All My Mother's Rules (Ch. 70 & Epilogue - 2/13/24)

[Sarah Penguin]

Yay

[parkintochter]

I love the GRRM Rothfuss reference

[MinnesotaWriter]

Given that it has been about eight months since the last update, I figured it would be good to give a brief (or at least as brief as I could make it) summary of the events so far in the story.

Synopsis: The Story so Far

Sarah’s mom follows an extremely strict potty-training regimen with her youngest daughter, 3-and-a-half-year-old Emilia, who isn’t fully potty-trained, but that strict sense of rules and discipline is similar in other aspects of her parenting, as 14-year-old Sarah often is the recipient of thorough spankings if she gets poor grades or misbehaves in other ways. For Emilia, too many potty-training mishaps result in being put back into pull-ups, or worse, being put into diapers and treated like a baby, which is often her fate.

Sarah’s friends at school, Samantha and Desi, invite Sarah to a sleepover in a couple of weeks. Sarah’s mom has always forbidden sleepovers, in part because Sarah had been a bedwetter up  until several years ago, but Sarah feels like she might be able to convince her mom about it for once now that she is in high school.

At cheerleading practice, Sarah has to deal with a fellow freshman, Claire, who is jealous that Sarah has gotten the better assignments with the team. At one of the first practices, they are going through a maneuver where Sarah is tossed in the air, but the girls who tossed Sarah fail to catch her, letting Sarah take a hard fall onto the ground.

Later that day, while doing some research on her computer into some new things they could attempt to finally get Emilia potty-trained, Sarah wets her pants for the first time since she was a toddler, but as she is alone in her room, she is able to clean up the accident. And with being responsible for washing her own clothes, she can hide that from her mom as well. Besides that, accident, Sarah is discovering that she is needing to go to the bathroom much more frequently and urgently than before.

Sarah is able to convince her mother to allow her to go to the sleepover, but only after she turns 15 in a few weeks. Sarah wets the bed that night. For Sarah, who had been a bedwetter as an older child, this was her first bedwetting accident in years. She is able to hide the accident by falsely claiming that Emilia’s diaper had leaked, as her little sister had snuck into Sarah’s bed in the middle of the night.

After those two accidents, and a close call at school the following day, Sarah takes the step of trying on her little sister’s pull-ups, testing them out to find out that they appear able to hold one of her bladder accidents. Sarah continues her scheme of using the pull-ups both at home and in school to hide future bladder accidents, though getting away with hiding her new underwear while being on the gymnastics team requires a lot of stealth and care.

At school, Sarah befriends Lisa, a shy fellow freshman who is getting bullied by Claire. Desi is welcoming of having someone else take part in their friend group, though Samantha is leery of that development.

While disposing of one of her own pull-ups in a school bathroom, Sarah discovers that another student appears to have thrown away an adult-style pull-up, leading her to wonder who else in the school is experiencing a similar problem to herself.

Sarah decides to go to a try-out for a newly created Fortnite team at the school, and Lisa is at the tryout as well. Both girls make the team, though Lisa is far and away the better player.

At the sleepover, the Sarah, Samantha, and Desi play a game of Truth or Dare, where it is revealed that Samantha’s younger brother is still a bedwetter who wears pull-ups at night. Upon that discovery, Samantha gets dared to wear the pull-up, while Desi gets dared to urinate in it. Sarah sees the pull-up as an opportunity to be able to avoid the risk of wetting herself during the sleepover. Once she thinks all her friends are asleep, she sneaks off to grab a pull-up from Samantha’s brother’s bedroom, only to discover that Samantha appears to be making her brother wet the bed by holding his hand in a bowl of warm water. Sarah takes the pull-up but doesn’t let Samantha know what she had seen.

While her sister’s pull-ups are mostly reliable, Sarah finds herself becoming overconfident with them, resulting in a leak that her younger sister notices, and immediately alerts her mother about. Her mother is upset about the accident and is frustrated that Sarah is setting such a poor example for a younger sibling she is working hard to potty trained. Sarah’s mom requires her to go back to wearing the pull-ups for a week, as a way to show that she was consistent in applying the same rules to both sisters.

One daytime accident means needing to wear a pull-up until you are dry for a week. Two accidents in one day mean being put back in diapers for the rest of the day and the following day. Nighttime accidents are counted separately.

Sarah has another bedwetting accident the night after being put back into pull-ups, but this time she is unable to hide it from her mother as the pull-up leaked all over the bed. She continues to have nighttime accidents, which she is unable to hide from her mother. Daytime is a different story, Sarah is able to continue to take some of Emilia’s pull-ups, and wear those during school, which is where most of her accidents happen as she isn’t always able to leave the classroom every single time she needs to go to the bathroom.

At the end of cheerleading practice, Sarah gets into a fight with Claire, who had looked inside her backpack to find Emilia’s pull-ups. While Sarah is able to explain away the pull-up as being something for her sister, the cheerleading coach tells both girls that any future fighting could result in their dismissal from the team.

Sarah’s nighttime wetting continues, with the pull-ups remaining completely ineffective. Her mom orders a package of adult diapers to use for Sarah at night instead and requires Sarah to keep them on the entire night, with no getting up to ask for a change or use the bathroom in the middle of the night.

At school, Sarah goes to the library and uses a computer another student had accidently stayed logged in to do some research about her bladder issues but wasn’t able to find any clear answers to her problem. Her mother is leery of going to doctors, and Sarah is unwilling to see the school nurse, as that would result in her mother finding out that the extent of Sarah’s problem is much worse than she is aware of.

With the aide of her sister’s pull-ups, Sarah is able to go a week of hiding all of her daytime accidents from her mother and is rewarded with being able to go back into her regular panties, but another accident at home just a couple days later has her right back into pull-ups again.

While Sarah normally gets assigned to do any group projects with Samantha and Desi, she instead gets assigned to do a group project for history class with Lisa, who happens to be the niece of the history teacher. Lisa invites Sarah to come over to her house for a study session.

While studying (and playing videogames) at Lisa’s place, her friend works up the courage to confront Lisa about her pull-up use, before revealing excitedly that they both share the same condition. Sarah avoids going into the actually details of her bladder issues and the way her mom has handled the situation, instead letting it appear that it has also been something she’s dealt with her entire life.

