"Half-Broken" By OzyMan, formally known as ArthurMouse
Warning: This story contains anthropomorphic animals, diapers, diaper changes, and diaper soiling. Viewer discretion is advised.
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"You'll have to forgive her; she's still just a baby."
This was the explanation my mother had to give to our guest at the airport for my poor behavior. It might have been the first time I experienced public embarrassment.
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From the day of my adoption, it felt like my step-parents, Martha and Brent Leinart, and I were filling in some significant gaps in each other's lives. My mother, the eagle, and my father, the polar bear, took care of me as if I were one of their own. My name is Leona (my previous last name being suspect at best), gave them the joy of having me as their red-headed arctic fox daughter, and they provided the love and personal attention I couldn't get from the orphanage.
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The day in question was a Thursday morning. I was three and a half years old at the time.
My dad, in a t-shirt and jogging pants, was dozing in and out of consciousness on the couch – a big, fluffy white ball of fur inflating and deflating. I was in front of the TV, wearing my red-plaid pajamas, my hair untied and all over the place, lying on my stomach, relaxing.
Since my father worked nights and my mother worked days, my dad had to balance sleeping and watching me during the mornings. After making sure I was fed, he always put me in front of the TV and let me watch whatever I wanted (though parental locks were on, so I couldn't watch anything naughty even if I tried).
Or that's how it would have normally gone.
On that day, my dad got a call on his cell phone. I immediately remember the look on his face, a face of tired surprise.
“Oh. Oh, hi, hun.” He then started to have this panicked look on his face.
“...”
“Oh… yeah. Of course. Meet you outside in about…50 minutes or so.”
After he hung up, he facepalmed and let out a sigh of frustration. Then, he suddenly looked at me and started pointing.
“Leo, bathroom, now!”
I remember being stunned at the moment since his voice had an extreme sense of urgency and loudness that wasn't normal for him. By the time I got hold of my sense. An even louder, “Go now!” , came out.
I remembered trying to move in any direction, hoping not to incur his newfound wrath. I then ran into a problem, or rather two problems: my two left feet. I found a way to make the fall even more awkward when my pajama bottoms fell to the bottom of my ankles (I got snagged by a wooden chest sitting next to the TV). My dad rushed over to me, hoping I wasn't hurt, but when I popped back up and just looked at him with a look of annoyance and very mild pain, he let out a little nervous chuckle.
I guess I would too if I just saw a small child faceplant and depants herself at the same time. My puffy behind sticking up probably made it even funnier.
“Well, you're at least halfway to see what we need to do.”
Having no faith in my abilities, he put me under his fluffy arm and carried me to the bathroom. He placed me in front of our tub and quickly ran out as fast as he came in. I remembered the weird feeling of just waiting there with my pajama tops and just a diaper. Even though I was wearing something, I still felt naked. Not before long, my dad came back quickly with a dark blue skirt and a white polo shirt.
“Okay, kid, we gotta get you cleaned up for your mother.”
With that, I knew to assume the position. I immediately put my two paws on the edge of the tub and straddled my legs a bit.
“You didn't poop, did you?”
I nodded no.
“You're a gift that keeps on giving.”
He gave me a small kiss on my forehead.
With that, he started. He leaned over my shoulder for most of the process. He unfastened all the tapes of my then slightly damp diaper with one hand and caught and threw it into the special trashcan my parents had for the occasion, with the other. He then wiped me down with wipes, making sure I was clean.
The coldness got me every time.
He had done it a million times, but this time, he was putting me into an overnight diaper around my behind. They were a little thicker and just white all over. He made sure the padding on my front and back were and secure, fastened.
“Alright, Leo, you can handle the rest.”
He ran out of the bathroom and left me to put on the rest of my clothes.
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Like most of the kids my age, I wasn’t completely parent-dependent for the most part. I could feed myself, get dressed (with supervision so I don’t leave the house looking ridiculous), and tell my parents my general needs. But one of my last hurdles my self-functioning was not being housebroken, not completely at least. In my case, I was called half-broken.
Being half-broken sounds like what you'd expect it to be. I knew why places had bathrooms. I even used it on an irregular basis. I knew when I had to go. That was the half-fixed portion. The half-broken part came from the fact that, too many times I found out I needed the bathroom, and it was too late.
Like any child, nighttime dryness escaped me. Being a deep sleeper made things bad and night terrors made it even worse.
