I hope this post doesn’t cross the line into the vulgar category, but I need to have a candid talk about boys’ plumbing. For no apparent reason other than he just darn well feels like it, Ri continues to pee on himself during the day. Granted, I understand that nighttime bedwetting can continue to be a problem at this age, and I accept that. He wears a pull-up at night, takes care of throwing it away in the morning if it’s wet, and life goes on pretty routinely. However, this daytime peeing on himself is about to drive me out of my ever-lovin’ mind.

I’m so tired of having to take extra sets of clothes to daycare and hearing his teachers tell me almost daily that he had another “accident.” Tell it like it is: it’s not an accident; he’s being belligerent. I’m tired of washing nasty pee-smelling pants and underwear. I thought we were done with diapers a couple of years ago when Ry finally got potty-trained.

As if there aren’t a hundred thousand other things to adjust to this year, this particular issue is grating on my last nerve. We’ve tried everything:

1) Bribery: incentives to stop wetting; a prize chart at home for staying dry for a week; special treats from his daycare teacher/Awana teacher/children’s minister. He never made it longer than four days, and usually no more than two.

2) Penalties: he has to carry his yucky clothes home and put them in the laundry room by himself (they go in the towels hamper since we don’t want to wash icky clothes with other people’s nice clothes); he’s had to put back on his crusty wet clothes and take a shower with them on; he’s gotten swats on his behind (corporal punishment – *gasp! – don’t freak out; your parents spanked you, and you turned out just fine); he’s had treats taken away (such as no desert or halloween candy when everyone else got a piece that night). Nothing worked; even though penalties are very effective for other infractions, punishment didn’t change his behavior in this regard any more effectively than the promise of a prize.

3) Ignoring it: we tried just not mentioning it at all and making him take care of remembering to bring extra clothes to daycare, but that didn’t work b/c they just called me at work to bring an extra set. They wouldn’t let him stay wet all afternoon, which is what I proposed.

4) The Big-boy plea: when he turned five, he promised me that he was a big boy now, and since only babies wet their pants, he would quit. Yeah, that lasted all of a day. We even put him back in pullups during the day for a couple of weeks, and the daycare asked us to put him back in underwear because he was being made fun of.

5) Medical fear: I flat-out asked him if his “peenie” was broken. He gasped and said NO. I said, “Well, does it pee all by itself? Does it sometimes pee when you don’t want it to?” He said no. I clarified, “Then, when you wet your pants, you must WANT to pee on yourself.” He huffed and folded his arms. I said, “Look, it’s one way or the other. Either you let your peenie pee all over you on purpose, or it pees on you and you can’t make it stop. I guess we’ll have to go to the doctor and find out if it’s broken.” He exclaimed, “It’s NOT broken!”

So, I walked him through his latest episode at daycare that day. Where was he when he wet his pants? In the classroom. Ok … isn’t there a bathroom in your classroom? Yes. Did you know that you had to go potty? Yes. What were you doing when you realized you had to go potty? Coloring at the table. Did you get up to go potty? No. So, you peed on yourself while you were sitting at the table? Yes.

That recap tells me that it’s not a medical issue; he’s just being a defiant little booger! I told him that he needed to see the doctor soon now that he had a birthday, anyway, so I am going to ask the doctor if something is wrong with his peenie. “Nothing’s wrong with it!” he pouted. “Ok, then, so stop peeing on yourself,” I replied. *sigh

One final option, similar to the “ignore it” technique that I read another parent tried – with success – is what I am going to call the laissez faire approach. I called him aside to talk to him privately tonight and told him that starting tomorrow, I. Don’t. Care. About. His. Pee. Anymore. I said that if he wants to pee all over himself and smell stinky and get laughed at and wear dirty clothes, then fine – he can do that. (He huffed again.) I said that if he has a good day and stays dry, then I’m not going to say Yea! or give him a high-five, because that’s what he’s SUPPOSED to do. I asked if he understood, then I repeated it again: I. Don’t. Care.

Call me mean, but all signals point to this being a cry for attention, and maybe by praising him for the good days, we’re just feeding the need for negative attention on the bad days. Now, I do understand and have read a bazillion different people say that kids often act out by wetting when they are grieving or have experienced trauma. That’s why we’ve tried so many different ways of handling this up till now. Now that insurance is squared away, we’re going to get the boys into counseling. We understand that as much chaos as we adults have experienced this year, the boys are going through their own form of grieving. I get that. I do.

But, at what point do we quit making excuses for his behavior and hold him accountable? He still has to put away his supper dish like everyone else. He still has to take a turn feeding the dogs. He still has to brush his teeth. He still has to hold hands in a parking lot. We don’t let him throw a hissy-fit when he wants someone else’s toy and brush it off as, “Oh, well, he’s grieving.” Why is the pee issue such a hush-hush, delicate subject?