's wronged me, but it's easy for God to tell people to do things when he's perfect. I'm not perfect, and today I'm definitely not ready for that." Meredith had nearly regained her composure and managed to matter-of-factly justify her current state of bitterness to herself once again.
"So you know you're wrong, you don't want to pray for God to change you, and you're ok with that. Sounds really dangerous to me Mere, and I wouldn't want to be in your shoes when you tell God that." Trish's disappointment and frustration were evident, but she backed off realizing that badgering her friend wouldn't change a thing.
"Why don't you pray that God will fix all the stuff that's wrong with my life?" Meredith shared a weak, half-hearted smile back to her friend.
"I almost feel guilty praying that, but I'll do my best to genuinely keep you in my prayers. And don't let those dreams go by without considering maybe that's a sign you're supposed to finally tell her."
"I'm thinking about it Trish, don't worry." Her smile was almost genuine, but still carried enough of a forceful hint that her friend knew major issues still remained for another day's chat.
"Well Mere, thanks for the tea. I haven't had darjeeling in quite a while and that hit the spot."
"Glad you liked it, I'll get you a few bags to take home with you." Meredith retrieved the tea for her friend from the kitchen before seeing her off with a somewhat forced hug.
A few moments later Meredith was checking the clock to see how much time she had left before picking up Amy from babysitting.
------
It was nearly 4pm and Amy was quite ready to be done with this kid. Mandy was a whiny and moody 5-year-old whom Amy had agreed to watch on short notice for the afternoon by reference of one of her more steady clients. This child, however, would try the patience of any babysitter. Whereas JJ was a pleasure to watch, and even gave Amy secret enjoyment in playing with him, Mandy was a hassle and made Amy work for every penny she earned. She couldn't wait to have her mother pick her up and rescue her from this girl.
Thinking of her mother brought her back to the thoughts she'd been replaying in her mind for the past two days since the incident on the ride home from the Chadwicks'. After telling her mother about the bedwetting, Meredith had asked too many questions for which Amy had insufficient answers before Meredith got the whole story including how Amy managed without underwear most of the day. But the conversation hadn't taken a serious turn for the worse until Amy decided she'd better tell her mother about the "accident" since her mother had just finished mentioning that Betty was going to call her to fill her in at some point and Amy assumed it would be worse to let her mother hear about it that way.
The rest of the ride home consisted of a series of exchanges between the two. Meredith began with the always-trustworthy "Let's get one thing straight little girl" line and ended by telling her that her father was going to hear about all of what happened and then he would find out how childish his daughter really was. For her part, Amy made sure Meredith knew that she blamed her mother's lack of foresight in leaving her at the Chadwicks' for the entire situation to begin with. The two of them didn't speak a single word to each other until the next morning when they got up for church and even then engaged in only limited conversation.
"Amy! Ammmmmy-ee-ee, I want ice cream!" Mandy's whines broke her out of her thoughts temporarily.
"You're not getting ice cream Mandy, we've already talked about this three times today. Ice cream is not a before dinner thing." Amy knew that wouldn't totally shut her up, but she still had to say it.
"But why not, I want it! Mommy gives me ice cream! You're mean, I'm telling mommy!" The little girl made a dramatic exit by crossing her arms, huffing loudly, and then stomping off towards the play room. Again, Mandy's attempts at guilting and threatening Amy fell on deaf ears. At this point, Amy didn't really care if Mandy liked her or not, merely that she didn't get into anything or hurt herself while Amy was there.
Less than 30 minutes later, Mandy's parents arrived followed shortly by Meredith. The adults had their brief, cordial exchanges and Amy was thanked, paid, and relieved of her shift as juvenile warden.
As they pulled out of the driveway, Amy had to exclaim her frustration, even if she didn't expect all that much sympathy from her mother. "I'm glad that's over with, Mandy is a handful and just so whiny. I hope I wasn't like that!" Amy added, hoping to hear that she was never that annoying to her own mother.
"Well honey, every kid goes through some amount of whining, but I would say you did have a period where yours was pretty bad around age 4 or 5. Thankfully I loved you enough to discipline that out of you." Meredith added with an almost forced smile that Amy interpreted as her mother's real attitude towards disciplining her in those former years or perhaps residual frustration from last Saturday. She couldn't be sure where her mother's mood swings came from, so she was resigned to wonder.
"Uhh, thanks, I'm sorry I guess?" Amy didn't know what the appropriate response was to what had now become a somewhat awkward conversation.
"It's part of being a mother..." Her voice trailed off as she suddenly began pondering the conversation she'd had earlier with Trish. Then suddenly she remembered that she had something to tell Amy that she figured would put a smile on her daughter's face, though not immediately.
"So Betty called and told me all about what happened." She saw Amy's gaze in the rear view mirror sink slightly. "Don't worry, she didn't actually have much bad to say about you at all actually. She seems to think it's all my fault that I'm such a bad mother." The fake grin re-appeared.
Amy was both encouraged to hear that Mrs. Chadwick didn't hate her, but she also felt bad that her mother was being accused of something by some other person outside the family. As much as she had disagreements with her mother, she still loved her and didn't want other people attacking her.
"Mom you know she's just a little odd." Amy smiled, hoping some humor would lighten the mood.
"Yeah, I know. Anyway, the other thing is that apparently JJ has been asking about you and yesterday wouldn't stop begging Betty to have you come over. So Betty was wondering if you'd mind coming over a couple of days this week just to play with him even though she'll be at the house. She promised that you wouldn't have to deal with him at all and she'd still pay you half of the normal amount. I'm not sure why you wouldn't just take care of him for her if she's paying you at all, but I guess that's her call."
Some part of Amy leaped with excitement inside that her little buddy missed her and wanted her to come and give him some attention. However, she was somewhat slighted that it seemed Betty was perhaps questioning her responsibility. Still it was money and she was sure she'd have a blast playing with JJ either way.
"Yeah, I guess I can do that." Amy added, careful to not seem to excited at the prospect of playing with a 3-year-old.
"Alright, I'll let her know then. Also, apparently you two made some sort of deal? She said to remember not to break it." Amy's thoughts of what she would be wearing were a confusing mix of frustration and intrigue. She didn't understand what she was feeling, but the immediate result was far less trepidation than she'd previously imagined.
"Yeah, umm, she said her husband freaks about messes so she wanted me to bring some Goodnites." Amy hoped her mother wouldn't ask too many more questions or connect the dots that she was actually talking about daytime use.
"Also, don't forget next week camp starts.” Apparently her mother didn't care to think about it or at the very least declined to probe further.
“Yeah, I didn't forget.” Amy was happy for the change in topic.
“I want you to get your stuff together early in the week so you’re ready to head out by Saturday night, alright?"
"Yeah I'll be ready." Amy said without thinking much about what she was answering to. Camp was curiously the furthest thing from her mind.
For those following the story, I wanted to let you know that there are currently two chapters in the works. I don't have a timetable other than to say I hope to get them both out by year's end, hopefully sooner. Thank you for all who have offered input and please continue to do so.
apv
apv
Chapter 9
Monday morning came far too soon for Amy.
"I won't tell you again Amy, it's time to get up!" Meredith declared with a certain level of annoyance.
Amy tossed in bed, balled up in her covers and wished for one more minute in the cozy heap as she dreamed pleasant dreams and enjoyed the warmth between her legs. Sunday was merely a dull memory at this point, but she wasn't ready to start a new week just yet.
Meredith left the room, expecting the poorly veiled threat would prod her daughter out of bed in short order. She wasn't sure if she should threaten cold water or a serious punishment at this point, as it was starting to become a routine thing this summer fighting to get Amy out of bed in the morning. It would’ve been one thing if her daughter was in elementary school, but she assumed her daughter wouldn't be such a hassle in the mornings by this age. Still, at some level, a sense of control and motherly need compelled her to continue to mother Amy to whatever level was necessary.
Meanwhile, Amy had quickly fallen into yet another slumber. This time, it wasn't something she was consciously aware of, but yet the dream seemed barely removed from reality. In her dream, she found Molly back at her house playing with her and JJ as they built Lego castles. Molly looked younger, perhaps 8 or so, and Amy imagined she was the same age. JJ looked to be his 3-year-old self, and the disparity of ages didn't register in Amy's dream state.
The trio were caught up in play time until they were rudely interrupted by Amy's mom telling them to wake...up?
"AMY!" Meredith was screaming. "We have 5 minutes to be out of this house and get over to the Chadwick's place and you're in BED! I swear, you're the most irresponsible teenager I've ever heard of, now GET DRESSED!"
Lurching out of her dream, Amy stumbled out of bed and towards her nearby dresser. The dream clung to her mind, and in her half-awake state, she barely registered the necessary details required to get herself ready. At this moment, the fact that her mother had stormed out of her room with threats of groundings and spankings (the latter of which she realized was an empty threat, but it meant her mother was angry) was enough to get her quickly throwing on clothes and heading towards the bathroom for a quick wash of her face before heading downstairs.