I know my parents were letting it slide for then, figuring that I needed some more personal attention than the average child. But even back then, we both knew that in the long run, it was something I needed to break myself of. It was just a matter of when.
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My dad came back to check on my handiwork.
“Let's fix your collar and... we're done. Good work. Now, let's do something with your hair.”
My dad, while no hairstylist, could at least brush my hair without my absolute objection and could style my hair into a nice ponytail with a nice blue tie. My parents were really into my red hair.
My dad's cell phone goes off again. He doesn't bother to answer it. He rolled some luggage out of his room.
“Alright kit, are we ready for our trip?”
I wasn’t, we were going on an airplane to St. Paul, Minnesota. All of it was foreign and scary to me. But I loved to appease my dad and give him an excited “Yes, Dad!”
“Perfect, go meet your mother, I’ll be right behind ya.”
He opened the front door and I ran out the front door to meet my mother who was already waiting on the outside of her black luxury sedan.
“Hey there, Leo.”
My mother, with her talons, had this technique where she could firmly pick me up, give a small kiss to my head, and still somehow tickle my stomach with her thumbs.
“Did you behave for your father?” as she opened the door and started placing me into my car seat.
“Yesss.”
After seeing I was in my car seat, her attention turned to my father, who was dragging luggage down the stairs.
“Were you sleeping when I called?”
“Uh, of course not.”
“Real-ly?!”
Instantaneously, she looked at me.
“Leona, was your...”
“OK. I was sleeping, I was tired. Don't turn the kid into a snitch. You know what they say about snitches.”
“They get lighter sentences and go home for Christmas.”
This was one of the many nitpicky arguments my parents got into. I've come to find out this was how they showed their affection to each other. I never asked, but I'm pretty sure they were the kids who teased and bullied each other to show that they secretly liked each other.
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So, we're in the car for about 20 minutes. It was during our drive my dad (who I'm pretty sure had told me 100 times by then) told me we were taking a plane from our home in Seattle to Minneapolis to visit my mother's old friend in St. Paul. The fear of not knowing how all this worked was already making me uneasy. That was nothing compared to seeing all the people.
As we came from the parking lot and into the terminal, I immediately felt overwhelmed. I hadn't seen that many people in one place. It was easily the largest and most diverse group of people I'd ever seen in one place. The fast movements and the noise levels were some of the most overly stimulating moments I had ever experienced up to then.
“Come up here, kit-doe.”
My mother decided then to pick me up and place me on top of her shoulders, making sure to grab my legs so I didn't slip off. This gave me a better view of my surroundings and kept the show moving. From this up-high view, I went from being completely scared-stiff to mild nervousness.
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Once we had gotten through security, my mom took me off her shoulders and into her arms as we kept walking.
“Leona, your father and I need a favor.”
“A favor?”, tilting my head in confusion.
“Yeah, you know what a favor is, right?”
“When you do something nice for someone.”
“Good girl. So here it is. I need you not to push. “
...”
My ears flicked in slightly in shock. I didn't know what to make of the request. Pushing was our term for pooping. I knew this day was coming, but here of all places?!
“Now, come on Leo. You and I both know you have some control over that particular function.”
Seeing that I was stressed from this newly placed responsibility, she took my paw into her talon.
“Just for a couple of hours. When we get off the plane, you may push and push till you sprain something.”
She immediately knew that was a poor choice of words since I didn't know what a sprain was.
“So please, no pushing till then. I'll make you a deal, if you don't push on the plane, I'll... I'll get you some ice cream once we land.”
“With sprinkles and hot fudge?”
“Of course.”
“Great. Now, one last thing.”
This was my dad's portion of the program. My dad reached inside one of the bags and broke out a water bottle and a gel cap.
“Take this…this will help you relax.”
Not even questioning it, I took it and drank the water, seeing no harm in it. There was harm in it. For adults, they would have been perfectly okay, but for a toddler, it might as well have been hard liquor.
My memory of this is almost blank. But I was told about 10 minutes later, that my behavior was as the most adorable-looking drunk they had ever seen. Stumbling and blabbering about nothing, which would have been normal for me, but it was even more abnormal than usual, I remembered getting grabbed up by my dad.
Then nothing.
Then I found myself being fastened into a seat of the plane. Putting my head into my dad's lap and then… a long-nothing.
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The first few minutes of regaining consciousness on the plane were one of mild discomfort. My ears felt, off. I found myself, now stretched out in my dad's lap. Despite the incredibly invasive nature of his private space, he greeted my presence back to the world of the awake by playing with my ears with the tips of his fingers.
