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.