It was in that moment that she registered a warm, mushy feeling between her legs. In her half-awake, half-dream state, she hadn't even thought to consider whether or not she’d wet herself during the night, but she certainly had. Unfortunately, at this point her mother was raging and she suspected that informing her of the wet undergarment would only add to her mother's fury, so she quickly went to her closet, grabbed a clean Goodnite, and wrapped her coat around it since carrying a childish undergarment in plain site felt horribly embarrassing. Rushing downstairs, Amy nearly ran into her mother coming around a corner.
"Amy, watch where you're going! And why do you have that coat? It's the middle of the summer, you don't need that." Meredith's tone was dismissive as she entered the kitchen briefly and grabbed a few shopping bags from the countertop before heading back towards Amy who hadn't moved from her position at the bottom of the stairs.
"Are you ready? I have lots of errands to run today and I'm dropping you off at the Chadwicks' place first so let's get going." Her mother rushing for the door, Amy contemplated taking the coat anyway, but realizing that arguing about it would likely give away the detail she'd previously hidden, she opened the hallway closet, threw the coat and its contents inside, and hoped her mother wouldn't check that spot before they came back home later that evening.
The ride to the Chadwicks' was uneventful. Meredith was focused on her day's events and Amy was merely the first item on the list. For her part, Amy was nervous while trying to figure out how to rid herself of the wetness beneath her, yet at the same time enjoying the feeling she'd recently discovered on wet mornings.
Soon, Amy found herself standing next to her mother as the doorbell was rung and sounds from inside the house grew nearer the door until a kindly woman in her early 40s opened the door, smiling at the two guests on her porch.
"Oh, good morning! So glad to see you both, come in, come in!" Betty was her normal, chatty self, but Amy really wanted to get the formal adult greeting stuff out of the way so she could go see JJ and find out what he'd been up to while she was away. She didn't understand how two women whom she realized didn't particularly care for each other could possibly find the time and energy to stand around pretending to enjoy conversation with each other.
While Meredith and Betty chatted away about the day's plans and the regional happenings, without realizing it, Amy had fallen into her old habit of daydreaming while nibbling on her pinky finger and tuning out everything else around her. She thought back to a time when she wasn't expected to take part in adult conversation and was simply told to run along and play while the adults had their boring conversations. Oddly enough, she wished nothing more was expected of her today, but somehow being a teenager meant people started thinking you were nearly ready to be a person and with it, the playing and toys were to quickly become a thing of the past. Amy's thoughts were less complex, and focused on how she didn't care about what was expected, only what she wanted in the moment. She wanted to be done with this conversation, and she was waiting for the first semblance of a pause to blurt out her question. She didn't get the opportunity.
"Amy, stop sucking your finger...that’s not very lady-like!" Meredith scowled at her daughter until she removed the glistening tip from her mouth and held it together with both her hands behind her back, blushing slightly but unable to issue a rebuttal.
"Oh Amy, why don't you go ahead and head upstairs...JJ will be so happy to see you!" Betty saved the day and gave Amy an easy out from the increasingly awkward situation her mother had placed her in.
"I'll see you tonight honey, please call if you need anything." Meredith's words were basically ignored as Amy was already heading up the stairs to see her favorite 3-year-old.
As she entered the room, Amy briefly remembered the state of her Goodnite, but quickly put that out of her mind as she was excited to see JJ and the Legos scattered on the floor quickly grabbed her attention.
"Amy! Hieee!" The little boy hopped up from his toys and ran to hug Amy before she'd even had a chance to sit down with him and see his latest creations.
"Amy lookie!!" It was clear the boy was enamored with her as he quickly started babbling about all of the houses and cars he'd built since she’d last played with him.
"Whoa JJ, this is pretty cool stuff! You're getting to be a good builder!" Amy fed his little boy ego slightly, but she was genuinely impressed at what he'd been able to build on his own. Most 5-year-olds would struggle to come up with what this kid had done in a few days since she'd last seen him. Over the next hour, they explored all of JJ's creations and Amy offered suggestions to improve his work. She noticed a new bin of parts had been added since her last visit, which brought the sum total of his building materials to a level that started to approach her own large collection and filled her with glee at the possibilities they'd have for the rest of the day and the days to come.
Periodically while she played, Amy half-noticed the squish between her legs and wiggled slightly enjoying the feeling she'd rarely gotten the opportunity to experience outside of lingering in her bed during the morning. She caught herself several time sucking her pinky as she’d get lost in those feelings and her daydreams, but each time she'd soon be pulled back into JJ's world of play; though her new feelings were mysteriously tempting as an escape in their own right.
-----
Betty had seen Meredith out the door a while ago, but she'd decided to tend to laundry for a bit before checking in on the kids upstairs. After an hour or so, her motherly instincts made her wonder if Amy had eaten anything and if JJ wanted a snack with lunch time a couple of hours away, so she went to visit the playroom.
"Kids, do you want some bananas or apples?" Amy almost jumped, having not heard Betty coming and being focused on her current building task. She was hungry, but she wanted to see what JJ wanted to do first before acting like she wanted snacks.
"Umm, I like apples mama! I want some...you have apples mama?" JJ seemed eager for apples, so Amy figured on going along with it.
"Apples works for me too." Amy added.
"Ok, apples it is, I'll be right back!" Betty soon returned with the apples and water for the kids, a sippy for JJ and the same water bottle Amy had used the last time. The kids mopped them up in short order and went back to building their airport. Normally, Amy would've felt obligated to wash her hands after eating anything and going back to doing something else, but when the pang of responsibility crept into her mind, she ignored it and told herself that her hands weren't that sticky and it was nothing to worry about since she wasn’t being held responsible as the babysitter. It wasn't long before Betty returned, this time with a pull-up and wipes in her hand.
"Alright little man, mommy hasn't heard a peep from you all morning about the potty so I know you must be wet by now. Let's get you changed." Betty deflected the obligatory whines about the potty and the importance of playing with Legos and quickly had JJ laid down next to the construction area, gently pulling off his play shorts and leaving him in an obviously wet pull-up. Amy suddenly remembered her own problem and felt her face grow warm at the prospect of Betty repeating last week's episode, though she drew slight comfort from the fact that Betty hadn't bothered checking JJ and had gone right to changing him. She guessed instead that Betty had come only to change JJ and that was the end of it, so she surely wouldn't check her.
After ripping open the sides of the pull-up, Betty went about the task of cleaning her son while he squirmed slightly at the annoyance of being changed. In a moment, she pulled up a clean pair of pull-ups over him and re-dressed him in his play shorts. Amy was glad she didn't have to worry about JJ’s changes anymore as that was her least favorite part about babysitting.
"All done honey, you can get back to your Legos now sweetheart." Betty patted her son's rear gently as he got back on his knees and crawled the few feet to his previous position to resume his play.
Betty gathered the wipes and the used pull-up, and was about to leave the room, when she had the thought to help Amy remember to use the potty herself today.
"Amy, have you used the potty since you got here this morning?" Betty's choice of words could've been better as they alone were cause for embarrassment to any teenager, but the added fact of a wet undergarment caused Amy to blush profusely and stutter out her answer.
"N..no, I'm fine." Having never looked up and focused on not giving herself away, Amy had done just that.
"Amy honey, why don't you go and try. It'll just take a minute and you can come right back, ok?" Amy didn't know whether or not to be humiliated or slip back into the kid role she’d fallen into the last time she played with JJ. On the one hand, JJ didn't really care if she wet herself, but she felt obligated to be a big girl in both his eyes and his mother's. Still, at this juncture, she didn't know what to do, so she aimlessly got up and headed to the bathroom.
Betty saw the signs and realized the girl had likely wet herself. Considering her previous visit, she wasn't surprised, but instead felt a slight amount of frustration considering their last conversation had hinged on Amy taking care of her accidents immediately so as not to cause damage to the household furniture. She supposed it might have just happened, but Betty wanted to make sure, so she followed Amy to the bathroom. As Amy entered, but just before shutting the door, Betty stepped into the bathroom doorway slightly just enough to ask...
"Honey, please be honest with me...are you wet?" Her question was straightforward, but not malicious.
"I...I didn't have t..time to change this morning. My mom made me get up and leave a...and I..." Amy's eyes started to water as she realized she was explaining her essentially wet diaper to the woman whom she had until now seen as her employer. Instead, she felt like a little girl explaining herself to a watchful aunt who had just noticed the state of her young niece’s pants.
"Alright Amy, it's ok honey, you don't have to cry." Betty stepped into the bathroom and took the girl in her arms, gently rubbing her back while she continued to sniffle into the larger woman's chest. After several moments, she genuinely felt better and realized that perhaps this woman really did care for her.
"Honey, I didn't see you bring a bag with you, so does that mean you don't have a clean pull-up?"
"I, ummm...I tried to grab one, but I couldn't." Amy couldn't think of how else to explain her morning to Betty, and while she knew that probably didn't come out right, she wasn’t sure what else to say.
"Amy, do you remember I told you to bring a change or two with you from now on? That was part of our deal." As she was saying the words, Betty saw Amy's emotional state was crumbling further, and she realized that regardless of what should be, soon it would be her responsibility to get Amy taken care of and into a fresh pull-up. Any lectures on being responsible and bringing changes next time would be better saved for later.
