Flashback Friday: The last time I peed my pants was...

I was 9 the last time I peed my pants. I don't think we need mention all the times I almost peed my pants when I was pregnant with Rachel. Or how many times I almost peed my pants from laughing too hard at all those sleepovers in Russia. I don't know why I'm thinking about peeing my pants.

Actually I do know why. It's because of Rachel, who actually did pretty well today. Except for like a half hour before bedtime.

"Wow, Rachel!" I told her, "You did such a good job today! You stayed dry all during church! You stayed dry while Jessica and Becca babysat you! You stayed dry all day! What a good girl!"

Five minutes later she peed her pants. But not all the way. Just some.

She told me, while pee was gushing down her legs, that she had to go to the bathroom. I was like, "You don't say!"

So we went and sat on the potty and she finished up there, which was fine. Accidents happen.

Then I got her ready for bed and soon after noticed this stench following her little person around everywhere. So I'm also following her around, sniffing her bum and thinking, "There's no way! She's potty trained!"

But, yes, there was a way. She had pooped her pants. Just 10 minutes after getting off the potty and putting on her nighttime diaper. Argh! But I guess, since the last time I peed my pants was only 13 or 14 years ago, I can't really blame her. Potty training is hard!

I peed my pants on an early summer day of 1994. We were living, at the time, in Calgary, Alberta in a lovely community called Deer Run.* It was called Deer Run because every street in the neighbourhood had something to do with deer. We were fortunate enough to live on Deerpath Road, others lived on Deersaxon, Deermeade, Deer Lane, Deercroft, Deercross, Deer Ridge, Deer Side, Deer View, or Deer Park (among other "deer" names). These names were repeated several times on either lanes, ways, circles, crescents, closes or roads. If you didn't get lost at least once in my neighbourhood, you weren't in the right one. I guess they just couldn't think of enough cute street names that started with deer and had to repeat them.

We always had to be sure to give our address exactly. No abbreviations.

Deer Path Road. Not, and I repeat, not Deer Path Court. Not Deer Lane. Or Deerfield. Deer Path. Oh, and it's a road. Not a Circle. Or a Cresent. Or a Way.

We lived in these yellow duplexes. All of our neighbours were...close by in that duplexy kind of way. I thought that was kind of cool because we moved there in the dead of winter--the most snow I've ever seen in my life--and I shoveled my neighbour's walks the first week we moved in and she gave me a whole loonie for it! And her walk was as wide as the shovel and only a few meters long.

The walkways were rather rickety, really, and prove just how cheap the duplexes were. They were made up of pre-set slabs of cement put down on the ground. So they were uneven...and gappy. Still, they were short and fairly easy to shovel and I got a whole looney out of it every time so who's complaining?

I don't think my parents enjoyed the move quite so much. I don't know...something about stuffing a houseful of stuff and 6 kids into a duplex with three tiny bedrooms. With the perspective I have now, I can see how the experience probably wasn't great for them. But I got to share the master bedroom (with some siblings), so who's complaining?

At any rate, I made some great friends there so the move wasn't all bad. I still keep in touch with a few of them today, but this story doesn't involve any of them. Instead in involves some girl who lived down at the end of our street whose name I can't recall. She was about my age and we'd play...occasionally...if Nadia couldn't play. It's not that I didn't like her. I did. It's just that Nadia and I were as thick as thieves. So this other girl was more of my "backup" friend.***

But I think that's okay because I think I was only her "backup" friend, too. If not I feel badly because she must have been terribly lonely all the times I wasn't available to play with her because I was over at Nadia's house.

I must have been extremely desperate for playmates this particular summer day; not only was I playing with my "backup" friend, but I had my little bother brother along with me as well. We were just heading out to the backyard again after coming in to have a drink of water. My friend started to close the sliding door...and then everything went into slow motion.

The door came off its track and started tilting towards us. We all looked at it in horror as it fell, coming closer and closer and closer.

Somehow we managed to run down the steps and made it to the safety of the lawn before it crashed down, right where we had been standing mere seconds before.

That, in and of itself, was terrifying. But then? Then her dad came storming outside and started yelling like a maniac. I was always a little afraid of her dad because he smoked and drank straight out of the milk jug, both things my dad didn't do--so it made her dad seem a little rough around the edges.

But the minute he started yelling I peed my pants. I have never, ever been yelled at like that ever before. He was calling names and swearing and cursing our future children for 10 generations. If I was terrified before, I was absolutely shell-shocked by this point.

I stood there, crying along with my friend, my eyes wide with fright, peeing my pants. And then I did the only thing I could think of to do. I grabbed my little kindergarten-aged brother's hand and hightailed it out of there, completely abandoning my friend.

I'm sure I was yanking Patrick's arm out of his socket trying to help him to keep up with me, while we were careening down the street. We did not stop until we were safe behind our door.

Not that that would have stopped my friend's dad from getting us if he had really wanted to. Because we had the same flimsy sliding door in the back. We're just lucky we didn't trip on our uneven sidewalk in all our rush!

My friend's dad later apologized for his display of passion, and although I did consent to play with his daughter a few times more before we moved to High River I never set foot in their house again.

But I learned a few things from this situation. Besides the fact that I never, ever want to yell at my children like that, I learned that I pee my pants when I'm really, really scared. Who knew?

When's the last time you peed your pants?

*In case you were wondering if we ever had deer in our yard, we did. A lot. And a lot of evidence** of deer as well. More evidence than deer, actually.

**Evidence = Deer droppings

***Not that I was a snob, per se. I don't purposefully have "backup" friends. It was just that I didn't feel very comfortable with her...family. I think this posts illustrates the reason I didn't really like playing with her. She? Was fine. Her dad? Not so much.