The Greatest Milestone

Chapter 2

I was sitting at the dinner table when I felt a pressure on my bladder. It was a subtle thing at first. But once I noticed it, I realized it had been there for quite a while.

My fork clattered to my plate as I dropped it. My mom stopped talking mid-sentence, and she and Emily each turned to stare at me.

"Be right back," I stammered as I pushed my chair away from the table.

The tingling sensation moved from my bladder to my urethra. Not good.

I moved quicker, my socks slipping against the hardwood floor as I rounded the corner. When I reached the bathroom door, the golden handle didn't budge. Damn it. My brother had jumped in the shower after his rugby practice. The sound of clattering water reached my ears, and my urgency doubled.

No. I squeezed my legs together and bolted up the stairs to the master bathroom. A few drops rolled out of me with each step, but I held back the stream with all my might.

I reached the upstairs bathroom a second later and shut the door behind me. At this point, every inch of me wanted to squirm and dance. I faced the toilet and yanked off my shorts and pull-up.

Victory. I'd finally managed to...

The floodgates broke. The river ran down my legs, drenching my shorts, my pull-up, and my socks. I must have stood there in shock for a full five seconds before I finally gathered my wits and moved to sit down. That was another mistake. The stream painted the toilet seat yellow and I ended up sitting in the puddle.

"Damn it!" I cursed out loud

"Language, young lady." That would be my mom's voice from outside. I winced despite everything. I'd never sworn in front of her before. Not even a minor word like that.

By the time I was finally sitting, there was nothing left for my body to give. No satisfying sound of water against water.

The door opened with a creak, and my mom appeared on the other side. Like me, she had dark brown hair, but hers only reached her chin. She was also a couple inches shorter than me, and more on the curvy side.

My eyes misted as she entered the room, and a hot tear rolled down my cheek. One accident wasn't usually enough to make me cry. Not even one like this. But it had been a long first day, and I'm practically the only junior in school who has to deal with this.

All my friends are in pull-ups. My older sister, Emily, was in pull-ups was she was fourteen, and she didn't wear any protection by the time she was eighteen. It had been the same way for both my parents, and I'm sure my brother Alex would be toilet training any day now.

My mom moved forward as if to comfort me, then she saw the veritable ocean between us. Apparently she didn't want to swim her way over.

"This sucks." I moved my glasses aside and wiped my eyes dry.

"It's alright honey," Mom replied, but I could hear the frustration in her voice as she pulled out an old towel from the linen cabinet. This wasn't the first time my toilet training had caused problems. Pull-ups were technically cheaper than diapers, but they needed to be changed a lot more often. I'd found that out the hard way too.

"Em," she called for my sister.

"Yeah?" Emily's voice sounded close. She must have already followed my mom up the stairs.

"Could you grab your sister a new diaper please?"

Her footsteps faded down the hall toward the room we shared.

"It's only six o'clock," I protested.

Mom gave me a sympathetic smile. "I think you've earned the right to relax for a while."

"I have to keep practicing though. I was so close this time. If Alex hadn't been in the shower, I would have made it for sure."

"You can't force these things," Mom reminded me. "You remember what the doctor said? Some people don't get full continence until they're in their twenties. Just because you're different doesn't mean something's wrong with you."

Tell that to everyone at school. I loved my mother, but you'd think she'd never been sixteen before.

"Can't I just put on another pull-up? I promise I won't do this again." I winced as the words left my mouth. I hated how much like a middle-schooler I sounded.

"It's not just that," Mom said. "How many pull-ups do you have left in that package?"

I bit my lip and looked away. "A few." My parents had just bought me that 12-pack on Friday, but I'd been wearing them all weekend before school started, hoping I'd have some sort of breakthrough. The truth was, they made me feel cute—like the sort of girl someone would actually want to date. I needed the confidence booster.

School wasn't terrible. It's not like I was bullied in a cliche-high-school-movie sort of way, but people still liked to have fun at my expense. Just little jokes and whispers here and there. But after a while, those so-called harmless comments piled up into a mountain. Today felt like standing out in the rain, watching the rest of the world go on behind a glass window.