"I...I'm sorry, I tried. I did..." The girl's right eye started running again and her face slightly scrunched up into crying from a moment before Betty Chadwick gave her an affirming squeeze and started talking again.
"Alright honey, we'll just have to get you taken care of. I'll go fetch one of JJ's pull-ups and that'll just have to do for today. Ok?” Amy stared dumbly for a moment, then nodded and attempted to pull herself together as Betty went to fetch the pull-up.
Standing in the bathroom waiting for Betty for what seemed like an eternity, she grew bored and pulled down her capris to examine the Goodnite. It had long since lost its shape, as it hung lower on her with an obvious bulk in the section between her legs. She squeezed the bulk and felt the barely warm mush of a used diaper in her hands. Still curious about the feeling she'd been enjoying, she sat on the floor and felt the bulk between her again. Though it didn't feel quite the same as it had before, she continued to explore the feelings of her wet Goodnite until she heard Betty approaching the bathroom. Realizing she didn't have time to get up and pull her capris back on, she quickly stood up and acted like nothing was different.
"Ok honey, I've got everything for you to get all nice and clean..." Betty rambled as she entered the room. Betty didn't have an awkward bone in her body, so looking at Amy, clad in a t-shirt, obviously wet pull-up, and pants around her ankles, Betty just went with it and assumed the girl just wanted out of the wet pull-up as quickly as possible.
"Guess you’re ready for a fresh pull-up! I'll just leave everything here and I'm sure you'll be changed in no time. Come see me if you need anything!" Betty laid the pull-up, wipes, and cream on the bathroom sink top and left the room, closing the door behind her.
Amy was slightly embarrassed, but more clearly happy to be done with the awkward exchange. Quickly, she was into a clean pull-up and had the items returned to JJ's bedroom where she knew Betty had gotten them.
-----
It was soon lunch time, and both kids were called downstairs for a meal of PBJs and milk. Amy and JJ were both quite happy about this meal and said as much to Betty, thanking her for one of their favorite lunches.
Amy waited for JJ to get cleaned up and soon they were both back upstairs for more play time in the wonderful world of Legos.
The masterplan for the airport was to include a huge food court, full service areas for the airplanes, and plenty of waiting areas for the passengers. It had taken a long time to convince JJ that airports didn't have an indoor zoo or soccer field, but eventually JJ relented whenever Amy promised to let him build an entire airplane all by himself.
The food court was massive. It had ten different shops and each shop was large enough to hold several Lego people “customers” at once as well as holding a serving station for preparing the food. Amy was working hard trying to make everything as realistic and unique as possible and letting JJ try his hand at airplane construction was a good way to let her creative energies focus on the perfect food court.
JJ for his part was in heaven. To him, building an airplane was just about the coolest thing he could dream up to build, regardless of his lack of understanding for just what shape airplanes should be. An hour later, he had built what looked more like an eight-by-eight tower at least fifteen blocks high with a couple of pieces sticking out periodically that he referred to as "wings". Amy only once attempted to offer suggestions, but quickly relented as she realized this was supposed to be his project and if she didn’t leave him alone she risked his encroachment on her own territory.
It was 2pm by the time JJ was satisfied with his "airplane" and on to building a second one. Amy was still tweaking this and that with her food court, but she had all of the areas laid out and aside from more tweaks she was just about finished.
Now she was getting thirsty, realizing she hadn't had anything to drink since her snack almost four hours ago. She decided to take a break from building and went downstairs to get a drink. As she went to grab a glass from the overhead cupboard, Betty called out from the next room.
"Amy honey, please put that in your water bottle. I don't want any spills. Thank you sweetheart."
"But Mrs. Chadwick, I'm only getting a glass of water and I promise not to spill it."
"Honey, please do as I ask...JJ never uses anything but his sippy for that very reason, and I don't want a little carelessness upstairs causing messes."
Amy relented and found the water bottle to fill as she was asked, but all the while she was struggling with seeming being assigned the same rules as Betty’s 3-year-old son. At this point, all she wanted was water, so she ignored the nagging thoughts in her head and went back upstairs to join JJ in the playroom.
By 3:00, she was satisfied with her food court and JJ was still working on his second airplane, so it was time to go deep into thought and plan out the next phase of their project. It was barely ten minutes into her planning process when some part of her started feeling the effects of the water building inside her, demanding release. Determined to finish her plan, she suppressed all distractions, telling that part of herself she could hold it a little while longer.
___________________________________________________________________________________________
It was 3:30 pm and Betty was just finishing up her housework for the day. The next order of business was potty time, or as it had become most of the time recently, changing time for her son. She ran back through the day’s potty schedule in her mind. Diaper change at 7 am followed by a pull-up change around 11 am. Potty time after lunch at 12:30 pm which went well, but nothing since then. She wasn't betting on a dry pull-up, but since he hadn't really had much to drink lately, a mother could surely hope for two potty trips before dinner.
As she headed upstairs, she remembered Amy's trip for water and suddenly caught herself running through Amy's potty schedule as well, as silly as that seemed to her on the one hand, the other hand felt like she almost had two potty training kids on her hands. Amy claimed she was wet when she arrived, but Betty had a hard time believing that Meredith would let Amy leave the house wet and not notice it. She realized that Amy had free access to the bathroom upstairs, so unlike JJ who needed help with the potty, Amy could’ve relieved herself any number of times. She realized that even if she gave Amy a better chance at being dry than JJ, nothing would surprise her at this point.
Entering the play room, she noticed JJ putting roof pieces on the top of a small, oddly shaped tower with little random pieces sticking out of the sides. Though she had no clue what her son was building, she was proud of him.
"Great job sweetheart, you're doing really great! Keep building and mommy will let you build a house for her one day!" Betty grinned wide at JJ as the little boy returned the grin and bounded towards his mother for a hug. She took that opportunity to check him without much fuss.
"JJ honey, do you have to go potty? You don't feel wet, but I bet you have to go." Betty was enthusiastic that her son was dry, but she didn't want to get too excited before getting him to the potty to finish the job.
"Umm, maybe mommy I dunno...you like my airplanes? Lookie mommy, I got two!" Clearly, some motherly intervention was necessary.
"JJ honey, you can show me all about these once we make a quick potty trip. You're doing so good being dry, now let's get our pee pees in the potty and we can get right back to playing. The little boy gave a brief obligatory whine, but it seemed the excessive praise over being dry was also having an effect. As Betty left the playroom with JJ, she glanced at Amy who was rocking back and forth slightly, her little finger barely in her mouth.
Amy was trying to concentrate on her plan, but her full bladder was starting to seriously distract her. After a few minutes, she couldn't stand it any longer and headed for the bathroom, doing the pee pee dance the whole way. When she got to the bathroom, she realized the door was locked and both Betty and JJ were inside. She decided to knock.
"Amy, what do you need sweetheart?" Betty called, muffled from behind the bathroom door.
"I umm, really have to...ummm...go." Amy thought it was obvious what she needed, but apparently it wasn't.
"Oh I'm sorry honey but JJ had to go potty and he's going poopy now so we might be a bit. Can you hold it for a little bit longer?"
"No, I reeeeeally gotta go bad, can't I use another bathroom?" Amy had been told from the moment she started babysitting JJ weeks ago that this was the bathroom she was to use and she'd never deviated from that plan.
"Amy you can use the one in the basement. It's down the stairs, to the right and then down the hall, third door on the left."
That was all Amy needed to hear. She quickly ran down to the main floor, then found the basement door and the lightswitch before descending the stairs to a part of the house she'd never visited before. It was finished, but definitely less well-kept than the rest of the house and looked like a place most of the random household items were kept for storage, with a random spider web or two crossing the upper areas of the hallway indicating that the area wasn't frequently visited. As she rounded the corner at the bottom of the steps and walked down the hallway, she realized she'd forgotten the rest of the directions beyond the part about turning left at the bottom of the stairs. What's more, she suddenly had the feeling of being alone in a creepy part of the big house, far away from Betty and unsure where she was supposed to go.
Just as her mind was alternating between fright and telling her to just try random doors, she felt herself shudder slightly as a cobweb brushed against her face causing her to squeal and release a small amount of pee into her pull-up. Tears started running down her face, and in the blur, she tried a door which looked promising, but it led to the garage. Opening the next door, through her tears she saw what looked like a spare bedroom with storage boxes taking up most of the room and, of all things, a pile of Halloween decorations off to the side which completed the feeling Amy already had of being inside a haunted house.
Whatever determination Amy had for getting to the bathroom was gone, and all she wanted to do was get back to Betty and the familiar part of the house. Crying the whole way back upstairs, she could think of nothing else but getting away from that place.
When she finally got back upstairs, she saw the bathroom door still closed, so she went back into the playroom and tried to pretend like nothing had happened. Sitting down, she nearly jolted up at feeling the squish of a full pull-up and the nearly simultaneous realization that her bladder was no longer full. She nearly burst into a full-on sob, but then she heard the bathroom door open, causing her to try desperately to bring herself under control.