Lisa tells Sarah about her background (Note: This part is covered in the story, “Diapers Never Lie”), about how she has had incontinence issues her whole life and how the abuse she suffered from both her parents led her to live with her aunt and uncle.

Sarah’s streak of being able to avoid her mom noticing two accidents in one day comes to an end, and her mom follows through with the same punishment that Emilia would get for that offense. Sarah gets put back into diapers for the day.

Sarah’s mom then turns to more drastic measures to get both of her kids out of diapers. She ordered laxatives as constipation can be a cause of bedwetting and bladder issues. Both Sarah and Emilia have to take the laxatives while wearing diapers, which they were required to mess in.

The school bully, Claire, manages to get a hold of one of Lisa’s diapers from her backpack, and taunts Lisa about it in the hallway after school. Sarah decides to get revenge against Claire, taking note of the threat from the cheerleading coach that any additional fighting between her and Claire would result in both getting tossed from the team. Sarah instigates a fight between them, resulting in detention plus a suspension from the team.

The laxatives that Sarah’s mom used appear to be helping Emilia get potty-trained, as Sarah’s younger sister is almost completely accident free. This puts Sarah in a bind as she doesn’t have the ability to take any of her sister’s pull-ups without her mom noticing a suspicious decrease.

Sarah is too afraid to wear a pull-up to school, seeing how her classmates had tormented Lisa makes her dread what would happen if she wet her pants in class. Sarah decides to have one accident on purpose at home, to get mom to at least put her back in pull-ups, figuring that as long as she can avoid having two daytime accidents on the same day (that would mean going back to diapers the next day) that she would then at least have the ability to have a pull-up on while going to school.

Sarah’s plan backfires when she has a second accident that evening, this time into the pull-up, which leaves her going to bed fearful of how she is going to be wearing diapers the next day at school.

[thedman]

Can't wait to see more added to this great story

[Sarah Penguin]

[AdultInnocence]

Thanks for the synopsis. Glad you are back.

[MinnesotaWriter]

Chapter 37: What I Deserve

There is a moment that comes when you first wake up. The type that happens after you’ve had a long night’s worth of sleep following an exhausting day. A moment of bliss before your cognitive gears begin to fully turn. You’re happy and content beneath your warm covers. Everything is right in the world. Then a deep fog rolls in and settles across your mind. Something is wrong. Very wrong. Something that would mean your current happiness is nothing but an illusion waiting to be shattered. But in this moment, you can’t quite put a finger on what the wrongness is. Its elusive name escapes your grasp.

I felt the clammy wetness of the diaper I had worn to bed. Yes, that was wrong. A 15-year-old girl shouldn’t be wearing a diaper to bed, let alone wake up with it completely soaked. But that wasn’t the wrongness that had invaded my momentary waking bliss. Against my best efforts, I had become accustomed to the wrongness of the feeling of a wet morning diaper, and I had gotten past getting shocked or upset by my nightly bedwetting.

No, the wrongness was something entirely different. And sheer terror set in as I went in an instant from having no clue about the horror in store for me later today to knowing exactly what was going to happen. I was going to have to wear a diaper to school.

I was such an idiot for getting myself into this predicament. Yes, the vast majority of accidents I’d been having day and night the past couple of months were not my fault. But with Emilia’s potty-training basically complete – the laxative had worked wonders with her while leaving me to continue helplessly pissing myself at random – I had no source of toddler pull-ups that I could discreetly use at school to hide my accidents.

My solution to that problem had been to wet myself on purpose. I’ve made some dumb decisions in the past few months, but that easily trumps all of them.

One was indeed the magic number. Because according to my mom’s strict potty-training rules, which she insisted had to apply equally to myself as well as my 3-and-a-half-year-old sister, any time you had two accidents in a single day meant you had to take a break from toilet training and spend the next day in diapers.

The first intentional accident – if the words intentional and accident can be used conjointly – wasn’t the problem. That got me put back into pull-ups, which would spare me the shame of openly wetting myself at school. It was the real accident I had later yesterday evening that was the source of the current stress that was just now wracking every single nerve in my body.

I took a momentary pause from my fretting to turn and glance at the alarm clock. I still had nearly an hour before Mom would be in the room to wake me. Lately, mornings had sucked even more than usual, as Emilia could scarcely contain her excitement at waking up dry, which she had done all but one time since the experiment with the laxatives.

Emilia wasn’t intentionally malicious – that really isn’t something that can be fairly attributed to a preschooler – but with our potty-training statuses headed in different directions at a rapid speed, any reminder of just how I had fallen was increasingly painful.

Back to the task at hand. I had an hour left until Mom would come in to change me and help get me ready for school, and way more than an hour's worth of worrying to do.

I had to convince Mom to let me not wear a diaper to school. I simply had to. I couldn’t recall a single time I had ever successfully convinced Mom to relent on one of her potty-training rules, but if there was ever one instance where I needed to succeed, this time had to be it.

What would convince her? I could argue about the unfairness of it. But who am I kidding? Mom’s idea of fairness is that rules be followed to the letter of the law and that they be applied equally to either of her children. I would have no luck arguing that a pre-described punishment was unfair in a situation where there wasn’t any question of whether I had broken the rules. Especially given the countless times Emilia had been made to go back to diapers during her year-long potty-training saga.

Attacking the practicality of the punishment made more sense. What would happen if I needed to go number two? I couldn’t exactly do that in the middle of a classroom. Think of the smell. And changing? I had never changed a diaper myself before, and I somehow suspected that changing messy diapers wasn’t part of the school nurse’s job description. And clothing. Would I have any outfits that would hide a diaper? If my peers noticed, I would be the subject of ridicule for the next four years. That certainly would seem to be an excessive punishment.

But I couldn’t just attack the punishment. I had to offer an alternative. Something that would take its place, while letting Mom feel I had been sufficiently disciplined. My odds of getting out of wearing diapers during the day were slim to none, but perhaps I could propose spending a day – or maybe even two – being diapered after school. Or perhaps I could wear diapers all day on Sunday? I felt hopeful about those last few suggestions.

