Damien was so embarrassed and, so humiliated that he was sobbing uncontrollably and clinging to my neck with surprising strength. When the two of us reached the bathroom I lowered him into the tub and had to pull on his arms to get him to release his vise like hold on my neck. He wouldn’t even look at me. His chin was buried in his chest which was heaving with each mournful gasp.
The mess in his pants was bad. It wasn’t runny like I thought it would be but it was still bad. And I found it peculiar that it wasn’t brown but was a kind of bright green. I hadn’t given any thought to how to clean him up, so I was relieved to see that they had one of those hand held shower things. It made it so much easier to spray the poop off his rear end and to rinse out the tub when he was clean.
Never once did he speak or look up as I washed him from head to toe. I was sure he would protest when I pressed the soapy rag between his butt cheeks but he didn’t. He wouldn’t even step out of the tub on his own, I had to pick him up, set him on the floor and dry him with a towel. He even stood there, softly weeping while I rinsed his soiled paints and underwear in the tub and then cleaned out the tub.
Wrapped in the towel, I carried him to the bedroom he was in earlier, sat him on the bed and scrounged around for a fresh pair of underwear and some pajamas for him. For the most part, he had stopped crying, but he had been completely humiliated and had retreated into himself. I tried to get him to look at me or to talk, but he wouldn’t do either.
I had to dress him and had just combed his hair for him when he bolted from the room, only to stop in the middle of the hallway. This time, when he began to cry, he was quite vocal about it, “NOOOOOOooooooooo!”
He had soiled himself for the second time just as I knew he would. When my mom had given me that stuff, I had pooped and pooped and pooped and when I thought I couldn’t poop anymore I pooped again.
I wasn’t upset at all at having to start washing him again because I knew that before his grandparents returned tomorrow, he was going to be sick of having baths.
I raced to his side and hugged him close to me, “It’s ok little man; it’s ok! Don’t cry, it will be ok.”
He was crying so hard that his entire body trembled in my arms. “Please make it stop!” he pleaded, but I had no intention of doing anything but make it worse for him.
I was just as thorough when washing him and rinsing his pajamas as I had been the first time. When I had him dried off and before leaving the bathroom, I asked him, “Do you think you need to sit on the potty for a minute?”
He wouldn’t look up but he did shake his head ‘no’.
“Are you sure?” I asked again.
He nodded this time and I had to hide my grin as I scooped him up and carried him to his room once more. This time however, I had only gotten his underwear on him when he pooped in them.
“Oh Damien again?” I said in fake disgust.
It wasn’t so bad this time. He must have been nearly empty and it didn’t take as long to clean him up. To drive home the idea that I didn’t want him to mess in anymore of his clothes, I told him he had to sit on the toilet until I got back from putting his cloths in the washer. When I opened the washer, something struck me as odd. The towels I had put in the washer the previous night were still in there, so I put those in the drier and tossed his clothes in the washer.
When I got back upstairs, Damien was still sitting on the toilet. He wasn’t crying anymore and he looked like he might have recovered just a little from the humiliation of having pooped his pants three times in a row.
“You doing ok little man?” I asked.
He nodded and actually looked up at me for the first time. He eyes were red and swollen from having been crying so much and so hard. I helped him blow his nose and then had him stand up so that I could help him wipe, but he had not pooped anymore.
“You didn’t have to go anymore?” I asked patting him on his bottom.
He shook his head again and I took him back to his room yet again. I went to his dresser and saw that there was only one more pair of underwear left and so I said, “Hey little man, this is the last pair of underwear so if you think you need to go again, you will have to run to the bathroom ok?”
He spoke for the first time, “Ok” and he sounded tired and defeated.
As I was pulling his underwear up I said, “I am sorry you are not feeling very well.”
He threw his arms around my neck and hugged me tightly.
I finally had him dressed in a clean pair of pajamas again and asked if he wanted me to carry him back downstairs, but he shook his head and walked down on his own.
He started to go toward the couch, but I said, “Uh, maybe you shouldn’t sit on the furniture, I mean just in case it happens again.”
He dropped his head and sat down on the floor in front of the TV.
“Would you like something to drink, maybe some chocolate soda will help settle your tummy?” I asked.
“Yes please,” he answers, and I was surprised by his politeness. It was the first time I had ever heard him use the word please.
I went to the kitchen and was taking out a glass when Damien came running into the kitchen, flew past me and into the half-bath that was off of the kitchen.
“Are you ok Damien?” I asked.
I heard the answer for myself and knew he had managed to make it to the toilet this time. I looked into the little half-bath and he was sitting on the toilet and looked totally pleased with himself for making it this time.
“Close one huh?” I said with a reassuring smile.
“Yeah!” he said.
I left him to finish and went to prepare his drink. I put the rest of the bottle of Kondremul into it and dropped it into the trashcan before he had come back out of the bathroom.
“I am so proud of you for making it to the potty that time!” I said as I handed him the drink. He drank the whole glass in one long gulp.
“Wow you must have been thirsty!” I said.
He went, “Aaahhh!” as he finished it.
He hadn’t realized that while he was guzzling the drink, he had dripped onto his pajama shirt.
We both saw it at the same time, “Sorry” he said meekly.
I smiled, maybe next time I should find you something with a lid so that you won’t spill.
“Can I have some more?” he asked.
“Ok, but why don’t you go watch some more of the Simpson’s and I’ll see if I can’t come up with something so that you won’t spill anymore.
Originally in the store, I had thought about just putting the baby bottle adapter onto one of the two-liter jugs, but now it didn’t seem like such a good idea. I opened the refrigerator and much to my glee, I found a bottle of Aquafina water. I had a problem though, how to get the bottle adapter and baby-bottle nipples from my backpack without Damien seeing.
I peeked around the wall and saw that Damien wasn’t in the living room. I went down the hall and he wasn’t anywhere in site. I decided to call out for him and he called back from upstairs.
“I’m getting something!” he said.
“OK, I just wanted to make sure you were ok.” I shouted up to him and quickly retrieved my backpack from the front coat closet.
So that he wouldn’t see it if he came into the kitchen, I stuffed it into the cupboard under the sink. I then emptied the water bottle, filled it with more chocolate soda and took it out to Damien. He was just coming back downstairs, carrying a Sponge Bob pillow and throw-blanket.
“Here you go little man,” I said handing him the bottle and then asked, “you feeling better now?”
He looked at the water bottle filled with chocolate soda and looked at the baby bottle nipple I had put on it.
“I ain’t no baby!” he said in protest.
“Yeah but this way you won’t spill it on yourself again and there is no chance that it will get spilled on the carpet if you have to run to the bathroom again.”
He turned it upside down and shook it once, nothing came out. He turned it right-side up again, poked at the nipple with his finger a couple of times and then put it in his mouth. He took it right back out again, looked at it for another second and then put it in and began to suck.
He pulled it out of his mouth and said, “Nothing is coming out.”
“Well silly, you have to hold it up like this,” I said and pushed it back into his mouth and held the bottom of the bottle up in the air. “Now suck on it.”
He did and his eyes glimmered telling me that it was working.
He pulled the bottle back out and announced, “I’m hungry again.”