So, today I changed my baby's diaper. I've changed it before, so it's not like a big "Oh, he finally helped out with the baby!" kind of thing. Of course, Shaundale, my wife, changes Watson more than I do. Yes, we named him after Sherlock Holmes' friend and confident. The name grows on you after a while.
In any case, I change Watson's diaper from time to time and I've found that when I do, I seem to have the same thought run through my head. As I unsnap the bottom of his sleeper, then unsnap the snaps on his onesy, suddenly I feel like I'm in a timed competition. I rip his diaper off him like it's on fire, whip the clean diaper underneath him and slap the velcro stips across the front. I snap the onsey back in place like his and my lives depend on it being done before the next tick of the clock. Now I'm cramming his legs back into his sleeper like a person making sausage, and snapping the snaps back in place - sometimes snapping a leg snap to a crotch snap, correcting myself and muttering to myself about this unexcusable loss of time, thinking he'd be fine snapped together in a tangle, and only correcting my mistake because my score won't count if he's not put back together correctly. Finally, the last snap is snapped into it's correct place and I raise my hand like a calf roper who has just trussed a baby cow in record time.
I have yet to actually time myself, so I don't know if I'm breaking any old records from day-to-day, but it doesn't stop me from looking at changing a diaper as a rodeo event. And at the end of each change I feel as if I have just had numbers posted on a huge digital board above some stall in a stadium. "And the winner is, Watson's Dad!!!"
In any case, I change Watson's diaper from time to time and I've found that when I do, I seem to have the same thought run through my head. As I unsnap the bottom of his sleeper, then unsnap the snaps on his onesy, suddenly I feel like I'm in a timed competition. I rip his diaper off him like it's on fire, whip the clean diaper underneath him and slap the velcro stips across the front. I snap the onsey back in place like his and my lives depend on it being done before the next tick of the clock. Now I'm cramming his legs back into his sleeper like a person making sausage, and snapping the snaps back in place - sometimes snapping a leg snap to a crotch snap, correcting myself and muttering to myself about this unexcusable loss of time, thinking he'd be fine snapped together in a tangle, and only correcting my mistake because my score won't count if he's not put back together correctly. Finally, the last snap is snapped into it's correct place and I raise my hand like a calf roper who has just trussed a baby cow in record time.
I have yet to actually time myself, so I don't know if I'm breaking any old records from day-to-day, but it doesn't stop me from looking at changing a diaper as a rodeo event. And at the end of each change I feel as if I have just had numbers posted on a huge digital board above some stall in a stadium. "And the winner is, Watson's Dad!!!"