Betty heard the sniffs of Amy's crying immediately, and she rushed to the playroom to see what was wrong. The girl was clearly distraught and had tears running all over her face. It took several minutes but she finally understood that Amy had taken the wrong turn at the bottom of the steps and gotten herself freaked out by the storage room. It was a bit silly to Betty, but she also realized that they had a large house and a young girl could get frightened in an unfamiliar part of such a large house. It was then that she spied the swollen bulk between Amy's legs as she sat cross-legged on the floor and noticed the more concerning two slightly darker lines running between the bulk and each of her legs.
"Amy sweetheart, get up..." Betty helped Amy to her feet and it was then that she saw two dark marks on the carpet. Knowing this would freak Amy out even more thinking she might be kicked to the curb based on their last conversation, she quickly led the girl to the bathroom before she could notice the spots herself. She knew her husband wouldn’t like this, but she thought it was fixable before he could notice.
Amy got up, but she was confused and frightened. “I tried to follow your directions, I really did, I just got scared, I..I’m sorry.” Fighting to keep her emotions in check was no small task, but she seemed to be managing.
"Honey, you’re not in trouble for getting scared, but we need to get you taken care of.” Betty squeezed Amy’s hand, but let go assuming Amy would follow her without a leash. While the girl complied, she was still confused and added when they got into the hallway…
“I’m not scared anymore, I’m ok now. Where are we going?” Betty didn’t know if Amy really was so afraid that she had no idea of her wet state or if Amy was simply hoping she wouldn’t notice, so she went for the straightforward approach.
“You didn't make it to the potty honey. And it looks like JJ’s pull-ups don’t quite handle your big girl accidents when you really have to go, so we need to change your pants too."
Amy knew she was wet, but her fright in the basement had prevented her from processing the details of what had happened. She now realized that after opening the door to the storage room, she’d lost control and completely emptied her bladder before going back upstairs. The squish in the playroom was the result of a pull-up overflowing with her accident after holding her pee far too long. She was a mess: a big girl who didn’t go to the potty when she should have, but instead held out far too long and now wore a soaked toddler pull-up not meant to handle the flooding she had dished out. The feeling of her soaked state was even more evident as she realized what she’d done, including the increasingly uncomfortable feeling of the wet capris sticking to her upper thighs as she followed Betty to JJ’s room.
Amy’s sense of responsibility had been waning all summer, but this step with the Chadwicks’ asking her to be more of a playmate to JJ than a babysitter had been more enabling of her drift away from adult responsibility than anyone really knew. Deep down, losing her best and only real friend had wrecked her world. Her father’s continued absence from her life made her feel even more isolated, and her mother’s parenting never encouraged her to excel and look to the future for happiness. Increasingly, she looked back; back to a time when her best friend spent nearly every day with her and even to a time when her mom looked after and loved her. Back to her favorite things that had nothing to do with being responsible.
While Amy never really went through her own head that deeply, the effects were evident. She might not have been responsible for the first wet pull-up of the day, but the second was due to a pure lack of responsibility and a growing childish obsession with not leaving her playtime for a visit to the bathroom. It was even more telling that her worry at present was less about the soaking wet mess in her pants and more about whether or not she’d be asked to stop coming over to the Chadwicks.
In response to the momentary situation, she didn’t feel like arguing or explaining or engaging Betty on any level about her current state because nothing came to mind that made any sense to her, let alone to an adult. She only hoped Betty would leave her alone soon so she could change and move on from the awkward exchange and go back to playing with JJ.
“You know where everything is Amy,” Betty stated while gesturing towards JJ’s supplies as they entered the room. “Please clean up and bring me your wet pants when you’re done. I’m sorry you’ll have to go without them for a little bit, but you know I don’t have anything for you to wear and you didn’t bring a change.”
While Amy cleaned herself up, Betty went to clean the wet spots in the playroom so as not to cause more emotional drama than she could handle for one day. In some way, she felt responsible because she hadn’t let Amy use the bathroom and sent her into unfamiliar territory which ultimately proved too much for the girl. Still, Betty realized that Amy probably hadn’t gone earlier when she should have, and her lack of responsibility only furthered the older woman’s thoughts that Amy was in need of good parenting that she wasn’t getting from her mother.
Ten minutes later, Betty had cleaned the spot and Amy came back into the room to resume her play with her favorite little boy in the world. Soon the big girl and little boy both sat together on the floor, wearing t-shirts and pull-ups in their own world of Lego magic.
-----
The rest of the afternoon was without incident. It was now 6 pm and Betty was setting out food for the three of them, having just finished cleaning and returning Amy’s clothes to her. Her husband often worked late into the evening, so it was unlikely he would enter the picture for the rest of Amy’s stay since her mom was supposed to pick her up at 7. Nonetheless, Amy felt better being fully clothed at the dinner table and truth be told Betty didn’t want Amy leaving the upstairs “kids area” in such a state either.
As the meal progressed, Amy watched JJ and realized that he was an exceptionally neat eater for his age, despite having the motor skills of a 3-year-old. He accomplished this by eating slowly, methodically even, and when he got messy anyway, there were usually calls for someone to get the “icky” off him before he could move on with life. He was certainly far better than the annoying 5-year-old named Mandy that she’d babysat a few days prior and who still got food everywhere. This realization impressed upon Amy just what a special kid JJ was. She almost felt like a proud big sister.
As Amy was helping Betty clear things into the kitchen, Meredith arrived and Amy once again fell quickly into the background as the women chatted about what seemed like nothing in particular. Amy excused herself and went to find JJ since she felt no longer needed and she knew that her mother wouldn’t be ready to leave for a little while.
Back in the kitchen, Meredith had taken a seat at the kitchen table while Betty finished with dinnertime cleanup. The older woman was internally struggling with something she rarely mulled over: what words to say to Meredith. Her gut reaction was to scold this mother for being a lackluster parent, but seeing as she suspected Meredith wouldn’t really take anything she said to heart and instead take it out on Amy with more bad parenting, she was trying to think another angle into working. Though Betty wasn’t the most intelligent of creatures and certainly spoke first on most occasions before weighing consequences, the subject of Amy had been weighing on her now for the past few hours and her desire was for the girl’s best.
The small talk continued for a short while, but soon Betty couldn’t let the aimless conversation continue on so long that she wouldn’t have a chance to say what she needed to say, so the floodgates opened, if only slightly for the first round.
“Meredith dear, I need your help with something.”
“Well Betty, I’ll certainly do what I can, what do you need?”
“This is about Amy. Please hear me out.” Meredith’s gaze took on a more skeptical look, but the slight nod indicated at least a willingness to listen to what Betty had to say.
“I don’t know if Amy told you, but I’ve asked her to wear her pull-ups while she’s here due to the accident from the last time. You know my husband is exceptionally picky about keeping the house immaculate and she did have an accident later that same day, so it seemed like a good idea.”
“I knew about the wetting obviously from our last conversation, but Amy never revealed your ‘little deal’ between you two.” Meredith sighed, obviously annoyed. “Do you really think it’s appropriate to have a teenage girl running around your house in pull-ups, Betty?”
“Meredith dear, I don’t let her out of the play area upstairs unless she’s fully clothed, so no, I don’t think that’s appropriate and I wouldn’t allow it.”
“I...really didn’t even consider that an option, so thanks but that still doesn’t address the fact that she’s still wearing pull-ups like some big baby who couldn’t learn how to use the toilet, and somehow that’s supposed to be ok. I’m sure the wetting was a one time thing anyway so I don’t approve of this, no.” Meredith, visibly annoyed, leaned back in the chair looking for a change in facial expression from the other woman, and hopefully one indicating that Betty was finally starting to realize the silliness of her teenager in pull-ups plan.
“I wish that were true Meredith, but unfortunately she had another accident today. She claims it was the same wet pair she had from last night’s bedwetting but I couldn’t believe that you’d actually let her leave the house wet, so she must have been too embarrassed to tell me what had happened.” Betty conveniently left off the second accident, as she was still feeling partially responsible and she hardly wanted to reveal those details which would put herself in a bad light. Regardless, the single morning accident was still enough to drive her point home: Amy needed pull-ups.
Meredith instantly thought back to the morning’s drama and realized that with the rush out of the house, it was completely possible that Amy was telling the truth and hadn’t changed out of her bedtime Goodnite. However, it was also clear that revealing that detail would only add to Betty’s perception of her as a bad mother, so for now she had to just roll with it. Both women were lying.
“You’ve got to be kidding me, wet pants again? I’m going to have to have a talk with that girl…” Meredith’s voice trailed off.
“I don’t think it’s her fault dear, as much as you might not understand it, I think Amy is really struggling with some things inside and sometimes it affects her in ways...like that.” Betty was weighing her next words carefully. “Have you ever thought about having her see a doctor about her...accidents?” She stopped short of suggesting a shrink, but that’s what she was thinking the whole time.
“She’s wet off and on for years during the night so that’s hardly a medical condition, Betty, but the daytime accidents are a new thing. Maybe you’re right, I’ll see if I can get her an appointment to be checked out.” The lying prevented both women from laying all the facts out on the table, and for Meredith’s part, the doctor idea was probably not going to happen.
“Well in the meantime, if you wouldn’t mind packing a few of her pull-ups just in case before you bring her over, that might be good. She didn’t bring any today even though I asked her to.”
