The next morning was a repeat of the morning before.

Theodore woke to find himself lying in a puddle of pee.

He hurriedly stripped the bed and dressed, then went down to find Mrs Field.

She came up to the room and surveyed the damage before cleaning the mattress again.

When they had finished, Rose went to the kitchen phone and called the family doctor to make an appointment for Theodore.

She explained that her adopted son had suddenly started wetting the bed for no apparent reason.

The receptionist told her that a patient had canceled their appointment a few minutes ago and they could fit Theodore in immediately if she could bring him in within the next hour.

Rose agreed and the appointment was made.

Rose told Theodore to get ready to go to the doctor while she packed a diaper bag for Baby John John.

The doctor saw Theodore privately.

About an hour after Theodore had gone into the examining room,

the receptionist told Rose the doctor would like to speak to her.

Rose passed Theodore in the hall as he went back to the waiting room.

She told him she only expected to be a few minutes and to wait there for her.

The doctor told Rose that he couldn’t find anything wrong with Theodore organically, but that the boy seemed depressed to him.

Rose explained what had happened to his parents and the events of the past two mornings.

The doctor nodded sagely and told her that it was not uncommon in a situation like this for young people to wet the bed.

He asked her if Theodore had any other changes in his behavior and she responded in the negative.

The doctor assured her that his bedwetting, although mildly abnormal, was nothing to be concerned about for the moment.

He suggested gently that she get a waterproof mattress protector for the bed and try to restrict Theodore’s fluid intake before bedtime.

He also suggested she put an absorbent bed pad on the middle of the bed at waist height every night to help keep the bedclothes dry.

If the bedwetting continued, he suggested that she might want to consider having Theodore wear incontinent briefs to bed.

He gave her the name and number of a child psychiatrist and told her that some counseling wrote a prescription for the antidepressants and told her that there was a pharmacy on the first floor.

Rose thanked him and left, stopping in front of the pharmacy on their way out.

Theodore looked confused when she asked him what his waist size was before giving him Baby John John to hold.

She smiled and told him it was all right and rooted around in her purse for a few minutes before finding a small metal tape measure she carried in her purse for shopping.

She flipped it around his waist and measured him before leaving the two of them in front of the pharmacy.

She returned a few minutes later with a large plastic bag in her hand and offered to take Baby John John from Theodore.

He refused, saying that Baby John John wasn’t very heavy and it wasn’t far to the car.

When they got home, Theodore helped Rose carry the mattress back up the stairs into his bedroom and put it on the bed.

Theodore wasn’t surprised when Rose removed a package from the bag she had gotten earlier in the day and took out a waterproof mattress protector.

The doctor had told him he was going to tell Mrs Fields to put a cover over the mattress to keep him from damaging the mattress.

While he was ashamed of what was happening to him, he was glad that he wouldn’t have to drag the mattress up and down the staircase anymore.

That mattress was heavy!

He was also glad that Mrs Fields wouldn’t have to clean the mattress anymore;

she had looked irritated this morning when he told her what had happened.

At least this way all she’d have to clean would be the sheets and blanket, he thought.

The rest of the day went normally and Theodore was surprised at dinner when she offered him a second glass of milk.

The family doctor had told him that he should try not to drink too much late at night.

Theodore shrugged and decided that he must have misunderstood.

The doctor probably meant he was not to drink anything immediately before going to bed.

Theodore accepted the offered glass of milk and thought nothing more of it.

Rose put Baby John John to bed soon afterward and they sat and watched TV until bedtime.

When Theodore was getting ready for bed, there was a knock on his door and Theodore went to answer it.

Theodore was surprised to see Mrs Fields standing there with a glass of water in hand waiting for him.

He looked the water glass as she offered it to him and said,

“But the doctor told me that I’m not supposed to have anything to drink before I go to sleep!”

Ruth smiled and said, “You forgot to take your medicine.

Here, you’ll need this to wash it down.

Your psychiatrist told me not to worry about restricting fluids.

Don’t worry, everything’s taken care of.”

She nudged a plastic bag sitting on the floor outside the door with her foot.

He took the glass from her hand as she held out her other hand with a capsule.

He swallowed the capsule and washed it down with a large gulp.

He thanked her and moved to close the door, but was stopped by her hand on the door.

“Theodore,” she said, “I’ve come to help you get ready for bed.”

“But I am ready for bed.

See?

I’ve got my pajamas on and everything!”, he exclaimed.

She took the glass from his hand and picked up the bag from the floor and said,

“We’re going to try something else for a while.

Your psychiatrist gave me instructions for what to do about your bedwetting.”

Rose walked over to the bed and pulled down the covers, saying,

“Here, give me a hand with this.”

She took a disposable bed pad out of the bag and laid it across the bed, tucking it in under the mattress.

