take ME...Take ME April 21, 2010

Mom gets up in the night to go to the bathroom, usually taking her diaper off. She puts her pajamas back on without a clean diaper. There have been three accidents in the bed after that. She's so quiet in the night I don't wake up.

So I found some bells and put them on her door. (These bells sound like the goat bells in the fields of Toiny, St. Barts. God that was the best way to wake up in the first morning of vacation,) Now I dread hearing g the same sound. After about a week of getting up i the middle of the night, needless to say, I was exhausted and crabby. I needed a new plan. She's got to wear a diaper ALL night.

I thought of duck-taping the diaper on til morning - just one ring of tape over the diaper ... or maybe wear the duck-tape as suspenders, but my daughter wanted to know if I was serious. Guess that was a crazy idea.... She suggested I write a note, so here's what I wrote:


MOM,

PUT A CLEAN DIAPER ON
BEFORE YOU GO BACK TO BED


I wrote an arrow on the sign pointing to the diaper hanging next to it. I wrote on the back of the diaper in extra large letters:

TAKE ME


I taped the sign to the towel bar directly in front of the toilet so she would see it when she sat down. We read it together before bed. She said she understood. Trial run last night. I left the bathroom light on instead of just the nightlight.

No good. The wet diaper is in the wast basked and she did not touch the one labeled, TAKE ME. She is still asleep. The health -aid will be here any minute... We will tackle the problem together when she gets here. Maybe that's the way we should deal with this everyday. Get a strong rubber pad and keep washing and bleaching.

How about if I leave her signs on the mirror and on the back of the bathroom door. What should it say so that she will remember to check if she has a diaper on just after reading it?

CHECK YOUR PAJAMAS... ARE YOU WEARING A DIAPER/ YOU SHOULD BE

PUT A CLEAN DIAPER ON

PANTIES ON?

DO YOU WANT TO WET THE BED? WEAR A DIAPER

DANGER! DON'T LEAVE THIS AREA WITHOUT WEARING A DIAPER

ONLY PEOPLE WEARING DIAPERS ALLOWED IN BEDROOM

ARE YOU SAFE? WEAR A DIAPER

SAY YES TO DIAPERS

DIAPERS AT NIGHT - ALWAYS

She seems to forget one sentence just after she reads it. How about a cartoon? diagram?photo of herself? - no, she'll just stare at it and smile.

I'll keep trying. There has got to be a way.

ARE YOU WEARING A DIAPER?