can't get used to safety latches on all the cabinet doors. Kitchen drawers are full of his toys and coloring books. All the kitchen stuff that used to be in the drawers is in his play pen. Dinosaurs in the pantry. The blankie in the freezer. Fog scribbles on the windows. Fresh dents in the woodwork. A mystery stain on the new sofa. I tell you, it's drivin' me nuts."
"Well, it could be worse," I comforted. "You could be homeless. You could have a kid with a disease."
"I don't CARE!" he shouted. "My friends are all going to basketball games, football games, the opera, the theater, the Sybaris. I'm trying to find a scalper who'll sell me tickets to The Bozo Show."
"Okay, then, what if Angie decided she wanted a dog? Hey, how about another kid?" My large friend paled at the thought. "Besides, WHO bought Derek ELEVEN vehicles?” He acknowledged his guilt with a grudging nod. "Who found that black and chrome BMX trike and bought fluorescent streamers for the handle bars?" He looked up at me sheepishly then, a little embarrassed, and smiled at the thought. "Who gave the kid a full-size tournament grade blue and white soccer ball when he was born? The ball was bigger than the baby." He smiled again and pointed to himself.
"Come on, you mope, let's finish this discussion at Goober's. Maybe we can catch the last half of the game on the big-screen TV... I'll bet we don't see ANY two year-olds there.
"Great idea!" he said, brightening immediately.
I dug into my gym bag for the car keys and stopped suddenly. Turning to Big Chuck, I said, "Before we go, you might need these." Somewhere from beneath the sneakers and the socks, I pulled out a handful of cheerios. "Here. I find these in my bag all the time. They get in the shoes and the fingers of the racquetball glove, but I eat 'em anyway. It's a gift from my kid who doesn't want me to go hungry when I'm not at home. You can think of it as a post-workout snack."
"I hear yuh," he said, slapping me on the back with that hammy hand of his. "Let's go be adults for an hour." And we walked out into the clear, bracing night, renewed in our maturity, munching on Cheerios.
Mein Dipe
Two years ago, when the large cloth diaper my son was carrying around as his security blanket began to wear out on the edges, we called the diaper service and ordered ten used diapers for backup. If, we reasoned, he is going to be attached to these things, we should have plenty around. Because, if the one he loves wears out, he will be heartbroken, his life will be scarred forever, and he won't let us forget it.
The new diapers arrived and were immediately laundered three times to make them as soft as the original. They were already about the same size as the original. The final test was to put one of them on William's pillow and cover it with the bed spread. At bedtime, because William always asks "Where is my special dipe?" we could tell him with great authority that it is on his pillow. He ran to his bed, pulled down the covers, grabbed the diaper, sniffed it and in an instant, threw it over his shoulder and shouted, "Where is my SPECIAL dipe?"
From that day on, we have watched the one true diaper shrink thread by thread and grow thin as a gossamer veil. Every tear makes it more ratty. When it broke into two pieces, we had to keep track of both of them or he could not go to sleep at night. Then it was three pieces. Now it is little bits that fall off here and there and elicit mournful wails of "Mommy fix it, mommy sew it back. Pleeeeeeeease!" But they are too small to repair and discretely end up in the trash.
The day is coming with the special dipe will simply shrink to dust... but if it is gradual enough, if we can buy time,
if we can let him grow up just a little bit more... maybe 'til kindergarten... it'll be close... just maybe he'll outgrow it.
It all started the day he came home from the hospital. We had contracted for a diaper service to drop off a bundle of thick cotton pre-folded diapers each week, and carry off the baby's output. The service had come a long way since the days of plastic pants and, because we are people concerned with the environment and the waste stream, we thought we would give it a try. The initial batch was bundle of 96. Some of them ended upon the baby, but many were used on the shoulder as burp cloths.
We gave up on the diaper service after about six months, but kept the stack of diapers, so William grew up nuzzling his face into the shoulder of mom or dad, cushioned by a thick, cotton diaper that smelled fresh with a unique scent that mingled mom, dad, the sitter and the dipe itself. We hardly noticed when he began carrying them around, but we would find them all over the house, under cushions, stuffed under the covers and wedged between the mattress and the headboard of his crib. There were so many then that we didn't worry about running out of them.