“Yeah ok, I”ll see about it Betty.” Meredith figured placating the woman by throwing a couple pull-ups in a bag was worth it. She didn’t expect that bag would ever need refilling.
-----
Twenty minutes later, Amy and Meredith were on their way home and Meredith chose to break the silence first.
“I heard about your accident this morning Amy, but I want to know if your story about not changing from last night is true. Don’t lie to me.” The irony was lost on Meredith.
“Uhh, you practically dragged me out of the house, so yeah, it’s true. I figured you’d freak out if I told you about my wetting on top of you being mad already.” Amy’s earlier annoyance at her mother had began to resurface and it was showing.
“You’re the one who caused this, Amy, by being irresponsible and not getting out of bed when you were called. If you did, then you wouldn’t have to worry about Betty Chadwick thinking you pee your pants in the daytime now too.”
Her mother’s lack of acknowledgement for the afternoon soaking incident made Amy realize that Betty probably hadn’t told her mother about it, but for the life of her she didn’t understand why Betty would then tell her mother about the first wet pull-up which wasn’t even her fault. She felt like everyone was out to confuse her and right now she just wanted to be done with this conversation, so she stopped talking and aimlessly stared out the window. A few minutes later, she started sucking on her pinky as she’d done earlier. Her mother didn’t notice it until she parked the car and looked over to tell Amy to stop sulking and get into the house. Instead she had another criticism.
“I’m sick of seeing your finger in your mouth like some elementary school kid. I thought I broke you of that four years ago in middle school and you’ve been doing it again. What is your deal Amy?” Her tone was firm, but genuinely confused as to this latest sign of immaturity in her daughter.
“It just feels good mom, and for the record I only gave it up because you insisted on covering my fingers with poison every time you saw me doing it.” Her thoughts went back to her 7th grade year of school when the kids would periodically tease her about sucking on her fingers, all except Molly of course. Nothing would dissuade her until her mother became fed up at the habit and coated her daughter’s fingers with a nasty-tasting liquid meant for training kids to not bite their nails or suck on their fingers.
“Do I have to go buy more?” The words were barely out of her mouth when the mental gears switched and she restated her threat. “Actually, I don’t care what you do with your fingers Amy. You’ll be the one looking ridiculous in front of your peers and anyone else you come across who knows that teenage girls shouldn't be sucking on their fingers. So no more threats, just a warning that you’re just setting yourself up for being miserable again.”
“Fine, whatever mom. Good night.” Amy stormed upstairs and threw her stuff in a heap on the floor. After changing into her Goodnite, she crawled under the covers to avoid her mother for the rest of the evening, and wished for dreams more pleasant than her reality.
Monday morning came far too soon for Amy.
"I won't tell you again Amy, it's time to get up!" Meredith declared with a certain level of annoyance.
Amy tossed in bed, balled up in her covers and wished for one more minute in the cozy heap as she dreamed pleasant dreams and enjoyed the warmth between her legs. Sunday was merely a dull memory at this point, but she wasn't ready to start a new week just yet.
Meredith left the room, expecting the poorly veiled threat would prod her daughter out of bed in short order. She wasn't sure if she should threaten cold water or a serious punishment at this point, as it was starting to become a routine thing this summer fighting to get Amy out of bed in the morning. It would’ve been one thing if her daughter was in elementary school, but she assumed her daughter wouldn't be such a hassle in the mornings by this age. Still, at some level, a sense of control and motherly need compelled her to continue to mother Amy to whatever level was necessary.
Meanwhile, Amy had quickly fallen into yet another slumber. This time, it wasn't something she was consciously aware of, but yet the dream seemed barely removed from reality. In her dream, she found Molly back at her house playing with her and JJ as they built Lego castles. Molly looked younger, perhaps 8 or so, and Amy imagined she was the same age. JJ looked to be his 3-year-old self, and the disparity of ages didn't register in Amy's dream state.
The trio were caught up in play time until they were rudely interrupted by Amy's mom telling them to wake...up?
"AMY!" Meredith was screaming. "We have 5 minutes to be out of this house and get over to the Chadwick's place and you're in BED! I swear, you're the most irresponsible teenager I've ever heard of, now GET DRESSED!"
Lurching out of her dream, Amy stumbled out of bed and towards her nearby dresser. The dream clung to her mind, and in her half-awake state, she barely registered the necessary details required to get herself ready. At this moment, the fact that her mother had stormed out of her room with threats of groundings and spankings (the latter of which she realized was an empty threat, but it meant her mother was angry) was enough to get her quickly throwing on clothes and heading towards the bathroom for a quick wash of her face before heading downstairs.
It was in that moment that she registered a warm, mushy feeling between her legs. In her half-awake, half-dream state, she hadn't even thought to consider whether or not she’d wet herself during the night, but she certainly had. Unfortunately, at this point her mother was raging and she suspected that informing her of the wet undergarment would only add to her mother's fury, so she quickly went to her closet, grabbed a clean Goodnite, and wrapped her coat around it since carrying a childish undergarment in plain site felt horribly embarrassing. Rushing downstairs, Amy nearly ran into her mother coming around a corner.
"Amy, watch where you're going! And why do you have that coat? It's the middle of the summer, you don't need that." Meredith's tone was dismissive as she entered the kitchen briefly and grabbed a few shopping bags from the countertop before heading back towards Amy who hadn't moved from her position at the bottom of the stairs.
"Are you ready? I have lots of errands to run today and I'm dropping you off at the Chadwicks' place first so let's get going." Her mother rushing for the door, Amy contemplated taking the coat anyway, but realizing that arguing about it would likely give away the detail she'd previously hidden, she opened the hallway closet, threw the coat and its contents inside, and hoped her mother wouldn't check that spot before they came back home later that evening.
The ride to the Chadwicks' was uneventful. Meredith was focused on her day's events and Amy was merely the first item on the list. For her part, Amy was nervous while trying to figure out how to rid herself of the wetness beneath her, yet at the same time enjoying the feeling she'd recently discovered on wet mornings.
Soon, Amy found herself standing next to her mother as the doorbell was rung and sounds from inside the house grew nearer the door until a kindly woman in her early 40s opened the door, smiling at the two guests on her porch.
"Oh, good morning! So glad to see you both, come in, come in!" Betty was her normal, chatty self, but Amy really wanted to get the formal adult greeting stuff out of the way so she could go see JJ and find out what he'd been up to while she was away. She didn't understand how two women whom she realized didn't particularly care for each other could possibly find the time and energy to stand around pretending to enjoy conversation with each other.
While Meredith and Betty chatted away about the day's plans and the regional happenings, without realizing it, Amy had fallen into her old habit of daydreaming while nibbling on her pinky finger and tuning out everything else around her. She thought back to a time when she wasn't expected to take part in adult conversation and was simply told to run along and play while the adults had their boring conversations. Oddly enough, she wished nothing more was expected of her today, but somehow being a teenager meant people started thinking you were nearly ready to be a person and with it, the playing and toys were to quickly become a thing of the past. Amy's thoughts were less complex, and focused on how she didn't care about what was expected, only what she wanted in the moment. She wanted to be done with this conversation, and she was waiting for the first semblance of a pause to blurt out her question. She didn't get the opportunity.
"Amy, stop sucking your finger...that’s not very lady-like!" Meredith scowled at her daughter until she removed the glistening tip from her mouth and held it together with both her hands behind her back, blushing slightly but unable to issue a rebuttal.
"Oh Amy, why don't you go ahead and head upstairs...JJ will be so happy to see you!" Betty saved the day and gave Amy an easy out from the increasingly awkward situation her mother had placed her in.
"I'll see you tonight honey, please call if you need anything." Meredith's words were basically ignored as Amy was already heading up the stairs to see her favorite 3-year-old.
As she entered the room, Amy briefly remembered the state of her Goodnite, but quickly put that out of her mind as she was excited to see JJ and the Legos scattered on the floor quickly grabbed her attention.
"Amy! Hieee!" The little boy hopped up from his toys and ran to hug Amy before she'd even had a chance to sit down with him and see his latest creations.
"Amy lookie!!" It was clear the boy was enamored with her as he quickly started babbling about all of the houses and cars he'd built since she’d last played with him.
"Whoa JJ, this is pretty cool stuff! You're getting to be a good builder!" Amy fed his little boy ego slightly, but she was genuinely impressed at what he'd been able to build on his own. Most 5-year-olds would struggle to come up with what this kid had done in a few days since she'd last seen him. Over the next hour, they explored all of JJ's creations and Amy offered suggestions to improve his work. She noticed a new bin of parts had been added since her last visit, which brought the sum total of his building materials to a level that started to approach her own large collection and filled her with glee at the possibilities they'd have for the rest of the day and the days to come.
Periodically while she played, Amy half-noticed the squish between her legs and wiggled slightly enjoying the feeling she'd rarely gotten the opportunity to experience outside of lingering in her bed during the morning. She caught herself several time sucking her pinky as she’d get lost in those feelings and her daydreams, but each time she'd soon be pulled back into JJ's world of play; though her new feelings were mysteriously tempting as an escape in their own right.
