All My Mother's Rules

Chapter 43: Little Battles

I could barely refrain from twiddling my thumbs as I sat in the passenger seat of the car while I waited for Mom to finish picking up my younger sister from her preschool class. She had already been inside for about five minutes now. While I hadn't been along to pick up my sister before, it felt like it was taking longer than it should have.

Mom had been in so much of a hurry to get me changed, dressed, and out the door that I hadn't had time to ask her if I could bring my phone along with me like I had this morning. I was certain I had missed messages from Desi, Samantha, and Lisa. I guess I'd just have to tell them tomorrow that I had been too tired and sick to respond.

I wasn't sure if I was smelling baby powder in the car or if it was my imagination, but it did seem as if there was a hint of lavender in the air. I guess Mom must have gone heavy on sprinkling that on my bottom after getting me cleaned up from having messed myself during naptime earlier this afternoon.

I turned back to watching out the window. We were parked in a spot where I had a clear line of sight from the passenger side door to the entrance of the preschool. A dozen or so parents, mostly mothers, but there had been one father, had already entered alone and exited with their kids during the time Mom had remained inside.

Then the front door swung open, and Mom stepped outside, holding my sister by the hand. I couldn't believe my luck. Emilia had on an entirely different outfit than the one that Mom had dropped her off in. My sister's jeans and unicorn hoodie had been replaced with plain black leggings and a Minnie Mouse sweater. Had Emilia finally had an accident? There had been times before when she had gone through a serious regression after a period of successful potty training. That would be the answer to my question about how I was supposed to secretly get some additional pull-ups for myself.

Mom had a plastic bag in her hand, which appeared to have Emilia's outfit from earlier today tucked inside. I squinted out the window, but the hoodie went down too far on Emilia's waist for me to see if there was an outline of a pull-up or diaper showing from beneath the leggings.

"Sorry we took so long," Mom said, as she opened the back door and got Emilia settled into her car seat. "One of the kids in her class had just spilled a thing of juice all over Emilia and we had to get her into a spare set of clothes."

So close. I should have known it wasn't going to be this easy. That was OK though. I had another plan in mind.

I made note of the time on the clock on the dashboard as we pulled out of the parking lot. I wish I had my phone on me, as I could have gotten a more precise measurement, but this would have to do. There were no detours this time on the way home from the preschool. I was grateful both because I would be spared the discomfort of having to be out in public with a diaper on, and because I wanted to get an accurate sense of how long it would take to travel between the preschool center and our house.

Precisely ten minutes later, the car was pulling into the driving and coming to a stop. We'd hit a little less than half the red lights along the way, so I figured it was a fairly representative sample of how long that trip would take going in one direction.

My diaper was still dry as I stepped inside the front door. I let Emilia run on ahead of me first. I didn't like having to get down on my hands and knees to crawl with her standing and watching me. Is this how my sister had felt every time she had been forced to crawl around me? Thankfully, Emilia was so preoccupied with the idea of going to watch TV in the other room that she went sprinting off down the hallway while I was taking my sweet time getting my shoes off.

I grabbed the pacifier off of the stand in the entryway and popped it into my mouth before Mom had the opportunity to do so. I caught an annoyed glance from her. But what exactly did she have to complain about? Winning those little battles, being able to maintain a smidgen of my own agency, felt wonderful even if it wasn't doing anything to change the tide of the war. I felt prouder of myself than I should have, and then I started to worry. I hoped that I hadn't given the entirely wrong impression. It wouldn't do to have Mom mistakenly believe that I somehow liked having a pacifier in my mouth.