Monday Memories – Diapers

This week is my spring break and Cali is spending the week with us while Ray is traveling on business.  One of our goals this week is to prepare things for their new baby that is coming in June.  Cali and I have been discussing the ins and outs of diapering.  Literally.  When our kids were babies, we used cloth diapers – complete with pins and plastic pants – that we made from cotton flannel.  We potty-trained at 2 years of age back then.  In retrospect, I’m pretty sure it was out of desperation.  After two years of rinsing and wringing diapers in the toilet we were tired of diapering; and after so many repeated washings the diapers were pretty thin in some places, and it didn’t make sense or cents to make more.  The solution was to potty train the toddler.  It worked.

One afternoon I had just sat down on the living room carpet to fold a clean batch of diapers still warm from the dryer.  Cali was just two or three years old and was playing by me while I folded.  She put a diaper over her head and pretended she was getting married.  I didn’t have any wedding pictures of Calvin and me displayed and I wondered how in the world she knew that brides wear veils.  After a bit she said, “I saw you when you and Dad got married.  You were right there (pointing to a spot on the ground), and Dad was right here (pointing to a spot across from my spot).  I was in heaven and I saw you.”  I just quietly listened and kept folding.  Later, when Calvin came home for supper, I tried to get her to repeat the story.  She looked at me like I was stupid and had never heard such a story.  She may have forgotten it, but I haven’t.   For one day, I was glad to fold and have cloth diapers.      

Cali has shown me pictures of the cloth diapers today.  Whoa.  They are deluxe.  Whereas the picture above is Cali in a cotton flannel diaper, plastic pants, and a plastic-lined denim romper (pretty hard to get too much plastic between you and a baby’s bottom I say), the cloth diapers today look just about like it – but they’re all one piece.  

Some things with babies have changed, doctors warned us against putting them on their backs to sleep, but there are some things . . . like needing a good diaper and kids teaching you more than you teach them. . . that never change.