I spent the last few minutes before Mom’s appearance in my room going over exactly how I was going to word my request. I had to avoid coming off as combative or challenging her authority. I needed to be quick to point out that I was willing to accept a basically equal punishment. As the clock continued its upward count, I whispered my argument silently, willing myself to believe that it was going to work.

I heard Mom’s footsteps echo in the hallway. I closed my eyes and turned my head to face the wall just a second before the door swung open. I kept completely still. I didn’t need to pretend to be asleep, but I thought it might help if my arguments against wearing a diaper to school appeared more spontaneous than pre-planned.

Mom patted my bottom to wake me up. I hated when she did that. I could hear the crinkle even through the bedding. I turned back over to my side in anticipation. I wasn’t going to pre-empt her announcement that I was going to be wearing a diaper to school. I had to wait until after that to make my move.

Mom never even gave me a chance to get started.

“Sweetie, I called into the school office today and told the nurse that you’ll be staying home as you aren’t feeling well.”

I gave a confused nod in response, too shocked to speak. I couldn’t believe my luck at getting out of that bind. There isn’t a better feeling in the world than that of the relief after discovering something you’ve been stressing out about for hours isn’t actually going to happen, even if I basically had wasted a whole hour in which I could have instead been sleeping.

“Don’t think this gets you out of wearing diapers all day,” Mom added. “I’m just keeping you home from school because it wouldn’t be practical to have you wear them there.”

I suppressed a sigh. That figures. I was lucky, but not that lucky. This would be the second time I had spent a full day in diapers. There was no way this could be worse than the first time, when Mom had made Emilia and I both take a laxative. Nothing could be worse than the state my diaper got into after taking that suppository. I hoped Mom wouldn’t use another laxative today. She hadn’t mentioned that topic again, and I didn’t dare bring it up and risk giving her any ideas.

Out of habit, I repositioned myself on the bed with my legs slightly dangling off the edge, waiting for Mom to slide a changing pad beneath me and go on ahead with the morning diaper change ritual. With the diaper change finished, Mom grabbed Emilia, who by now was already awake in her crib, and set her down next to me on the bed.

“Did my big girl stay dry all night long?” Mom asked, before pulling down Emilia’s pajama bottoms to reveal a diaper that had retained all of its original white colorations. “Oh yes, she did. Good job!”

Mom made me lay on the bed in just a fresh diaper and t-shirt while she got my sister dressed for the day in elastic waistband jeans – easy to pull down to go to the potty – and a hoodie with unicorns on it. I wondered what, if anything, Mom was going to dress me in since I was going to be home all day. Even though it had been getting colder into the fall, she had lately been keeping the temperature up, so it didn’t really matter what I wore.

Mom helped Emilia off of the bed and onto the floor, and then my little sister scampered out the door. I remained on the bed. Getting dressed was part of the diaper change routine, which meant I had to sit back and let Mom do it for me. She spent a few moments rummaging through the closet and dresser drawers before returning with a pair of leggings and a dress. That was not the outfit I was expecting.

“This should keep your diaper from showing when we go out,” Mom said, as she pulled the leggings up my waist until the diaper was fully covered.

“Going where?” I asked, trying and failing to keep the panic out of my voice. “I thought you said I was staying home from school today?”

“You are staying home from school, but that doesn’t mean Emilia is staying home from preschool. We have to go and drop her off after breakfast.”

“Can’t I stay home? You aren’t going to be gone for that long.”

“Don’t be silly. Babies don’t stay home by themselves.”

I knew better than to say what I was about to say. But I said it anyway.

“I’m 15. I’m not a baby.”

Mom just gave me a look. The kind that a parent gives to tell you that they are done with your argument and any further resistance will be futile.

“If you aren’t responsible enough to pee in the toilet instead of in your pants, then you aren’t responsible enough to stay home all by yourself.”

I bit my lip to keep my mouth shut at that response. But really, what more did I have to say in defense of myself? I had already gotten out of wearing a diaper to school, there wasn’t any need to push my luck on anything else.

I sat up on the bed to allow Mom to slip the dress on me. The leggings were making me completely aware of the diaper I had on. I mean, it wasn’t exactly as though I could ever forget I was wearing a diaper, but the way the leggings so thoroughly pressed the diaper up against my skin greatly enhanced the feeling of that part of my body being completely enveloped.

I only had a couple pairs of leggings, as I never really liked the tight feeling of them around my legs, but I was more than happy to trade that discomfort for the security of knowing that my diaper was fully concealed. I was reminded of how Lisa, who had been incontinent her entire life, would dress. I had never even come close to guessing that Lisa had a diaper on – it had been total shock when she had revealed that to me in a study session at her house a few weeks back – so I supposed I shouldn’t have to worry about any nosy neighbors thinking I had a diaper on if they happened to be looking out their windows at the exact moment I spent a dozen seconds walking into the car and hopping into the passenger seat. Should I worry about it? No. Was I worried about it? Absolutely yes.

“Breakfast time,” Mom said, putting her hand on my bottom and giving me a gentle nudge toward the door.

Emilia arrived in the kitchen at the same time Mom and I did. My sister had come running over from the living room, where she had apparently managed to get the TV on and turned to one of her favorite cartoons. That was a skill I had rather she had waited longer to learn, but she is also is a lot close to being four than she is to being three.

I did not like what I saw in the kitchen. There were three spots set up at the dining table. One regular chair for Mom. Another regular chair with a booster seat strapped on top, which Emilia would need as she wasn’t tall enough yet to sit in an adult chair and still be able to easily eat off of the table. And then there was the third spot: Emilia’s old highchair.

I now knew exactly what was in store for me today. Aside from the laxative, I had gotten off quite easy the only other time I had been forced to spend a whole day in diapers. Sure, Mom had babied me a little, but she hadn’t gone full on with it, as she was prone to do with my sister.

Nearly every time Emilia had been put back into diapers for the day, Mom had treated her completely like a baby. The whole nine yards and everything else that came with it: bibs, bottles, high-chairs, pacifiers. Mom wasn’t subtle about any of it, and she went hard on the baby talk as well. The way she had explained it to me was that if the carrot didn’t work when training a kid, then the stick was the only alternative option. My experience from watching her perform this all too frequent circus act with my younger sister was that layering on a bunch of humiliation and embarrassment wasn’t effective in getting a kid to potty-train. The kid was going to be embarrassed enough as it was from having potty-accidents, so no additional humiliation was going to help correct their behavior.