Rose told him, “Now get the other side and tuck it in for me on the other side.

That’s right.

Here’s let’s put another one on for tonight.

We’ll see how wet it is in the morning.

If you only need one, tomorrow night we’ll just use one, but for tonight we’ll try two.”

She draped the second pad over the first overlapping it so that the half of the bed was covered by the absorbent pads.

They tucked the ends in and she told him,

“Now drop your pajamas and lay down on the bed.”

“Wh..what?!”, he stammered.

“I said, drop your pajama bottoms and lay down on the bed.

Take them off! !”, she told him firmly.

“But what have I done?

I thought you weren’t mad at me!

I didn’t do anything to get spanked for!

I didn’t mean to wet the bed.

The doctor told me it wasn’t my fault.

Please don’t spank me!”, he said desperately.

Rose smiled warmly and said, “I’m not going to spank you.

I just need to put some protective briefs on you before you go to sleep and I need you to lie down so I can put them on you.”

“Protective briefs? What are they?”, he queried.

“They’re waterproof briefs that you can wear while you’re sleeping to keep you from getting the sheets wet.

You don’t want to sleep in wet sheets, do you?”, she told him comfortingly.

“No, I guess not,” he said dubiously.

He let his pajama bottoms fall to the floor and looked embarrassed when he slid his underwear down to his feet.

Rose put a businesslike expression on her face to save him from further embarrassment and said,

“Good, now lay down on your back on the bed.

That’s right. Now roll on your left side while I get the brief ready.”

Theodore heard the sound of plastic crinkling behind him as she unfolded the disposable brief on the bed behind him.

He asked her from where he lay,

“But why can’t I just sit on the edge of the bed and put them on like other underwear?”

“These are a different kind.

Now roll back on your back.

There you go.

Here, I want to put some body powder on you to prevent chafing before I fasten them.”, she told him.

Tony felt the cool sensation of the powder.

He did as he was told and felt the brief being drawn up between his legs and fastened on one side and then the other.

The smell of baby powder wafted up from his crotch and reached his nose as she finished.

Then he realized what she had done.

She had diapered him!

He rose from the bed in a panic and tried to get up saying,

“No! You can’t do this to me. I’m not a baby.

Please don’t make me wear diapers!”

Rose held him easily on the bed with one hand as she sat down beside him.

She put her arm around his shoulders and said,

“the doctor told me that the medication will make you sleep very heavily.

You won’t wake up if you need to go to the bathroom.

He told me to put you in protective briefs while you sleep.

You’ll wet the sheets if I don’t.”

“These aren’t ‘protective’ briefs, they’re diapers!”, he told her mournfully.

Rose had to admit to herself that in truth, he was right.

They were diapers.

But she didn’t want his feelings to be hurt any more than they had to be.

She told him half-truthfully,

“when little babies wear them, they’re diapers. But adults have to wear them too at times, then they’re called ‘protective’ briefs.

“He looked at her trying to find the deception in her words and said,

“You lied to me! You told me you were putting body powder on me when you were really putting baby powder on me!”

She smiled at his anguished face and said truthfully,

“ baby powder is body powder.

Here, look! See?

It says so right on the back of the bottle!

I use it myself after a bath to keep dry.

“He looked at her with tears in his eyes and said accusingly,

“You told me you put it on me to prevent chafing.

What you really meant was it was supposed to prevent diaper rash!”

Ruth sighed and said, “You’re right.

I fibbed. I didn’t want to hurt your feelings.”

“But I don’t want to wear diapers!”, he wailed.

She hugged him to her and said soothingly,

“You’ll get used to them, I promise.”

“But I don’t want to get used to them.

What will my friends say?”, he pleaded.

She smiled and said,

“How will they know if you don’t tell them?

I’m certainly not going to tell anyone.”

“You’re ashamed of me.

If I had a teenaged boy who had to wear diapers living in my house, I wouldn’t want to tell anybody either,” he said reproachfully.

She hugged him again and stroked his hair, saying,

“I’m not ashamed of you Theodore.

You just have a temporary problem that will go away with time.

Try not to get upset about it. Neither doctor seemed to be very worried about it, so I think you shouldn’t worry either.

Now let me get you tucked into bed. It’s time to go to sleep.”

Tucked into bed?”, he quailed,

“I haven’t needed to be tucked in since I was a little kid!”

Rose smiled warmly as she gently forced him to lie back on the bed saying,

“I know you don’t need me to tuck you in, but I want to make sure the pads don’t slip.

You understand that, don’t you?”

Tony nodded sleepily as the medication took effect and she pulled the covers over him and began tucking them around him.

He was almost asleep when she finished with the covers and bent over him to kiss him on the forehead, saying,

“Goodnight, Theodore. Sleep tight.”

“Goodnight mama,” he murmured in his sleep.