Two of the first words out of his mouth were "Mein Dipe." My son speaks German? A dipe went everywhere... in the car seat, in my back pocket on the bicycle (so he could get to it from his bike seat), and in the stroller. Dipes traveled with us all over the country as we visited family in California, Florida and Missouri. Dipes ended up in the garage as polishing cloths for the car.
Eventually, they became fewer and fewer. One was lost at the grocery store. Another fell out of my pocket on a bike ride. Others just disappeared. Thus, an edict went through the land that no dipes would leave the house. Yet, they still disappeared. Eventually we were down to three. Then two. Then one. Then the one began to fall apart.
Modern childhood folklore is full of legends about blankies that get dragged around until the child goes to college, a raggedy rabbit with whiskers long gone lives a life of comfort in a doll bed, a pillow enters retirement worn out and stained after long years of service as a constant companion. Maybe it's an instinct left over from pre-historic mankind when the young clung to their moms as the ultimate security. Chimpanzees still cling to their mothers. A puppy needs his nesting cloth. The parakeet snuggles up to its bell at night. It must be a trait of being alive to seek safe companionship somewhere among the survival of the fittest.
So now we wait. Will the dipe last until William doesn't need a security blanket anymore? Will we be successful substituting other things like stuffed animals, real animals, or books, cars or cash in its place? We can only try and will simply have to... wait it out.
In the meantime, at bedtime, William still gathers the bits of the diaper that are left, and lovingly lays them flat on his pillow so that, as he is listening to mom read stories, the warm, soft, wonderful smelling dipe brings back memories of being cradled safely in the arms of mom and dad and gently rocked to sleep.
No Diet Works like the BRAT Diet
“Ahem. Doctor, I hate to call you with this so early in the morning,” the young mother said. “But little Ferdinand has had diarrhea for three days and nothing I do seems to change it. Do you have any suggestions?”
“This is not an inconvenience, but let me ask you a few questions. Does the child have a fever?”
“No.”
“What color is the child’s stewel?”
“Kind of mauvy taupey tangerine.”
“Has the child been French-kissing the dog?”
“No. We don’t have a dog.”
“Then,” the doctor said, “I can find there is no external condition causing the problem. It must be the child’s diet.”
“But I give him all the pizza he wants,” the astonished mother said.
“Yes, well, I want you to put little Ferdie on the BRAT diet for a week. That’s B-R-A-T, which stands for Bananas, Rice, Apples and Toast. Feed him nothing but those four foods and the diarrhea will clear up in less than a week.”
“Oh, Doctor, are you sure?”
“It works every time. Give me a call in four days if there’s no change.”
The relieved mother replaced the phone in its cradle and quickly grabbed a pencil to write down the doctor’s diet. “Let’s see,” she murmured. “This shouldn’t be too hard to remember B-R-A-T, that’s Ferdie for sure. Bran flakes, Rice And Toast. That’s it… or was it Raisins and Tea… no, the A, there was something he said that began with A.. what was it? Artichokes? Applesauce? Avocado? Shoot, let’s start from the
beginning. Bacon, Rutabaga and Artificial Turf. This is ridiculous. I’ll just wait awhile. It’ll come to me.”
The next day the young mother called her neighbor. “Hey, Marge, have you ever heart of a BART diet to take care of the poops?”
“No. What’s the BART diet?”
“It’s four foods that are supposed to stop up little Ferdie so he doesn’t have such runny poops. I thought if you’da heard of it, you could let me know what the four foods are. It’s something like Broccoli, Asparagus, Ragu and Treacle.”
“Sounds like the BARF diet to me,” Marge chuckled. “Make that last one Fries and you’ll have it.”
“You know, Marge, Ferdie’s never gonna eat any of this stuff. What’m I gonna do?”
“Knock off the pizza?”
Three days later, the young mother checked in with the pediatrician. “Doctor, I want you to know that the diet you suggested seems to have worked. Ferdie’s diapers are thankfully full of rabbit pellets now. Must have been the spiced apple rings.”
“Apple rings?”
“Yeah, I kinda forgot what the diet was all about so I started cleaning out the fridge, putting stuff in front of Ferdie to see what he’d eat. I found a half-gone jar of spiced apple rings, you know, the red ones that make your teeth pink? I also found some banana chips left over from Halloween. Now who do you suppose gave bags of banana chips to kids on