I thought about all the times, though, that I had been complicit in treating Emilia like a baby. I had changed her into diapers even as she cried about wanting to be put into pull-ups instead. I had reminded her to crawl on the floor like a baby instead of walking around. I’d spoon fed her the yuckiest of baby foods despite her protestations. I’d made her go potty in her diaper even when she was ready and willing to do it on the big girl toilet instead. Sure, there had been times where I had been merciful. There were a couple of occasions where I had neglected to tell Mom about an accident that Emilia had, or I had, at times, finished Emilia’s bottle for her when Mom wasn’t looking. But how could a few good deeds absolve me of everything I had put my younger sister through?

I looked again at the highchair. Mom had lifted up the small table in front of it to the side so that I would have room to sit down. Did I have any standing to complain if Mom was treating me the same as she treated Emilia – the same as I myself had treated my sister? How could I argue that I deserved anything different?

A trio of warm tears trickled down my face as I took a small step toward the highchair. I hated this. I deserved this. And I hated that I deserved this.

[AdultInnocence]

Liked that last chapter. Hopefully for her the only mention of laxatives will be in her thoughts. Her mom is pretty extreme though and does go through extreme measures and it did work for her sister, so maybe once just wasn't enough? Aside from not being practical to not wear to school (as she could have just put her in a diaper for the weekend instead, extra day for waiting for weekend) I wonder why she kept her out of school for the day.

In all reality as has been commented before, it all started after the accident with cheerleading. Looking forward to see where this is going and leaving any speculations to myself at this point.

[seanwill25]

You are an amazing writer with the gift of giving the reader what they need not necessarily what they want. I am so glad you skipped the trope of humiliating the antagonist by making them go to school in diapers and instead focused on the relationship between the mother and the daughter.  I believe that the conflict between the mother and daughter is the heart of the story and I am glad that it seems like that will be the focus of the next chapter or chapters.  I am also happy to see that you are going thru the day slowly with lots of details.  

Obviously Sarah believes that her mother would make her wear diapers to school.  If she has another accident early on Saturday, I wonder if Sarah would intentionally have another accident to avoid the possibility of wearing diapers to school on Monday.  She also seems resigned to wearing diapers now and might just give up on potty training for the weekend.  Sarah may even justify this as showing solidarity to her friend that wears diapers all the time.  I also think that Sarah could be surprised by her mother and be kept in diapers all weekend long, but that seems like her mother would be breaking her own rules if she did.

Can't wait to see how this is resolved in the next few chapters.

[Bel George]

Thank you for the new chapter, and for the synopsis as well.  That is a nice gesture.  I always enjoyed this story, and I hope we get to read many more chapters in the coming weeks and months.

This one day off from school will propably have a few humiliations in store for Sarah.
And I do expect that she won't be able to hide most of her accidents, so eventually she will be required to go to school in a diaper as well.  
The babying on the other hand, I suspect that will be an at-home thing only (or with family and friends only) and not a thing for the wider public.  At least, I hope so for Sarah.

I'm looking forward to read more ...

[Sarah Penguin]

[kerry]

15 hours ago, MinnesotaWriter said:

Lisa, who had been continent her entire life

incontinent

I am very happy to have this story return. It's a very good one, and you are a strong writer. Though I think her mom is insane, at least Sarah feels that things are fair. (Stockholm Syndrome, anyone?) I too have been wondering when the cheerleading accident will come into play; it seems that it ought to. But thanks for the synopsis. (If I ever go back to one of my two suspended stories, I will follow suit.)

[GQLF]

It feels that Sarah's mother has a paranoid love for her daughter. It seems that she doesn't want to lose her little daughter. She can feel it from the aspect of letting her eldest daughter abide by baby discipline. It's not that she doesn't love her daughter, but she doesn't want her daughter to grow too big. It's best to stay at the stage where she needs her mother to help her go to the bathroom.

Diapers connect all this. Asking for leave for Sarah shows that she doesn't want to publicly humiliate her daughter. Helping Sarah dress and let her eldest daughter eat in a high chair seems to satisfy her idea of taking care of her young daughter. I'm a little suspicious that my mother will let Sarah and Amelia spend a day in kindergarten next, which may shake Sarah's position as a big girl. I also hope that through such communication, Sarah can have a closer relationship with her mother.

[spark]

On 11/8/2021 at 9:19 AM, kerry said:

incontinent

I am very happy to have this story return. It's a very good one, and you are a strong writer. Though I think her mom is insane, at least Sarah feels that things are fair. (Stockholm Syndrome, anyone?) I too have been wondering when the cheerleading accident will come into play; it seems that it ought to. But thanks for the synopsis. (If I ever go back to one of my two suspended stories, I will follow suit.)

That's the thing that is so upsetting  with the mom, and a tribute to MW's writing.  The characters are so well developed, and it's amazing that it's from an amateur writer..  Most film writers don't match this level of characterization.

The mom is so controlling that mom is not letting Sarah gain independence.   She is totally hindering her daughters development, and is literally infantilizing her daughter.   FTR- I work with this age group, and I've literally seen that from parents- especially 9th graders.  Obviously not to that level, but the teens of today to what I remember from my youth- and I'm shocked how dependent they are.   Unfortunately there is opposite as well, which makes for a strange combination.

Ever since this this came back, I've been wondering what the end game is.   By this point in the story, mom has been aware of at least 4 accidents during the day, and Sarah has begun to wet the bed every single night when she had previously been mostly dry.  There is obviously something going on?  And Sarah has hid 90% of her accidents from anybody because she is so smart and resourceful.   BTW- at this point- letting an adult know that you are peeing your pants every day is probably a smart thing?  

Mom knows that Sarah peed her pants twice in a single day, and therefore she has to baby Sarah for a day.   As a result, she protects Sarah from public humiliation by keeping her home.  That step only makes sense if mom believes that this is something that Sarah can control.  Mom's actions indicate that Sarah is doing this purpose, and that only makes sense if mom thinks Sarah has an attraction to diapers.

