All My Mother's Rules

Chapter 69: Nightmare on Christmas

I always had trouble sleeping the night before Christmas.

In previous years, the anticipation of what might be waiting for me underneath the tree kept me up all night. I'd lay in bed for hours, unable to sleep until after midnight. Then I'd wake up a few hours later, looking eagerly at the alarm clock to find out it was only four in the morning.

In the days leading up to Christmas, when Mom wasn't looking, I would grab each of the presents she had labeled for me, weighing them carefully in my hands while gently shaking them to guess what might be inside. The theories about what those present might be had me eagerly expecting the arrival of morning.

Even if new video games or electronics were waiting for me under the tree this morning, I'd be grounded from playing with them. They would be confiscated and hidden away in Mom's bedroom as soon as I'd finished taking all the wrapping paper off.

If I was lucky, after about a half-hour of tossing and turning in bed, I'd be able to get back to sleep, hopefully until just before it was time to get up and open presents.

Mom had a strict rule on Christmas mornings. We weren't to wake her up until 8 a.m., and we couldn't go to where the presents were waiting under the living room tree until she was ready to do so.

As I lay in the crib this Christmas Eve, with the alarm clock finally showing that it was past midnight, I wasn't close to falling asleep. It wasn't for any of the usual reasons.

Mom had not let my punishment relent in the three days between the shopping trip to the mall and Christmas Eve.

I had never received this severe punishment from Mom before. Sure, I hadn't ever lied to her over such a long period, but even then, couldn't she see she had more than made her point? No matter how poorly my toilet training went after this punishment was over, I had no desire whatsoever to be not entirely truthful with Mom about my progress or lack thereof.

In the meantime, my efforts to work on potty training had fallen entirely by the wayside. I was no longer even attempting to hold my bladder in as long as I could. When the need to pee arrived, I simply went right then and there in my diaper.

Not that I didn't still want to be at least partially toilet trained, but working on it before I was back in pull-ups was simply pointless.

Every day, Mom continued to insinuate that I must either somehow like being a baby or that my problem was that I was simply too lazy to go to the toilet. It took all of my self-control not to argue back and not to demand that punishment end and that I be given a chance to prove her wrong.

But even if that opportunity came, what chance did I have of succeeding?

I rolled over in the crib until my head was in the one corner where I could just barely make out the alarm clock. Twenty-four minutes after midnight. Still, nearly eight hours to go. After more than a week of sleeping in the crib every night, I'd finally found a position that didn't leave me feeling completely aching the following day when Mom finally let me out.

Tonight, I wasn't stuck with only a t-shirt that would barely cover my diaper. The same as every year, Mom had given me a new set of pajamas on Christmas Eve.

Christmas was Mom's day. As soon as it was over, she spent the next 364 days preparing for the next one. That meant certain traditions simply had to be followed.

The first was pajamas. That was the one and only present I was allowed to open on Christmas Eve. Mom always had a matching set of pajamas for her and me. And, when Emilia came along, she also joined that tradition.

Last night was no different. Before getting ready for bed, Mom had my sister and I join her in the living room. She handed each of us a box covered in candy cane wrapping paper and took a nearly identical box for herself. I didn't have to guess to know what was inside.