-----
Betty had seen Meredith out the door a while ago, but she'd decided to tend to laundry for a bit before checking in on the kids upstairs. After an hour or so, her motherly instincts made her wonder if Amy had eaten anything and if JJ wanted a snack with lunch time a couple of hours away, so she went to visit the playroom.
"Kids, do you want some bananas or apples?" Amy almost jumped, having not heard Betty coming and being focused on her current building task. She was hungry, but she wanted to see what JJ wanted to do first before acting like she wanted snacks.
"Umm, I like apples mama! I want some...you have apples mama?" JJ seemed eager for apples, so Amy figured on going along with it.
"Apples works for me too." Amy added.
"Ok, apples it is, I'll be right back!" Betty soon returned with the apples and water for the kids, a sippy for JJ and the same water bottle Amy had used the last time. The kids mopped them up in short order and went back to building their airport. Normally, Amy would've felt obligated to wash her hands after eating anything and going back to doing something else, but when the pang of responsibility crept into her mind, she ignored it and told herself that her hands weren't that sticky and it was nothing to worry about since she wasn’t being held responsible as the babysitter. It wasn't long before Betty returned, this time with a pull-up and wipes in her hand.
"Alright little man, mommy hasn't heard a peep from you all morning about the potty so I know you must be wet by now. Let's get you changed." Betty deflected the obligatory whines about the potty and the importance of playing with Legos and quickly had JJ laid down next to the construction area, gently pulling off his play shorts and leaving him in an obviously wet pull-up. Amy suddenly remembered her own problem and felt her face grow warm at the prospect of Betty repeating last week's episode, though she drew slight comfort from the fact that Betty hadn't bothered checking JJ and had gone right to changing him. She guessed instead that Betty had come only to change JJ and that was the end of it, so she surely wouldn't check her.
After ripping open the sides of the pull-up, Betty went about the task of cleaning her son while he squirmed slightly at the annoyance of being changed. In a moment, she pulled up a clean pair of pull-ups over him and re-dressed him in his play shorts. Amy was glad she didn't have to worry about JJ’s changes anymore as that was her least favorite part about babysitting.
"All done honey, you can get back to your Legos now sweetheart." Betty patted her son's rear gently as he got back on his knees and crawled the few feet to his previous position to resume his play.
Betty gathered the wipes and the used pull-up, and was about to leave the room, when she had the thought to help Amy remember to use the potty herself today.
"Amy, have you used the potty since you got here this morning?" Betty's choice of words could've been better as they alone were cause for embarrassment to any teenager, but the added fact of a wet undergarment caused Amy to blush profusely and stutter out her answer.
"N..no, I'm fine." Having never looked up and focused on not giving herself away, Amy had done just that.
"Amy honey, why don't you go and try. It'll just take a minute and you can come right back, ok?" Amy didn't know whether or not to be humiliated or slip back into the kid role she’d fallen into the last time she played with JJ. On the one hand, JJ didn't really care if she wet herself, but she felt obligated to be a big girl in both his eyes and his mother's. Still, at this juncture, she didn't know what to do, so she aimlessly got up and headed to the bathroom.
Betty saw the signs and realized the girl had likely wet herself. Considering her previous visit, she wasn't surprised, but instead felt a slight amount of frustration considering their last conversation had hinged on Amy taking care of her accidents immediately so as not to cause damage to the household furniture. She supposed it might have just happened, but Betty wanted to make sure, so she followed Amy to the bathroom. As Amy entered, but just before shutting the door, Betty stepped into the bathroom doorway slightly just enough to ask...
"Honey, please be honest with me...are you wet?" Her question was straightforward, but not malicious.
"I...I didn't have t..time to change this morning. My mom made me get up and leave a...and I..." Amy's eyes started to water as she realized she was explaining her essentially wet diaper to the woman whom she had until now seen as her employer. Instead, she felt like a little girl explaining herself to a watchful aunt who had just noticed the state of her young niece’s pants.
"Alright Amy, it's ok honey, you don't have to cry." Betty stepped into the bathroom and took the girl in her arms, gently rubbing her back while she continued to sniffle into the larger woman's chest. After several moments, she genuinely felt better and realized that perhaps this woman really did care for her.
"Honey, I didn't see you bring a bag with you, so does that mean you don't have a clean pull-up?"
"I, ummm...I tried to grab one, but I couldn't." Amy couldn't think of how else to explain her morning to Betty, and while she knew that probably didn't come out right, she wasn’t sure what else to say.
"Amy, do you remember I told you to bring a change or two with you from now on? That was part of our deal." As she was saying the words, Betty saw Amy's emotional state was crumbling further, and she realized that regardless of what should be, soon it would be her responsibility to get Amy taken care of and into a fresh pull-up. Any lectures on being responsible and bringing changes next time would be better saved for later.
"I...I'm sorry, I tried. I did..." The girl's right eye started running again and her face slightly scrunched up into crying from a moment before Betty Chadwick gave her an affirming squeeze and started talking again.
"Alright honey, we'll just have to get you taken care of. I'll go fetch one of JJ's pull-ups and that'll just have to do for today. Ok?” Amy stared dumbly for a moment, then nodded and attempted to pull herself together as Betty went to fetch the pull-up.
Standing in the bathroom waiting for Betty for what seemed like an eternity, she grew bored and pulled down her capris to examine the Goodnite. It had long since lost its shape, as it hung lower on her with an obvious bulk in the section between her legs. She squeezed the bulk and felt the barely warm mush of a used diaper in her hands. Still curious about the feeling she'd been enjoying, she sat on the floor and felt the bulk between her again. Though it didn't feel quite the same as it had before, she continued to explore the feelings of her wet Goodnite until she heard Betty approaching the bathroom. Realizing she didn't have time to get up and pull her capris back on, she quickly stood up and acted like nothing was different.
"Ok honey, I've got everything for you to get all nice and clean..." Betty rambled as she entered the room. Betty didn't have an awkward bone in her body, so looking at Amy, clad in a t-shirt, obviously wet pull-up, and pants around her ankles, Betty just went with it and assumed the girl just wanted out of the wet pull-up as quickly as possible.
"Guess you’re ready for a fresh pull-up! I'll just leave everything here and I'm sure you'll be changed in no time. Come see me if you need anything!" Betty laid the pull-up, wipes, and cream on the bathroom sink top and left the room, closing the door behind her.
Amy was slightly embarrassed, but more clearly happy to be done with the awkward exchange. Quickly, she was into a clean pull-up and had the items returned to JJ's bedroom where she knew Betty had gotten them.
-----
It was soon lunch time, and both kids were called downstairs for a meal of PBJs and milk. Amy and JJ were both quite happy about this meal and said as much to Betty, thanking her for one of their favorite lunches.
Amy waited for JJ to get cleaned up and soon they were both back upstairs for more play time in the wonderful world of Legos.
The masterplan for the airport was to include a huge food court, full service areas for the airplanes, and plenty of waiting areas for the passengers. It had taken a long time to convince JJ that airports didn't have an indoor zoo or soccer field, but eventually JJ relented whenever Amy promised to let him build an entire airplane all by himself.
The food court was massive. It had ten different shops and each shop was large enough to hold several Lego people “customers” at once as well as holding a serving station for preparing the food. Amy was working hard trying to make everything as realistic and unique as possible and letting JJ try his hand at airplane construction was a good way to let her creative energies focus on the perfect food court.
JJ for his part was in heaven. To him, building an airplane was just about the coolest thing he could dream up to build, regardless of his lack of understanding for just what shape airplanes should be. An hour later, he had built what looked more like an eight-by-eight tower at least fifteen blocks high with a couple of pieces sticking out periodically that he referred to as "wings". Amy only once attempted to offer suggestions, but quickly relented as she realized this was supposed to be his project and if she didn’t leave him alone she risked his encroachment on her own territory.
It was 2pm by the time JJ was satisfied with his "airplane" and on to building a second one. Amy was still tweaking this and that with her food court, but she had all of the areas laid out and aside from more tweaks she was just about finished.
Now she was getting thirsty, realizing she hadn't had anything to drink since her snack almost four hours ago. She decided to take a break from building and went downstairs to get a drink. As she went to grab a glass from the overhead cupboard, Betty called out from the next room.
"Amy honey, please put that in your water bottle. I don't want any spills. Thank you sweetheart."
"But Mrs. Chadwick, I'm only getting a glass of water and I promise not to spill it."
"Honey, please do as I ask...JJ never uses anything but his sippy for that very reason, and I don't want a little carelessness upstairs causing messes."
Amy relented and found the water bottle to fill as she was asked, but all the while she was struggling with seeming being assigned the same rules as Betty’s 3-year-old son. At this point, all she wanted was water, so she ignored the nagging thoughts in her head and went back upstairs to join JJ in the playroom.
By 3:00, she was satisfied with her food court and JJ was still working on his second airplane, so it was time to go deep into thought and plan out the next phase of their project. It was barely ten minutes into her planning process when some part of her started feeling the effects of the water building inside her, demanding release. Determined to finish her plan, she suppressed all distractions, telling that part of herself she could hold it a little while longer.
