Alternative Therpapies - Chapter 8

On the following morning, I didn't find myself in my new bed, but on the changing table instead. I was far too tired to be annoyed that my mother hadn't even woken me up to change me out of my wet diaper. Silently, she removed the diaper and hastily wiped away the last traces of urine from my crotch with a wet wipe. It was Monday morning, and with the end of the weekend, her calm demeanor during diaper changes seemed to have vanished as well. I couldn't blame her, after all, she was solely responsible for getting Sophie to kindergarten on time, and now she had to not only change and prepare my little sister for the day but me as well, all within the already limited morning hours.

My intimate area felt less clean than usual as she reached for one of the pull-ups to put on me. However, it wasn't my semi-wet crotch that jolted me out of my half-sleep, but rather what she held in her hands for me. "Mom, can I please wear normal underwear instead of the pull-ups?" I pleaded sweetly, "Yesterday was really a one-time slip-up; it won't happen again, I promise you!" "The same rules apply to you as for everyone else in this house. If you stay dry during the day for three days, you can wear big girl panties again," she explained dryly, and her tone suggested that there would be no negotiating this house rule, which had previously only applied to Sophie. In that moment, I wished she would have an accident herself, so the house rule would apply to her too, but that wish would probably never come true.

The fact that it was no longer the weekend did not change her choice of clothing for me. The short, bunny-adorned, light gray leggings and the pale lilac T-shirt, also decorated with two cute rabbits, looked no less childish than my outfit the day before. After yesterday's harsh rejection, I didn't even bother asking to wear a bra; she wouldn't have allowed it anyway.

Every step and movement during the morning routine seemed to be designed to consume as little time as possible. We even had to brush our teeth while sitting on the potty. Neither Sophie nor I managed to leave anything in it, which was no surprise after we both had woken up with wet diapers. Meanwhile, our mother used her free time to not only comb our hair but also braid it into pigtails. We had barely spat out the toothpaste when our mother already had a wet washcloth ready to wash our faces. Before I knew it, we were done in the bathroom, and our mother dragged us by our hands towards the garage.

"Mom, why do I have to go to kindergarten with you? Can't I stay at home until you come back?" I whined as it dawned on me that she expected me to accompany her to kindergarten. "I'm not leaving you unsupervised and alone in the house!" she retorted, as if I, like a normal toddler, couldn't be left out of sight for five minutes. It was unbelievable how seriously she took this whole nonsense of living like a toddler.

As usual, I wanted to take my place in the passenger seat when we arrived at our SUV in the garage, but my mother put a stop to my age-inappropriate behavior and pointed out that children should sit in the back of the car. Annoyed, I opened the rear door of the vehicle and was about to get in when I noticed something blocking the seat. At first, I thought the object mounted on the rear seat was Sophie's child seat, but when I glanced over to the other side, I was surprised to see that Sophie was already buckled up in her child seat. "Well, Emily, do you like your new child seat?" my mother asked, suddenly appearing behind me out of nowhere. "My child... seat?" I stammered. "Yes, it's nice, isn't it?" she said excitedly, grabbing me under the arms at the same moment to lift me into it. "It was easier than I thought to find a nice child seat in your size. Most of them are actually designed for heights up to four-foot-eleven."

I stared in disbelief at the object I had been lifted into. My child seat was not just a simple booster seat; it was a completely separate seat, just like Sophie's, with its own backrest and headrest. Even a 5-point harness was integrated. But the worst part was that I fit perfectly into it. There wasn't the slightest indication that I had outgrown the child seat.

In the blink of an eye, my mother leaned over me, and before I even realized what was happening, the straps of my seat were locked. "Done," my mother announced with satisfaction. She was about to close my door when I began to protest. "Mom, I'm not going to ride with you in a child seat. What if someone sees me in it?" I huffed angrily. She may have been fast enough to put me in the seat before I could resist, but she could hardly prevent me from leaving it. In a display of defiance, I raised my hand in front of her eyes and pressed the release button to free myself, but nothing happened; the seat belts remained firmly locked. Perplexed, I pressed the button again, but the straps around my body remained tightly locked.

"It's a good thing I got a child seat with a built-in child lock. I already suspected you might try to unbuckle yourself during the ride," she said, shaking her head, and closed my door. Furious, I leaned forward and pulled the door handle to reopen the door and prevent her from driving off, only to discover that she had activated the child lock on my side of the car.