[Arendeth]

Thanks for the chapter.

[MinnesotaWriter]

On 11/7/2021 at 10:28 PM, AdultInnocence said:

Liked that last chapter. Hopefully for her the only mention of laxatives will be in her thoughts. Her mom is pretty extreme though and does go through extreme measures and it did work for her sister, so maybe once just wasn't enough? Aside from not being practical to not wear to school (as she could have just put her in a diaper for the weekend instead, extra day for waiting for weekend) I wonder why she kept her out of school for the day.

In all reality as has been commented before, it all started after the accident with cheerleading. Looking forward to see where this is going and leaving any speculations to myself at this point.

Thanks! And yes, the fact that mom's extreme measures worked for Emilia doesn't bode well for Sarah in the near future, as her mother might now be convinced that her methods are successful.

The practical aspect of wearing diapers to school was part of it, I'm sure, but the diapers are only one half of the punishment, with the other half being the babying that is being done to Sarah, which would be one reason her mother might have chosen to keep her at home.

As far as cheerleading goes. Yes, it is fair to that this was the cause of Sarah's incontinence issues. Whether or not she ever realizes the source of her problems is something that will have to be answered later.

On 11/8/2021 at 12:23 AM, seanwill25 said:

You are an amazing writer with the gift of giving the reader what they need not necessarily what they want. I am so glad you skipped the trope of humiliating the antagonist by making them go to school in diapers and instead focused on the relationship between the mother and the daughter.  I believe that the conflict between the mother and daughter is the heart of the story and I am glad that it seems like that will be the focus of the next chapter or chapters.  I am also happy to see that you are going thru the day slowly with lots of details.  

Obviously Sarah believes that her mother would make her wear diapers to school.  If she has another accident early on Saturday, I wonder if Sarah would intentionally have another accident to avoid the possibility of wearing diapers to school on Monday.  She also seems resigned to wearing diapers now and might just give up on potty training for the weekend.  Sarah may even justify this as showing solidarity to her friend that wears diapers all the time.  I also think that Sarah could be surprised by her mother and be kept in diapers all weekend long, but that seems like her mother would be breaking her own rules if she did.

Can't wait to see how this is resolved in the next few chapters.

Thanks! And yeah, Sarah being forced to wear diapers to school wasn't something that ever made sense in the context of the story. It would be entirely different in a scenario where she was taken to a doctor and wearing diapers was recommended as part of her medical treatment and the school was aware of that (like the case would be for Lisa).

Sarah is definitely spiraling further and further down into more diaper use. Even with the acquiescence she has shown to her mom's authority, it's fair to say that we haven't seen the last of her schemes to hide the extent of her incontinence.

On 11/8/2021 at 7:54 AM, Bel George said:

Thank you for the new chapter, and for the synopsis as well.  That is a nice gesture.  I always enjoyed this story, and I hope we get to read many more chapters in the coming weeks and months.

This one day off from school will propably have a few humiliations in store for Sarah.
And I do expect that she won't be able to hide most of her accidents, so eventually she will be required to go to school in a diaper as well.  
The babying on the other hand, I suspect that will be an at-home thing only (or with family and friends only) and not a thing for the wider public.  At least, I hope so for Sarah.

I'm looking forward to read more ...

You're welcome. And yes, there is a lot more in store for Sarah for the rest of her day. I originally had it down as one chapter, and then, of course, I write enough for at least two additional chapters to cover what happens before the day ends.

On 11/8/2021 at 10:34 AM, Sarah Penguin said:

?

On 11/8/2021 at 11:19 AM, kerry said:

incontinent

I am very happy to have this story return. It's a very good one, and you are a strong writer. Though I think her mom is insane, at least Sarah feels that things are fair. (Stockholm Syndrome, anyone?) I too have been wondering when the cheerleading accident will come into play; it seems that it ought to. But thanks for the synopsis. (If I ever go back to one of my two suspended stories, I will follow suit.)

Thanks for the catch. Got that fixed. I'm glad the synopsis was helpful. Putting that together was useful for me in terms of getting caught back up to where things are in the story.

On 11/9/2021 at 12:57 AM, GQLF said:

It feels that Sarah's mother has a paranoid love for her daughter. It seems that she doesn't want to lose her little daughter. She can feel it from the aspect of letting her eldest daughter abide by baby discipline. It's not that she doesn't love her daughter, but she doesn't want her daughter to grow too big. It's best to stay at the stage where she needs her mother to help her go to the bathroom.

Diapers connect all this. Asking for leave for Sarah shows that she doesn't want to publicly humiliate her daughter. Helping Sarah dress and let her eldest daughter eat in a high chair seems to satisfy her idea of taking care of her young daughter. I'm a little suspicious that my mother will let Sarah and Amelia spend a day in kindergarten next, which may shake Sarah's position as a big girl. I also hope that through such communication, Sarah can have a closer relationship with her mother.

The fact that Sarah's mom doesn't want to publicly humiliate her daughter is a good observation, though whether those motives are well intentioned or selfish (not wanting to be seen like a failed parent) is something to consider as well. 

19 hours ago, spark said:

That's the thing that is so upsetting  with the mom, and a tribute to MW's writing.  The characters are so well developed, and it's amazing that it's from an amateur writer..  Most film writers don't match this level of characterization.

The mom is so controlling that mom is not letting Sarah gain independence.   She is totally hindering her daughters development, and is literally infantilizing her daughter.   FTR- I work with this age group, and I've literally seen that from parents- especially 9th graders.  Obviously not to that level, but the teens of today to what I remember from my youth- and I'm shocked how dependent they are.   Unfortunately there is opposite as well, which makes for a strange combination.

Ever since this this came back, I've been wondering what the end game is.   By this point in the story, mom has been aware of at least 4 accidents during the day, and Sarah has begun to wet the bed every single night when she had previously been mostly dry.  There is obviously something going on?  And Sarah has hid 90% of her accidents from anybody because she is so smart and resourceful.   BTW- at this point- letting an adult know that you are peeing your pants every day is probably a smart thing?  