___________________________________________________________________________________________
It was 3:30 pm and Betty was just finishing up her housework for the day. The next order of business was potty time, or as it had become most of the time recently, changing time for her son. She ran back through the day’s potty schedule in her mind. Diaper change at 7 am followed by a pull-up change around 11 am. Potty time after lunch at 12:30 pm which went well, but nothing since then. She wasn't betting on a dry pull-up, but since he hadn't really had much to drink lately, a mother could surely hope for two potty trips before dinner.
As she headed upstairs, she remembered Amy's trip for water and suddenly caught herself running through Amy's potty schedule as well, as silly as that seemed to her on the one hand, the other hand felt like she almost had two potty training kids on her hands. Amy claimed she was wet when she arrived, but Betty had a hard time believing that Meredith would let Amy leave the house wet and not notice it. She realized that Amy had free access to the bathroom upstairs, so unlike JJ who needed help with the potty, Amy could’ve relieved herself any number of times. She realized that even if she gave Amy a better chance at being dry than JJ, nothing would surprise her at this point.
Entering the play room, she noticed JJ putting roof pieces on the top of a small, oddly shaped tower with little random pieces sticking out of the sides. Though she had no clue what her son was building, she was proud of him.
"Great job sweetheart, you're doing really great! Keep building and mommy will let you build a house for her one day!" Betty grinned wide at JJ as the little boy returned the grin and bounded towards his mother for a hug. She took that opportunity to check him without much fuss.
"JJ honey, do you have to go potty? You don't feel wet, but I bet you have to go." Betty was enthusiastic that her son was dry, but she didn't want to get too excited before getting him to the potty to finish the job.
"Umm, maybe mommy I dunno...you like my airplanes? Lookie mommy, I got two!" Clearly, some motherly intervention was necessary.
"JJ honey, you can show me all about these once we make a quick potty trip. You're doing so good being dry, now let's get our pee pees in the potty and we can get right back to playing. The little boy gave a brief obligatory whine, but it seemed the excessive praise over being dry was also having an effect. As Betty left the playroom with JJ, she glanced at Amy who was rocking back and forth slightly, her little finger barely in her mouth.
Amy was trying to concentrate on her plan, but her full bladder was starting to seriously distract her. After a few minutes, she couldn't stand it any longer and headed for the bathroom, doing the pee pee dance the whole way. When she got to the bathroom, she realized the door was locked and both Betty and JJ were inside. She decided to knock.
"Amy, what do you need sweetheart?" Betty called, muffled from behind the bathroom door.
"I umm, really have to...ummm...go." Amy thought it was obvious what she needed, but apparently it wasn't.
"Oh I'm sorry honey but JJ had to go potty and he's going poopy now so we might be a bit. Can you hold it for a little bit longer?"
"No, I reeeeeally gotta go bad, can't I use another bathroom?" Amy had been told from the moment she started babysitting JJ weeks ago that this was the bathroom she was to use and she'd never deviated from that plan.
"Amy you can use the one in the basement. It's down the stairs, to the right and then down the hall, third door on the left."
That was all Amy needed to hear. She quickly ran down to the main floor, then found the basement door and the lightswitch before descending the stairs to a part of the house she'd never visited before. It was finished, but definitely less well-kept than the rest of the house and looked like a place most of the random household items were kept for storage, with a random spider web or two crossing the upper areas of the hallway indicating that the area wasn't frequently visited. As she rounded the corner at the bottom of the steps and walked down the hallway, she realized she'd forgotten the rest of the directions beyond the part about turning left at the bottom of the stairs. What's more, she suddenly had the feeling of being alone in a creepy part of the big house, far away from Betty and unsure where she was supposed to go.
Just as her mind was alternating between fright and telling her to just try random doors, she felt herself shudder slightly as a cobweb brushed against her face causing her to squeal and release a small amount of pee into her pull-up. Tears started running down her face, and in the blur, she tried a door which looked promising, but it led to the garage. Opening the next door, through her tears she saw what looked like a spare bedroom with storage boxes taking up most of the room and, of all things, a pile of Halloween decorations off to the side which completed the feeling Amy already had of being inside a haunted house.
Whatever determination Amy had for getting to the bathroom was gone, and all she wanted to do was get back to Betty and the familiar part of the house. Crying the whole way back upstairs, she could think of nothing else but getting away from that place.
When she finally got back upstairs, she saw the bathroom door still closed, so she went back into the playroom and tried to pretend like nothing had happened. Sitting down, she nearly jolted up at feeling the squish of a full pull-up and the nearly simultaneous realization that her bladder was no longer full. She nearly burst into a full-on sob, but then she heard the bathroom door open, causing her to try desperately to bring herself under control.
Betty heard the sniffs of Amy's crying immediately, and she rushed to the playroom to see what was wrong. The girl was clearly distraught and had tears running all over her face. It took several minutes but she finally understood that Amy had taken the wrong turn at the bottom of the steps and gotten herself freaked out by the storage room. It was a bit silly to Betty, but she also realized that they had a large house and a young girl could get frightened in an unfamiliar part of such a large house. It was then that she spied the swollen bulk between Amy's legs as she sat cross-legged on the floor and noticed the more concerning two slightly darker lines running between the bulk and each of her legs.
"Amy sweetheart, get up..." Betty helped Amy to her feet and it was then that she saw two dark marks on the carpet. Knowing this would freak Amy out even more thinking she might be kicked to the curb based on their last conversation, she quickly led the girl to the bathroom before she could notice the spots herself. She knew her husband wouldn’t like this, but she thought it was fixable before he could notice.
Amy got up, but she was confused and frightened. “I tried to follow your directions, I really did, I just got scared, I..I’m sorry.” Fighting to keep her emotions in check was no small task, but she seemed to be managing.
"Honey, you’re not in trouble for getting scared, but we need to get you taken care of.” Betty squeezed Amy’s hand, but let go assuming Amy would follow her without a leash. While the girl complied, she was still confused and added when they got into the hallway…
“I’m not scared anymore, I’m ok now. Where are we going?” Betty didn’t know if Amy really was so afraid that she had no idea of her wet state or if Amy was simply hoping she wouldn’t notice, so she went for the straightforward approach.
“You didn't make it to the potty honey. And it looks like JJ’s pull-ups don’t quite handle your big girl accidents when you really have to go, so we need to change your pants too."
Amy knew she was wet, but her fright in the basement had prevented her from processing the details of what had happened. She now realized that after opening the door to the storage room, she’d lost control and completely emptied her bladder before going back upstairs. The squish in the playroom was the result of a pull-up overflowing with her accident after holding her pee far too long. She was a mess: a big girl who didn’t go to the potty when she should have, but instead held out far too long and now wore a soaked toddler pull-up not meant to handle the flooding she had dished out. The feeling of her soaked state was even more evident as she realized what she’d done, including the increasingly uncomfortable feeling of the wet capris sticking to her upper thighs as she followed Betty to JJ’s room.
Amy’s sense of responsibility had been waning all summer, but this step with the Chadwicks’ asking her to be more of a playmate to JJ than a babysitter had been more enabling of her drift away from adult responsibility than anyone really knew. Deep down, losing her best and only real friend had wrecked her world. Her father’s continued absence from her life made her feel even more isolated, and her mother’s parenting never encouraged her to excel and look to the future for happiness. Increasingly, she looked back; back to a time when her best friend spent nearly every day with her and even to a time when her mom looked after and loved her. Back to her favorite things that had nothing to do with being responsible.
While Amy never really went through her own head that deeply, the effects were evident. She might not have been responsible for the first wet pull-up of the day, but the second was due to a pure lack of responsibility and a growing childish obsession with not leaving her playtime for a visit to the bathroom. It was even more telling that her worry at present was less about the soaking wet mess in her pants and more about whether or not she’d be asked to stop coming over to the Chadwicks.
In response to the momentary situation, she didn’t feel like arguing or explaining or engaging Betty on any level about her current state because nothing came to mind that made any sense to her, let alone to an adult. She only hoped Betty would leave her alone soon so she could change and move on from the awkward exchange and go back to playing with JJ.
“You know where everything is Amy,” Betty stated while gesturing towards JJ’s supplies as they entered the room. “Please clean up and bring me your wet pants when you’re done. I’m sorry you’ll have to go without them for a little bit, but you know I don’t have anything for you to wear and you didn’t bring a change.”
While Amy cleaned herself up, Betty went to clean the wet spots in the playroom so as not to cause more emotional drama than she could handle for one day. In some way, she felt responsible because she hadn’t let Amy use the bathroom and sent her into unfamiliar territory which ultimately proved too much for the girl. Still, Betty realized that Amy probably hadn’t gone earlier when she should have, and her lack of responsibility only furthered the older woman’s thoughts that Amy was in need of good parenting that she wasn’t getting from her mother.
Ten minutes later, Betty had cleaned the spot and Amy came back into the room to resume her play with her favorite little boy in the world. Soon the big girl and little boy both sat together on the floor, wearing t-shirts and pull-ups in their own world of Lego magic.