I also quickly found I had been holding on to a massive amount of pee. I had started to leak out a bit before waking up, but once I was fully awake, I made like a river with a hard downfall. It was one of the few times I could feel my diaper inflating and imagine the noise it made. My mother, then reading a newspaper, took notice of the euphoric look on my face.
“Having a good time I see?”
We exchanged smiles.
“Come over here, kit.”
I extended my arms to her, and she took me in her lap. While holding me up with her left hand, she used three talons on her right hand to stretch the back of my diaper, trying to make sure I was keeping my part of the ice cream bargain.
“Alright Leo, you're swimming a little bit, but you're not in any mud. So good job.”
My dad took me back, placed me into my seat proper, and asked about my ears.
“Hey, how’s your ears?”
“I … I can’t hear good.”
I was caught off guard by the loudness of my voice, prompting my dad to cover my mouth. Amused by the situation, he proceeded to teach me how to pop my ears for the first time, finding it more entertaining than I did.
He gave me a stick of gum and I started to gaze out of the window. I realized that the plane trip wasn't as bad as I had anticipated. But then, as I got settled into my seat, a sudden discomfort in my stomach made a gurgling noise. Panicly, I came up with the idea that listening to some music would help, and after asking my dad, he handed me an MP3 player with headphones. Listening to classical music, I thought I had created a mental escape from that physical sensation.
And it worked... For a bit.
The captain announced our imminent landing in Minneapolis, and my father removed the headphones, and told me we were about to land. My confidence in thinking I had this thing beat was met with a jolt of turbulence.
Hanging onto my dad's paw, I weathered the rollercoaster-like couple of seconds while doing my best to hold onto a brave face.
Upon landing, relief washed over me. We got off the plane, and we met my mom's friend outside the gate. While they were all engaged in small talk, we all headed to the baggage claim, but I knew the day of reckoning was quickly upon me.
While we were waiting for an indoor cart to pass, I suddenly got into a squatting position and got started. All it took was one slight push and I instantly produced a long “blart” sound and splashed 2 indivulized bricks into the back of my diaper so big and hard I felt it change shape. The relief was tear-inducing. But relief was quickly replaced with shame when my mom’s friend suddenly exclaimed she smelt something foul in the air and the whole group suddenly looked at me, positioned in the most obvious guilty position possible. And then my mom said something that still stuck with me even still to this day.
"You'll have to forgive her, she's still just a baby."
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My mom, despite having to clean that huge mess I just made, demeanor was still caring and understanding.
But seeing I was still shaken up from the situation, she tried assuring me that everything was going to be okay and it was no big deal. But she also told me this.
“You know kit, once you learn to use the restroom regularly, we won't have to do this anymore.”
And that shook me a bit, as it made me realize how much of an inconvenience I was being and made me think it was time to stop being that for them.
For the rest of the trip and as a pleasant surprise to my parents, I started asking to use the bathroom, every time. I am sure I got annoying at first, even I could tell it was more than a small relief for them I was suddenly making rapid progress in this area.
When we got home, they taught me me how to put on my diaper (disposable training pants weren’t a thing and despite my then best efforts, accidents still happened), buying a plastic stool so that I could reach the toilet at our house, it slowly became a cakewalk from there.
After about two months of doing all that, we reached the natural conclusion of my dad saying one day, “Well if you don't need them anymore, you don't have to wear them. You can try wearing these.” My dad handed me a pair of panties and showed me where he had placed the rest. I disposed of my diaper, put the panties on, and I was on my way to the next stage of childhood.
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This should have been it for most children, but for me, it wasn't. For 2 years afterward (and still to this day), I kept thinking about diapers. I didn't think about being a baby, just using them. The airport incident playing back in my mind, over and over again on a loop.
I started to wonder if I was the only one who felt this way and sought out the only people's approval (outside my parents) I wanted, my classmates. But they made their opinion known that diapers were for dumb babies and using them made you one. So I dropped the issue quickly and pretended to agree.
That pretending didn't stop me from feeling the opposite, but I had no way of even entertaining that idea. What was I going to do then, steal them or start doing things that would convince my parents that I needed them again?
But they were the whole reason I tried to stop all of this in the 1st place.
For someone like me, being fixed, didn't mean you weren’t still a bit half-broken.
Oh, I got my ice cream. Mom never broke her promises.