I had to keep practicing. All I wanted was to be like everyone else.

"I think a diaper would be better for you tonight," Mom said, oblivious to my thoughts. "You can still—"

"Can I please just wear one more pull-up?" At this point, I think I was just protesting on principle. The only thing worse then needing a diaper was being forced to wear one.

"I'll tell you what..." My mom finished wiping up the floor, then pulled off the clothes I'd soaked. "You can wear whatever you want tonight, but then this will be your last package for a while."

Emily appeared in the doorway a second later with her red hair and freckled cheeks. Mom traded her the fresh diaper for the bathroom mat and wet clothes. Emily accepted them and made her way back down the stairs, presumingly to throw everything in the washer.

I was still trying to process my mother's words as my sister left, then I tried my hardest not to cry again. "I'm really sorry you had to clean up after me. I could have taken care of it."

"This isn't a punishment, honey." Mom began wiping down my inner legs. "We talked about this before. Pull-ups are expensive, and they aren't meant to be changed so many times. It's okay to wear them sometimes, but I think you should limit yourself to one per day."

"But how am I supposed to practice without them?"

"You can still practice in a diaper." Mom unfolded the crinkling white material and spread it on the changing bench. Reluctantly, I made my way over and lay down. This was far softer than the changing table at school, and also lower to the ground. Low enough for younger kids to diaper themselves.

"You can take this off if you need to," Mom continued, "and you can still practice your kegel exercises, regardless of what you're wearing."

I lay my head back as she taped me up. Despite my decade of practice, I could never get the fit as perfect as she could. That was the thing about moms. No matter how much practice you had changing, they always had more.

Believe it or not, it had actually been a while since my mom changed me. The last time was my older cousin's wedding about three months ago. During the reception, my other cousins and I had taken advantage of the open bar and had our first experience with alcohol. I'll spare you the embarrassing details, but lets just say I was in no condition to change myself.

The time before that, I was sick with a stomach bug. Again, I'll spare you the details, but my mother was a saint for dealing with me on both occasions.

"And remember," Mom said as she fastened the last tab into place. "It's okay to practice, but you should accept yourself as you are. Like I said, some things can't be forced, and control will come with time."

After we were done, I put on a dry pair of shorts and made my way back downstairs. This pair was obviously designed to be worn with pull-ups because my diaper stuck out a full two inches above the waist line.

Mom and Emily were already clearing the table when I headed back downstairs, and Alex was still in the shower. Probably to avoid helping with the dishes.

I shuffled over to the sink and began washing the tomato sauce off the plates.

"Why's it always the pretty girls who toilet train first?" I asked my mom and sister.

Mom rounded on me. "You are one of the pretty girls, Claire."

"You know what I mean though. The girls like Amber Postma. The ones with perfect... everything."

This time, it was Emily who answered. "Some of it has to do with hormones."

I frowned in confusion, still holding the plate under the running water. Running streams of warm water weren't my favorite thing right now.

"When you say pretty girls," Emily began again, "you probably mean the ones who look more mature right?" She gestured to her breasts for emphasis.

"Sure." I glanced at my own chest which was practically flat by comparison. "I guess that's part of it."

Emily nodded. "A more mature body means more estrogen for girls, and more testosterone for guys. These hormones tell your body it's old enough to start reproducing."

If you couldn't tell by now, Emily likes biology. Even though she was a business major, her girlfriend was studying to be a nurse.

"Your bladder muscles take the hint," Emily continued, and you start developing nerves to sense when you have to go. Then you get stronger muscles to control it. This takes a while though. For girls, it's usually a few years after your first period."

Oh, joy. My first period was exactly six months ago. By Emily's math, I could easily be a sophomore in college by the time I'm out of diapers.

Of course, Alex chose that exact moment to emerge from the bathroom, and the conversation shifted to less feminine topics.

Still, one thing bothered me. Emily had just hinted that we develop bladder control to become more attractive.

So, in other words... nature was literally conspiring to keep me from getting a boyfriend.