Ignoring my desperate tugging at the straps, my mother drove off. I couldn't believe that no matter what I tried, I was unable to open the damn seatbelts. It was only a child lock, which meant there must be some solution to free myself from the straps. A solution that an adult should be able to find, since it's called a child lock and not an adult lock. For the entire fifteen-minute drive to the kindergarten, I tried every possible way to free myself from my seat, but upon our arrival, I was still as securely locked in my seat as at the beginning of our journey.

I paused and stopped my attempts to free myself from my seat when I realized that we had arrived at the kindergarten. I could only hope that no one would pass by and notice that I was strapped into a child seat. The rear windows of our SUV were tinted, but I wasn't completely sure that no one could see inside. To make matters worse, I knew not only the kindergarten teachers but also some of the children and parents from the kindergarten, since I had picked up Sophie from there a few times myself. At first glance, the coast seemed clear. Neither children nor parents nor other cars were in sight. I desperately hoped it would stay that way.

Calmly, my mother got out of the vehicle and helped Sophie out of her seat. I was convinced that she would leave me alone in the car for the short time it took her to bring Sophie inside, but she had other plans. "You can't stay in the car by yourself, Emily! What if something happens to you?” she remarked with feigned concern, responding to my request not to have to go inside the kindergarten. She quickly unbuckled my child seat's straps, so fast that I couldn't even figure out how she had done it.

"I'm not going with you!" I stubbornly declared and clung to my child seat. I was aware of the contradiction in my actions, as I now clung to the very child seat I had desperately wanted to escape from just five minutes earlier. However, under no circumstances did I want anyone else to see me in my current role, wearing my current clothes. In vain, my mother tried to pull me out of the seat. It was astonishing to me how much strength I could muster in such a situation. "Emily, I'm warning you! If you don't come with me right now, you're in big trouble!" she thundered, her face beet-red after all her attempts to get me out of the car had failed.

A car pulling up behind our SUV at that moment interrupted our dispute. I turned around. A blue Volkswagen had parked behind our vehicle. The car seemed familiar somehow. The reflective windows of the vehicle made it impossible for me to identify the driver, but when the woman got out, I recognized who had arrived. It was Jana's mother. Jana was a girl who had already made friends with Sophie during the short time Sophie attended kindergarten. This was just what I needed. She cheerfully greeted my mother and Sophie before opening the rear door of her Polo and lifting Jana, a small, blonde four-year-old, out of the car. Unfortunately, she didn't head straight toward the kindergarten with her daughter as I had hoped, but instead approached us and our car. "Well, why are you two standing here as if you're waiting for someone?" Jana's mother wondered as she neared our car.

I was faced with two options: either stay seated and let Jana and her mother see me sitting in a child's car seat like a toddler, or give in to my mother's wishes, get out of the car, and go inside the kindergarten with them. I didn't have to think twice. I jumped out of my seat and closed the door so hastily behind me that I almost caught my fingers in the process. My mother smirked smugly, having gotten her way without any further effort. "We were just waiting for Emily to finally get out of the car," she replied with visible satisfaction, addressing the previous question from Jana's mother.

Although I had just managed to hide my new car seat from Jana and her mother, I couldn't prevent them from seeing me in my entire splendid children's outfit. Jana's mother, who had by now also become somewhat familiar with me, had the surprise of my changed appearance clearly written on her face. She stared at me and my outfit in disbelief, almost as if she couldn't believe what she was seeing, and as if that wasn't embarrassing enough, Jana noticed something about my outfit that her mother probably wouldn't have picked up on. "Mom, Emily's T-shirt looks just like the one Grandma gave me for my birthday." Jana's mother scrutinized me and my T-shirt even more intently than before. "You're right, I think they're actually the same," she admitted, appearing even more baffled by her observation than she had been before.

My face burned with embarrassment. I didn't even want to imagine how Jana's mother would react if she found out that underneath my child-like leggings, I was wearing something even more infantile. As if she could read my thoughts, her gaze shifted towards my crotch at that very moment. I couldn't help myself. Stealthily, and painfully aware not to let Jana's mother notice my panicked look, I glanced down at myself to ensure that what I wore around my hips wasn't visible through my leggings.

Admittedly, if you looked closely, you could tell that I was wearing something under my leggings, but there was no way anyone could guess it was a pull-up. A slightly thicker pair of underwear or a pad would probably create similar shapes beneath my clothes. It seemed that Jana's mother came to a similar conclusion, as her puzzled expression regarding my outfit didn't intensify. However, it didn't change the fact that, after her reaction, I had an urgent desire to get back in the car so that I wouldn't have to face anyone else in my outfit. Yet, the fear that the child's car seat lurking inside would be seen by Jana's mother if I opened the door again made me hesitate, leading me to join the others in the kindergarten instead of hiding from the world.