My Son Peed in the Heater Vent

I remember as a kid hating bed time. You always felt like you were going to miss out on something. There was this constant draw to be involved in whatever my parents are doing. My kids have seemed to inherit this same behavior. They always want to see what we're watching on TV or what we're eating when they are supposed to be in bed. It's a constant struggle and my wife and I have tried a myriad of solutions to get the kids to stay in their rooms. Even to go as far as turning the locks around on their doors. We'd unlock the door when my wife and I went to bed. This kind of worked but we had it backfire on us recently. 

My kids learned quickly that if they said they had to go to the bathroom we'd open the door and let them out. Depending on what we were doing at the time we'd either be too lazy to lock them in their room again or just didn't care. This made the kids constantly try to use the excuse that they had to go to the bathroom at bed time. My six year old son is the worst. We decided to call his bluff and tell him he just had to hold it. Then one night he asked "is it ok to pee in the trash can?" I yelled no and you better not have done that. The response was "uuuuuuh, ok." I burst into the room. You better not have peed in here I said. I started moving things around looking for signs. My son was adamant he didn't do anything. A couple days went by and an odor started to pervade out of his room. I asked again if he peed in his room and he denied doing anything. Another day went by and the smell was so bad at this point I knew there had to be urine somewhere. My son was sleeping and I came in with gloves on and a bowl with some concoction I googled to handle urine stains. I moved things around and then grabbed a trash can. I didn't even know my son had a trash can in his room. The can had some weight to it. Too much to just be trash. I feared what I was going to find inside but I was happy to see there was at least a liner in there. As I tilted the can I noticed the weight shift and could see liquid. I took the can into the bathroom and proceeded to dump at least a half gallon of urine into the toilet. This obviously wasn't a one time thing. I checked the spot again where the trash can was and luckily none of the urine had penetrated through the can. I was happy that one my son seemed to have good aim and two at least there was a liner in the can. I still put the concoction I made on the floor just in case some did get on the carpet. The next morning I confronted my son about the pee I found. He admitted he had peed in the trash can a few times. I explained why that isn't right, the reason we have bathrooms, how it can ruin the carpet, and it's not great for your health to sleep in the same room as pee. He seemed to understand and I figured that was that. 

Things were fine for about a week. Then one day he was having a fit and he was sent to his room with the door closed. He was in there for about a minute or two when he yelled out "I peed." I ran in there and said you better not have! He wasn't wearing underwear so I was fearing the worst. He probably had already gone some where. I started looking around and noticed the heater vent was closed. It's funny when you're a parent you go from furious to terrified in a matter of seconds. Did he seriously pee in the heater vent? I open the vent and noticed a paper in there which annoyed me already, why is he opening the vent and putting stuff down there? That thought was soon distinguished by the sight of the paper being wet. Then I did what parents always do. We like to ask our kids a question we already know the answer to. I guess we're hoping our kids will admit guilt or tell us something that will make us not want to smack them. I'm not sure why we do this but we almost always do. I asked my son if he peed in the vent knowing for certain that he did. He scooted away quickly as he could see by my body language I wasn't happy. He admitted he did and I lost it. I wanted to spank him but I was more preoccupied with cleaning the vent. I cleaned the vent and ranted at the same time. Yelling about how he's six years old and shouldn't be peeing in his room. About how it's not healthy and if he can't get his act together he might need to just go back to diapers or live in the bathroom. Really irrational thoughts but it's what parents say when their upset. I went out and rambled to my wife about my son needing therapy and talking about how he as problems. Then eventually hours later I was able to calm down and reflect on the whole ordeal. 

My wife recently broke her femur which has had her laid up for at the last few months. To say the dynamic has changed in my house since then would be a huge understatement. I went from being the lazy dad and husband to also the mom. I'm not a great mom like my wife. More like a lazy mom who knows what she should be doing but is kind of exhausted and doesn't quite have the energy. I know this change has taken a toll on my kids. I'll be honest, I'm not super dad when it comes to giving the kids attention. It got a lot worse when the responsibilities around the house increased. I would be lying if I didn't notice recently that my kids requests to play with them are often answered with can't you see I'm doing something? My son has probably taken everything the hardest. I'm no psychologist but I do think his behavior at times is getting to the stage where he might think some attention is better than no attention. Even if it's negative. I need to curb that quickly and that's my goal for right now. My wife is getting better all the time and closer to getting back on her feet. I'm hoping things will be back to normal soon although I kind of forget what normal even was. 

I had a heart to heart with my son and hopefully the pee episodes will have ended.