This weekend’s been a little bit rough, really, on getting things moving in the right direction.

We had been, for the most part, to the point that we could have the Monster in regular “big boy” underwear during the day.  He’s only occasionally had an accident – more often than not, he’s told us when he needs to go to the bathroom, or at least he’s signaled it by touching himself, and he’s made it through most of the last few months of school in a similar fashion.

So far this weekend, we’ve had two accidents, with a third at school during the week.

More disturbing is that the two accidents he’s had at home have both been poo, and he’s spent the entire way to the bathroom insisting that he didn’t need to go, even as we’re telling him that it’s obvious that he’s already gone.  Before the last few weeks, when he has had an accident, he’s at least been en route to the bathroom at the time, or has made a good effort to tell us that he needs to go.

If there were another issue – if he were sick or the like – and therefore it were beyond his control, I’d understand it… but again, he had been very good in the past about trying to tell us that there was a need or that he’d gone, and now there’s nothing again.

And it is frustrating, as we’re moving towards discussion of his placement for next year, to realize that something’s changed and he’s finding reasons not to go use the bathroom again.  We don’t want to have to move back to pull-ups full-time (he’s only in one right now because I didn’t have time to dig in the dryer for more pairs) since that’d really be a set-back in his development, but I can also imagine that very few teachers in first grade will want to deal with a child who can’t consistently use the bathroom when needed…

And that’s where we’re most concerned.  Even before today’s accidents, my wife was commenting to me that she’s concerned about what might happen if he’s having accidents at school, how that might affect his self-esteem if they’re trying to mainstream him and he’s having issues like that.  (Okay, yes, the issue of him undoing his toilet training is another issue for life-skills, but… at the moment, we’re most concerned about his being able to be in an environment for social skills development, which at his age means school.)

Maybe it’ll be better tomorrow when he returns to school.  I’m hoping.