1.31.06: The Lone (Diaper-)Changer ‹ Blog

Grown-ups never understand anything for themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them.
The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)

The Lone (Diaper-)Changer

January 31, 2006

Eighteen days since my last entry, and it’s now official: I am the only person in America who has not seen Brokeback Mountain. (My husband claims not to have seen it, either, but I think he’s just lying to make me feel better.) Don’t get me wrong, I craves me some cattle-trail lovin’; I’m just too miserly to shell out the extra bucks to see it on the big screen, and will instead be waiting for it to hit my Netflix queue. Slashy but cheap: the motto of me.

(Speaking of cravings and trails, I hear that it is also now official that the Donner family—of Donner Party fame—did not eat one another on that infamous 19th-century trek through the mountains. This is just that particular family, mind you; as far as I know, everyone else was all Pass me the Bob, and gimme a piece of the Wilma, wouldja? Ah, cannibalism—just as taboo as cowboy sex, but not as likely to make audiences weep softly into their hot buttered popcorn.)

There’s really no graceful segue from cannibalism and gay cowboys to my mundane daily life—unless, of course, I did a cowgirl and then ate her, which I shouldn’t even hint at because I spent yesterday babysitting my niece, and my sister-in-law is probably going to read this and think we had a Cowboy Cook-Out on their balcony. (Don’t worry, Allison, we made sure the Smallest In-Law was wearing a bib.)

The babysitting was actually a milestone for me, both because it was the first time I’d babysat for anyone and because it was the longest amount of time I’d ever spent in the company of a Small Person. As it turns out, my fear of Small People was entirely unfounded—they are enjoyable, entertaining companions, and not at all hard to handle. In the five hours my husband and I spent watching the kid, my latent maternal instincts were awakened full-force, and I realized the matchless joy that can only come from observing and nurturing a child’s pure soul.

I kid, of course. Those were the longest five hours of my life. Not that there was anything wrong with the SIL—aside from the usual obsessive-compulsive tendencies common to her age group, she was quite the amusing host, and ran the whole show with the skill of a circus ringmaster. She’s going through an anti-nap stage, which meant that we had to manhandle her into her crib and then sit through a half-hour of window-shattering shrieks before she finally dropped off to sleep. (Two hours later, of course, she woke up all giggles and smiles. Go figure.) We had to muddle our way through a diaper change as well, which went horribly wrong—why the hell aren’t diapers marked “front” and “back?” For that matter, why aren’t kids marked “front” and “back?”

My husband, thank goodness, is much better with Small People than I am—maybe a little too good. Separately, my husband and the kid are both fairly well-behaved; together, it’s like a drunken frat riot after a football game. If I hadn’t been there to keep an eye on them, I’m sure they would have gone out to the road and started overturning cars. Tony gets to be a bit much even for SIL; at several points during the day, she paused in their raucous activities to stare at Tony with a bemused little grin on her face, then shake her head indulgently at him and say “That Cony!” in the most hilariously adult tone of voice.

I’d write more, but the only thing worse than a my-cute-baby blog is a my-cute-niece blog. But it’s good to get some of these stories on record—that way, when the SIL is not so small, we can point her boyfriends to this page and tell them about the time she wore a backwards diaper. That oughta keep her home on Saturday nights.