We have had a rash of messy pants of late. My daughter still wets hers some days and other days doesn't wet them at all. We had her parent/teacher conference today and we all think it's focus-related and no one is particularly concerned. My son, on the other hand, is having another kind of problem.
We think he's not wanting to go to the bathroom when he has to go. He's holding it in and has been having streaked underpants as a result. He's not constipated (one of our first concerns.) I thought it was the removal of the little potty, so I put that back out, but that's not it either. He just doesn't want to go when he has to go.
Today, when we got home from dinner I told my husband I was going to let him clean it up and to give me some leeway on this one. I explained to my son that dad and I were tired of cleaning up his underpants so from now on, when he messed them up, he could clean them himself.
He was mad. He didn't want to clean it up. The mess that was in his pants was going to get messier I predicted. I prepared to cringe because instead of helping him out of his shoes and pants carefully, he was going to do it all himself and his little messy bottom was going to sit on the tiled floor in the bathroom and I was going to bite my lip and hold firm to my resolve.
He was angry. He threatened to put the poop on the wall. I explained that might go very badly indeed for him if he chose to do so. Thankfully, he didn't follow-through on the threat. He tried to clean it up with his pants and smeared it around some. He wasn't listening to me and there was wailing happening.
When he did listen, I talked him through everything. He wanted to be done but after he got himself cleaned up, which turned out to be one of the best lessons in wiping he's probably ever had, he then had to work on the floor. When all that was done he got on clean underpants. He thought it was over. It wasn't.
He had to follow me into the laundry room and wash out his dirty clothes. Normally, this would have only been underpants, but since he was in such a state of despair at the whole prospect of having to clean up after himself, he got it on his socks and pants as well. I showed him how to clean the underpants. And that's when the lesson lost a bit of it's punishment.
He liked cleaning the underpants. It was fun playing in water. When he was done with that he started in on the pants and thought that was more fun. I had to curtail the washing out process for fear of another water mess all over the laundry room. That, and his sister very much wanted to help. The punishment was becoming less of a punishment and more of a fun activity.
I talked to him at the end and told him from now on, he could clean up after himself when he messed his pants up. We'll see if the lesson worked.
The Big Boy Update: See above for the messy pants cleaning up lesson. My son told me at one point he was going to keep all the poop in his body and never go again so he didn't have to clean it up.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: If you ask my daughter how old she is right now, she'll tell you she's sixteen. She's been sixteen for almost a week.
Fitness Update: Nine miles around the neighborhood in the dark this morning. My foot has a cramping part left-over from the marathon-length run on Monday that prevented me from wearing my main running shoes. Hopefully the cramping and inflammation will be better in a day or two.
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