Mom knows that Sarah peed her pants twice in a single day, and therefore she has to baby Sarah for a day.   As a result, she protects Sarah from public humiliation by keeping her home.  That step only makes sense if mom believes that this is something that Sarah can control.  Mom's actions indicate that Sarah is doing this purpose, and that only makes sense if mom thinks Sarah has an attraction to diapers.

We aren't going to get any chapters from the mom's point of view, but certain her perspective on why Sarah is behaving like she is will shape how she responds going forward now that Sarah is the only non-potty trained child in the house.

No comment on the end-game, other than to stay it has remained the same as it was prior to when I was last writing it.  I added a few additional subplots to the remaining outline, but we're still going full-speed ahead with the original plan.

17 hours ago, Arendeth said:

Thanks for the chapter.

You're welcome!

[WBDaddy]

My biggest concern is that Sarah's lifeline, Lisa, will be swiftly cut off if Mom finds out she's incontinent.  She'll immediately suspect Sarah's doing this to "fit in" or something.  

[bubble-pop1]

This is my by far favorite story, and it is such a bliss to see you back in the scene. You have again proven yourself with another great chapter, slowly but yet thoroughly pushing the plot of Sarah.

It is amazing of how you describe feelings and thoughts of Sarah, when she is eventually ending up in the Emilia's shoe. Although the rules of Mother's potty training scheme may be too strict for a teenage girl to bear, it makes Emilia's successful progress of potty training into dramatic turnover in contrast to Sarah's regression. The humiliation that Sarah is feeling makes me really sympathetic for her already, but it looks like this turnover is only yet the beginning. I guess not only the highchair but many other remnants of Emilia's graduation from babyhood (pacifiers and princess pullups maybe?) will be waiting.

Keep up the good work and I can't wait to read the story!

[MinnesotaWriter]

Chapter 38: Not a Big Kid Now

Any sliver of hope that I might be too big to fit in my little sister’s old highchair was dashed the moment I settled into it. Given that I was still able to get into Emilia’s toddler-sized pull-ups with ease, it made sense that a toddler chair would have just enough room for me as well, though the leg divider caused my skirt to bunch up uncomfortably underneath my bottom. My feet dangled helplessly in the air. The seat of the highchair was tall enough for a young child to be elevated high enough for a parent to easily feed them. But as a teenager seated in a highchair, that meant my head would now even with my mom, who had a good five or six inches on me.

I dutifully raised my hands in the air so that Mom could bring the eating tray back down and snap it into place in front of me. While I was skinny enough to fit in the highchair, I didn’t want to risk any sudden movements. I didn’t trust it to remain stable with someone of my height and weight in it. I looked up from the eating tray to where Emilia was seated. She had a regular dining chair with a booster seat strapped on to it. We briefly locked eyes before I turned away again, feeling my cheeks grow warm.

“Emilia, your sister had too many potty accidents yesterday, so she’s taking a break from potty training and being a baby today,” Mom said, phrasing the situation as if it was somehow my decision to be treated like this. “I need you to be on your best behavior today so you could show Sarah how to be a big girl again.”

I blinked away the few tears that had trickled down when I first entered the kitchen and took a long breath to steady myself. No matter how embarrassing or humiliating today was going to be, I just needed to make it through to the end, and I could focus again on finding another solution to my bladder issues.

The highchair wasn’t the only baby accessory Mom had gotten out to try.

“Sarah, hold your hair up for a moment while I put this on,” Mom said, as she stood next to the highchair with a Winnie-the-Pooh themed bib with Velcro straps in her hand.

I used both hands to grab my hair – I had it loose and not braided at the moment – to get it clear from my neck. Mom stretched the bib as far as she could, but she wasn’t able to get the Velcro ends of it to meet at the back of my neck. That provided me with a small measure of relief. At least not every baby item was going to be able to fit me.

The highchair was turned so that I wasn’t able to see what Mom was doing behind me in the kitchen, but the smell of toast gave me a hint as to what breakfast was going to be this morning. At least it was going to be finger food. Mom and I had spoon fed cereal to Emilia on numerous occasions. I didn’t have any desire to gain firsthand knowledge of how embarrassing that would be.

Mom placed a sippy cup filled to the brim with orange juice on the tray in front of me and handed my sister a training cup that had handles on the sides but no lid. Mom wasn’t going to miss any opportunity to make me feel younger than my sister. I sipped the juice without complaint. I tried to be careful with monitoring how much I drank – juice and soda seemed to make me need to pee the most — when I was wearing pull-ups, but with a diaper on it didn’t make any difference. I had a suspicion that I would be kept fully hydrated today.

Mom placed two slices of toast – one with strawberry jam and the other with grape jelly — on a faded pink plastic plate in front of me, while my sister received her single piece of toast on regular plain white plate.

Mom had spread the jam thickly across the toast, leaving practically no room to grab it on the edge for me to grab hold of the bread without getting jam on the tips of my fingers. Though Mom had set a couple of napkins next to my sister’s plate, she hadn’t given me one. Being stuck in the highchair meant I couldn’t reach the napkin dispenser in the middle of the table. I only managed to keep jam off of my fingers for the first couple of bites before they got sticky. And with the bread overloaded with jam, I had a hard time keeping it from getting stuck around my lips. I spun my tongue in a circle, but I wasn’t able to get all of it off. This was getting worse and worse. I finally worked up the courage to ask Mom for help.

“Mom, could you please pass me a napkin or two?”

Mom glanced up from her own breakfast of toast and orange juice to take a look at me. Surely, she could see the mess I was making.

“You don’t need that,” she replied. “It’s normal for babies to get messy when they eat. I’ll get you cleaned up once you are done.”

I accepted her response – or at least I accepted that I wasn’t going to change her mind – and went back to silently eating my toast. Licking my fingers wasn’t an option. Mom didn’t consider that to be appropriate table manners. Under normal circumstances, I would have gotten scolded at the very least for behaving like that. However, Mom also might think that it is normal for a baby to lick itheir fingers, but I wasn’t going to do any baby behavior that Mom wasn’t explicitly requiring of me.

Eager to get out of the highchair, I finished my breakfast as quickly as I could, but that only resulted in having to sit around awkwardly while I waited for Mom to finish her own toast, which she slowly munched on while looking at her phone. Emilia had already run off to the living room to watch her show again. I was annoyed at how lenient Mom was being with my sister’s TV use.

