Ruth led him by the hand docilely up the staircase and tucked him in his bed. She sat on the side of the bed and said, “I called your psychiatrist this morning to tell him the good news. He told me to tell you not to worry about the diapers for now, he’s sure you won’t need to wear them during the day in a couple of months. He told me he was pleased to hear you had recovered so quickly and would like to see you tomorrow. We’ve got to get you some clothes to go over your diapers, Tony. I saw some sweats in your closet you can wear shopping this afternoon, but you’ll have to have more than one change of clothes to wear. I was thinking of buying you a couple of pairs of overalls and some more sweats. I can put some snaps in the seams of the crotch and legs to make it easier to change you. I think I saw some footed sleepers at Wal-Mart that you could wear around the house. Some new curtains for this room and some decorations for the walls would be nice too. Maybe I can find a nice nursery motif like teddy bears,” she mused aloud.
“I can’t sleep, it’s too early,” Tony said crankily. “Please let me come down and watch TV,” he begged.
Ruth smiled and cooed down at him, “Mama will take care of that, baby. Just lay right there and mama will be back in a minute.”
She returned with a brown furry object under her arm and said, “Here baby, take this and put your arm around it.”
Tony took the object from her a discovered that it was a fluffy brown teddy bear with sad eyes. He noticed she had pinned one of Jay-Jay’s cloth diapers around its waist and covered it with plastic pants. He tucked it in the hollow of one shoulder and curled his arm around it as she explained, “Teddy didn’t used to have to wear dydees until recently. Now he’s sad because he doesn’t think anybody will love him because he wears diapers. Will you be his friend, Tony? I think you understand how he feels.”
Tony nodded at this with wide eyes and giggled as he felt the p