-----
The rest of the afternoon was without incident. It was now 6 pm and Betty was setting out food for the three of them, having just finished cleaning and returning Amy’s clothes to her. Her husband often worked late into the evening, so it was unlikely he would enter the picture for the rest of Amy’s stay since her mom was supposed to pick her up at 7. Nonetheless, Amy felt better being fully clothed at the dinner table and truth be told Betty didn’t want Amy leaving the upstairs “kids area” in such a state either.
As the meal progressed, Amy watched JJ and realized that he was an exceptionally neat eater for his age, despite having the motor skills of a 3-year-old. He accomplished this by eating slowly, methodically even, and when he got messy anyway, there were usually calls for someone to get the “icky” off him before he could move on with life. He was certainly far better than the annoying 5-year-old named Mandy that she’d babysat a few days prior and who still got food everywhere. This realization impressed upon Amy just what a special kid JJ was. She almost felt like a proud big sister.
As Amy was helping Betty clear things into the kitchen, Meredith arrived and Amy once again fell quickly into the background as the women chatted about what seemed like nothing in particular. Amy excused herself and went to find JJ since she felt no longer needed and she knew that her mother wouldn’t be ready to leave for a little while.
Back in the kitchen, Meredith had taken a seat at the kitchen table while Betty finished with dinnertime cleanup. The older woman was internally struggling with something she rarely mulled over: what words to say to Meredith. Her gut reaction was to scold this mother for being a lackluster parent, but seeing as she suspected Meredith wouldn’t really take anything she said to heart and instead take it out on Amy with more bad parenting, she was trying to think another angle into working. Though Betty wasn’t the most intelligent of creatures and certainly spoke first on most occasions before weighing consequences, the subject of Amy had been weighing on her now for the past few hours and her desire was for the girl’s best.
The small talk continued for a short while, but soon Betty couldn’t let the aimless conversation continue on so long that she wouldn’t have a chance to say what she needed to say, so the floodgates opened, if only slightly for the first round.
“Meredith dear, I need your help with something.”
“Well Betty, I’ll certainly do what I can, what do you need?”
“This is about Amy. Please hear me out.” Meredith’s gaze took on a more skeptical look, but the slight nod indicated at least a willingness to listen to what Betty had to say.
“I don’t know if Amy told you, but I’ve asked her to wear her pull-ups while she’s here due to the accident from the last time. You know my husband is exceptionally picky about keeping the house immaculate and she did have an accident later that same day, so it seemed like a good idea.”
“I knew about the wetting obviously from our last conversation, but Amy never revealed your ‘little deal’ between you two.” Meredith sighed, obviously annoyed. “Do you really think it’s appropriate to have a teenage girl running around your house in pull-ups, Betty?”
“Meredith dear, I don’t let her out of the play area upstairs unless she’s fully clothed, so no, I don’t think that’s appropriate and I wouldn’t allow it.”
“I...really didn’t even consider that an option, so thanks but that still doesn’t address the fact that she’s still wearing pull-ups like some big baby who couldn’t learn how to use the toilet, and somehow that’s supposed to be ok. I’m sure the wetting was a one time thing anyway so I don’t approve of this, no.” Meredith, visibly annoyed, leaned back in the chair looking for a change in facial expression from the other woman, and hopefully one indicating that Betty was finally starting to realize the silliness of her teenager in pull-ups plan.
“I wish that were true Meredith, but unfortunately she had another accident today. She claims it was the same wet pair she had from last night’s bedwetting but I couldn’t believe that you’d actually let her leave the house wet, so she must have been too embarrassed to tell me what had happened.” Betty conveniently left off the second accident, as she was still feeling partially responsible and she hardly wanted to reveal those details which would put herself in a bad light. Regardless, the single morning accident was still enough to drive her point home: Amy needed pull-ups.
Meredith instantly thought back to the morning’s drama and realized that with the rush out of the house, it was completely possible that Amy was telling the truth and hadn’t changed out of her bedtime Goodnite. However, it was also clear that revealing that detail would only add to Betty’s perception of her as a bad mother, so for now she had to just roll with it. Both women were lying.
“You’ve got to be kidding me, wet pants again? I’m going to have to have a talk with that girl…” Meredith’s voice trailed off.
“I don’t think it’s her fault dear, as much as you might not understand it, I think Amy is really struggling with some things inside and sometimes it affects her in ways...like that.” Betty was weighing her next words carefully. “Have you ever thought about having her see a doctor about her...accidents?” She stopped short of suggesting a shrink, but that’s what she was thinking the whole time.
“She’s wet off and on for years during the night so that’s hardly a medical condition, Betty, but the daytime accidents are a new thing. Maybe you’re right, I’ll see if I can get her an appointment to be checked out.” The lying prevented both women from laying all the facts out on the table, and for Meredith’s part, the doctor idea was probably not going to happen.
“Well in the meantime, if you wouldn’t mind packing a few of her pull-ups just in case before you bring her over, that might be good. She didn’t bring any today even though I asked her to.”
“Yeah ok, I”ll see about it Betty.” Meredith figured placating the woman by throwing a couple pull-ups in a bag was worth it. She didn’t expect that bag would ever need refilling.
-----
Twenty minutes later, Amy and Meredith were on their way home and Meredith chose to break the silence first.
“I heard about your accident this morning Amy, but I want to know if your story about not changing from last night is true. Don’t lie to me.” The irony was lost on Meredith.
“Uhh, you practically dragged me out of the house, so yeah, it’s true. I figured you’d freak out if I told you about my wetting on top of you being mad already.” Amy’s earlier annoyance at her mother had began to resurface and it was showing.
“You’re the one who caused this, Amy, by being irresponsible and not getting out of bed when you were called. If you did, then you wouldn’t have to worry about Betty Chadwick thinking you pee your pants in the daytime now too.”
Her mother’s lack of acknowledgement for the afternoon soaking incident made Amy realize that Betty probably hadn’t told her mother about it, but for the life of her she didn’t understand why Betty would then tell her mother about the first wet pull-up which wasn’t even her fault. She felt like everyone was out to confuse her and right now she just wanted to be done with this conversation, so she stopped talking and aimlessly stared out the window. A few minutes later, she started sucking on her pinky as she’d done earlier. Her mother didn’t notice it until she parked the car and looked over to tell Amy to stop sulking and get into the house. Instead she had another criticism.
“I’m sick of seeing your finger in your mouth like some elementary school kid. I thought I broke you of that four years ago in middle school and you’ve been doing it again. What is your deal Amy?” Her tone was firm, but genuinely confused as to this latest sign of immaturity in her daughter.
“It just feels good mom, and for the record I only gave it up because you insisted on covering my fingers with poison every time you saw me doing it.” Her thoughts went back to her 7th grade year of school when the kids would periodically tease her about sucking on her fingers, all except Molly of course. Nothing would dissuade her until her mother became fed up at the habit and coated her daughter’s fingers with a nasty-tasting liquid meant for training kids to not bite their nails or suck on their fingers.
“Do I have to go buy more?” The words were barely out of her mouth when the mental gears switched and she restated her threat. “Actually, I don’t care what you do with your fingers Amy. You’ll be the one looking ridiculous in front of your peers and anyone else you come across who knows that teenage girls shouldn't be sucking on their fingers. So no more threats, just a warning that you’re just setting yourself up for being miserable again.”
“Fine, whatever mom. Good night.” Amy stormed upstairs and threw her stuff in a heap on the floor. After changing into her Goodnite, she crawled under the covers to avoid her mother for the rest of the evening, and wished for dreams more pleasant than her reality.
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bambinobaby
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Wow! This story has taken me on an emotion roller-coaster! I can't say I am a fan of Betty or Amy's mother, and I truly feel sorry for Amy. I can't wait to see where you take this story next.
Ignoring the fact that the mother of a charge for a babysitter would allow a babysitter who wet their pants during the day to continue babysitting and furthermore force her into pull-ups. In a weird way I find it highly believable. Keep it coming!
You may have missed it, but Amy is no longer actually babysitting JJ. Betty made a deal with Amy in chapter 7 after her "accident" that she could keep babysitting if she brought her pull-ups just in case, but between that deal and chapter 9.1, Betty asked Meredith if Amy could just come over and play with JJ if she paid her half as much. It was implied that was just for the week, but you should expect that Betty being a somewhat overprotective mom of one kid is going to assess Amy's behavior during that week and determine her responsibility for any future babysitting opportunities.
Also, I wouldn't call what Betty did with Amy "forcing" because the woman has a legitimate concern for her house and Amy had the option not to come over anymore. I've tried to carefully avoid any abuse or forcing situations and instead focus on how everyone has inclinations, desires, and fears, which ultimately can lead us down certain paths.
Glad you're enjoying the story, just wanted to clear up that confusion for you.
I wasnt confused... I understood the part where in the last chapter she wasnt 'babysitting', but that wasnt my point. My point was it was interesting dynamic to have a girl around the age of 16 who needed to wear training pants because of daytime wettings around a young child who was going through potty training. It would raise the question for him why would he need to get out of training paints if a girl 10 years his senior wore them, but that I imagine will be part of the future plot. And yah for the part about 'forcing' maybe i could have worded it better such as "strongly encouraged. I was complimenting you. Saying your story was written in a believable and exciting manner. Take the compliment.
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