“Aww, you really did get messy,” Mom said at last in a sing-song voice. “Let’s go to the sink and get you cleaned up.”

Getting out of the highchair was more difficult than getting into it, but I got to the kitchen sink before Mom did. I instinctively reached my hand out to turn the faucet on, but Mom gave me a gentle slap on my wrist.

“No, no, I’m going to do that for you. Babies don’t wash their own hands.”

Mom reached out and turned the water on, letting it run for about ten seconds before putting her hand underneath the faucet to test the temperature. Mom took hold of both my wrists and pulled my hands into the warm water. She then briefly let go of one of my hands to squirt some liquid soap onto her hand, and then continued with washing my hands in the sink. I hadn’t noticed the effect the warm water had on me until the sink had turned off, but I could now feel a small trickle of pee making its way into the diaper. The one clear difference between wearing a diaper instead of a pull-up during the day was that after a small leak like that the sensation of being wet disappeared after a few seconds, and I felt completely dry again.

But Mom had one more thing to do to finish getting me cleaned up. She grabbed a paper towel and wet it slightly before thoroughly wiping down my mouth.

“All cleaned up!” Mom said cheerfully. “Why don’t you go watch TV with your sister for a bit? We have some time still before we need to leave.”

I started to head over to the living room, where the sounds from My Little Pony were loud and clear.

“Oh, come back here Sarah, I almost forgot something.”

I turned around and stepped back into the kitchen. Mom had a lavender pacifier in her hand. I wasn’t going to get away with anything today.

“Open wide.”

I parted my lips slightly, but it clearly wasn’t enough for Mom.

“Wider.”

I opened my mouth wider, and Mom stuck the pacifier in and let me close my lips around the tasteless rubber nipple.

“I don’t want to see you with that pacifier out of your mouth while you are home unless you are eating. Is that understood?”

I nodded in response, understanding all too well that taking the pacifier out of my mouth to give an audible response was something that was implicitly against the rule she had given. I managed one step away from the kitchen before Mom spoke to me again.

“And Sarah,” Mom added. “Babies don’t walk. They crawl.”

With the pacifier still in my mouth, I lowered myself onto the floor, pulling my dress up in front of me so that I wasn’t kneeling on it. I crawled slowly over to the living room. Unlike the living room, the hallway wasn’t carpeted, which meant I needed to move carefully so as not to hurt myself, but my wrists and knees were already feeling sore by the time I got onto the carpet. I hoped dearly that Emilia would be too engrossed in her show to be aware of my entrance into the room.

----

Every instinct told me that I needed to run. The car was only fifteen feet or so from the front door of the house. I could reach the passenger side door in a second or two and open it and get inside before any of my neighbors even noticed I had been outside the house. But I knew that there wasn’t any actual way they would notice a diaper and running around like that would only draw more attention to myself, not less. So I calmly walked out to the car, opened the back door for Emilia to hop into her car seat, and then got into the passenger seat while Mom made sure my sister was buckled into her car seat properly. Like with the bib earlier today, I was really thankful that car seats didn’t come in adult sizes. At least, I was almost certain they didn’t.

I had used the pacifier up until almost the last moment until I had to step out the door. I hadn’t risked removing it myself, and Mom didn’t take it out of my mouth until we were putting out shoes on in the entryway. She set it atop the entryway table, where it would be ready to be put into my mouth as soon as we arrived back home.

My mouth felt dry and a bit sore after removing the pacifier. The plastic nipple was too small to easily stay in my mouth, which left me needing either to hold it in with one of my hands or constantly be biting down to keep it in place.

Mom hadn’t allowed me to use my phone while at home – the list of things babies aren’t allowed to do is indeed rather lengthy – but I had been allowed to have it with me on the short car ride to Emilia’s preschool. I responded to some messages my friends had sent earlier in the morning. Telling them that Mom had allowed me to stay home cause I wasn’t feeling well. There wasn’t any point in deviating from the alibi Mom had provided to the school nurse. Of course, Samantha, Desi, and Lisa were all jealous that I was getting a break from school, even if they assumed I was sick enough to need that. If only they knew.

I wondered what the rest of my day would be like once I got back home. Mom was going to be busy working on her laptop, which meant I would be left to myself for the most part until dinner time. But my computer and phone would be off limits, and I doubted that I’d be able to watch anything on TV outside of toddler shows. And who knows how else Mom intended to treat me like a baby?

Mom at least let me stay inside the car as she walked Emilia into the daycare center, which left me spending a couple minutes watching Emilia’s classmates arrive. I spotted a number of them that appeared likely to still be in diapers. Skirts and dresses were the only outfits that left me without any sense of whether any of them were still not potty-trained, again making me glad that Mom had the sense to dress me the way that she had.

On the drive back home, I distracted myself by playing a game on my phone. I was tempted to sneak in a round of Fortnite, even though mobile controls for that are complete garbage, but the drive was short enough that I was unlikely to finish it by the time we got home. And Mom was sure to tell me to put my phone away then. She was completely oblivious to the need to be allowed to finish an online game.

---

I jolted my head upright as the car came to an unexpected stop and was put into park. The ride home was quick, but not that quick. My heart sank as I looked up to see that we were instead parked in the middle of the grocery store parking lot. Now I knew why Mom had been so intentional in selecting an outfit that would hide my diaper.

“You didn’t say anything about going shopping.”

“It’s not going to be long. We just need to grab milk and a couple of other things.”

“My game isn’t done yet. Can I stay in the car?”

“No, you are going to come in. Put the phone away. Babies aren’t allowed to stay in the car by themselves.”

“Babies aren’t allowed to do anything,” I mouthed silently to myself, with my back safely turned toward Mom.

I opened the passenger door and stepped uneasily into the parking lot. The store was packed, which meant Mom had needed to park near the back of the lot. Ahead of us, I spotted a number of parents with young children, getting their errands done right away in the morning.

I felt so self-conscious as we walked through the store. I wasn’t worried about any diaper bulge being visible, but I was worried about the awkward gait that the diaper padding between my legs forced me into. It wasn’t exactly as if I was waddling, but the movement of my legs still felt off.

I heard every single crinkle, despite the fact that the leggings did appear to have made the sound from the diaper a bit quieter. I was certain that the signs that were so blatantly obvious to me must be equally obvious to every shopper we walked past in the narrow aisle. I knew no one was paying attention to me, and I knew as well that, even if they were, they weren’t checking to see if I had a diaper on. But that knowledge didn’t dampen my nervousness.

Then Mom turned and stepped into the baby aisle, leaving me with no choice but to follow her lead. She hadn’t said anything about needing to stop in here. We’d already gotten a half-gallon of milk and a loaf of bread, which were the only two items in the red plastic basket hanging from her hand.

We walked past a large collection of baby diapers, followed by toddler pull-ups, and I spotted the brand with Emilia’s favorite Disney characters. Then I saw my bedwetting pull-ups, the ones that Mom now only made me wear during the day, as I had outgrown their usefulness at night. I held my breath for a second. She wouldn’t buy these in person, not with me here. Would she?

But Mom continued past the nighttime pull-ups without sparing them a single glance. When she had discovered that I was having accidents, she had purchased a box of those pull-ups online, and hopefully would continue to do so in the increasingly likely scenario that more might soon be needed.

Mom instead came to a stop at the section of the aisle where the baby food and formula was stocked. What she was doing didn’t immediately register in my brain, but as soon as she grabbed a jar – labeled assorted vegetables – and placed it in the basket that it dawned on me that my next meal was going to be less than pleasant.

I might have made a fuss about her selection – couldn’t it at least be fruits instead? – but another shopper entered the aisle from the opposite side, so all I could do was fidget and watch and hope and pray that the nastiest of the flavors would remain untouched. Mom must have read my mind because the next collection of baby food jars she grabbed was one with a variety of fruit flavors, and then she headed out the other end of the aisle without saying anything to me.

For the moment, the relief of not having to walk through the store with a package of pull-ups overshadowed the impending meal where I no doubt would be fed actual baby food. Maybe it wouldn’t be as bad as I expected.

Every cash register had a line of shoppers waiting behind it to check out. A woman and a blonde-haired girl who looked to be about the same age as my sister were directly in front of us in the line, wait for their turn empty their packed shopping cart onto the conveyer belt. Bored, I looked over what they were buying. Not one, but two large boxes of toddler pull-ups – the biggest size of those at that – were tucked on top of the rack at the bottom of their shopping cart.

Sure enough, when the girl raised her hands to try to grab a bag of candy from a shelf in the checkout lane, her jacket lifted up enough to reveal the top of a pink pull-up sticking out above the waistband of her leggings.

“Remember what mommy said?” the woman asked her daughter. “You can only have a treat to take home if you’ve stayed dry.”

“But I am dry,” the girl protested.

The girl lowered her hands, but she didn't stop looking at the candy. The Mom grabbed a bag of skittles and placed it in the shopping cart.

“You could have the Skittles if, and only if, you are still dry when we get back home.”

There was something about standing still that was worse for my bladder than walking. I’d managed to last a little longer than I would have expected since I had last wet my diaper just after breakfast, but the urges from my bladder arrived almost as soon as Mom and I had come to a standstill in the line.

As I contemplated my lack of options, Mom handed the basket over to me.

“Hold this and keep our place in line, Sarah. There’s one more thing that I forget we were needing to get.”

Mom took off before I had a chance to ask what it was that she had forgotten. Perhaps I didn’t want to know. I didn’t have long before the effort to hold my bladder in would start to cause me to squirm, but with how much I had drunk during breakfast, I was certain this wasn’t going to be a tiny leak.

That left me with a choice of squirming and making an awkward potty-dance scene in public or letting myself go in the diaper right then and there. I tried to release my bladder slowly, but it felt like it emptied out all at once. I hoped I was only imagining the sound of a stream of urine hitting the absorbent padding of the diaper.

The woman in front of us let out a large sigh and reached back into her shopping cart to grab the skittles and put them back on the shelf without saying a word to her daughter.

“You said I could have Skittles if I’m dry.”

“And you had an accident just now, so we’re not bringing any Skittles home.”

“No, I didn’t,” the girl replied indignantly, crossing her arms across her chest.

“That’s not what I heard,” the mother said, in a firm, no nonsense voice.

Lizzie sat on the floor and started to quietly cry.

The mother chose to ignore the burgeoning tantrum and instead started putting her groceries out onto the conveyer belt. That ended up being an effective choice as the girl stifled her cries and stood back up.

I felt really bad for how I had accidentally framed the little girl. With how many pull-ups were in the cart, I had to guess that staying dry was still quite a challenge for her. I glanced backwards. No one else had joined us in line, and Mom still wasn’t back yet. I wondered what was taking her so long. If I was going to do anything, it needed to be now.

I stepped up next to the shopping car that the woman was unloading.

“Excuse me,” I said softly, hoping that would be enough to get her attention. “I think your daughter could use those Skittles.”

“I’m going to do what I see is best for my daughter,” the woman said, a bit harshly, before toning down her voice. “You’ll understand that once you are a parent.”

“It’s not that,” I said, lowering my voice to an even quieter whisper. “I, um, I’m incontinent. That was me you heard having an accident, not your daughter.”

The woman’s eyes dropped to my waist for a second. Of course, she had to look there, not that there was any way that she could tell.

“Really?” the woman asked.

I nodded, but my blushing face was likely conformation enough for her as she grabbed two packets of skittles and placed them on the conveyer belt. Lizzie looked up at me, and then her mom, and then me again.

“And please, don’t say anything about this to my mom. She gets embarrassed when other people find out.”

[AdultInnocence]

That was very brave of her to say that to the other parent. She isn't wrong in being incontinent, since she is having increasing difficulty staying dry.

[Sarah Penguin]

[Night Rain]

That most have been embarrassing to admit poor Sarah.

[WBDaddy]

I have a suspicion that this isn't just a character development incident.  In fact, my hunch is that the woman in the store is one of her classmates' parents, and this is going to get back around the school. 

[GQLF]

It is expected that Sarah's mother may go back to get the pull up. When she comes back, it may be more embarrassing to meet the mother and daughter.

[thedman]

Wow, great twist to end that chapter off! Now, the big question, what did mom "forget".....