The Great Diaper Caper

The year was 1991, and, having successfully completed my late wife's diaper changing training program, I volunteered to venture upstairs, one evening, to change DJ's diaper.  YES, by myself for the first time.  As a point of context, DJ (Daniel Jay) was the younger of two boys that Brenda was taking care of at the time, and this particular "caper" occurred probably seven to eight months before Brenda and I were married.

So...I enter DJ's room and, just as I'd done many times over the previous few weeks, set about the task of changing his diaper.

As I lay him down on the changing table and begin to remove a diaper that had long since outlived (by about ten minutes) its useful life, DJ stops crying and begins to chatter away happily, as he always did.  For those of you who do not know this little boy (Well...at THAT time, he was little; he's now a senior at the University of Virginia.), DJ was an extremely intelligent little boy and, at a very young age, was able to speak in full sentences.  So, while DJ is chattering on, I try, very diligently, mind you, to do a "good job" at the task at hand.  After all, if I were ever to have children of my own, I wanted, at least in this arena, to be a pro before they arrived on the scene.

Removing said diaper and then disposing of it in the quite nifty little swivel/foot operated trash can, I go about the process of cleaning my little friend's bum.  All the while, DJ's just chattering on and on, and I'm “responding” back with stuff like, "Oh really?...Wow, DJ!...That's just great!" and other such nonsense.  For, had I been paying attention to what the little tyke was actually SAYING, I would have realized that I was one chattering on nonsensically and that DJ was, in fact, the true brains of the operation.  (As I'm writing this, I'm picturing Brenda those many years ago just laughing hysterically downstairs as she's listening to all of this over the baby monitor.)  Yeah...and then a light bulb in my mind flipped on, and it dawned on me that maybe...just maybe...DJ was really trying to tell me something...

"Banging my head, David.  Banging my head..."

What was that?

"Banging my head, David.  Banging my head..."

And then I saw it just as it hit me:  "Oh my gosh!  I'm so sorry, DJ!"

So here's the deal...In my desire to get DJ cleaned-up, I'd been trying to get as much leverage as a I could and had, inadvertently, wedged his little head up against the railing that surrounds the top of the changing table.  In a sense, I really was "banging his head" as he called it.  Quickly stopping what I'd been doing, I repositioned DJ on the changing table so that any and all head banging would be forever halted.  Now, had it been you, I'm sure that you would have paid extra close attention to DJ while you continued to get him cleaned up...being the smart and godly people that you are.  But me?  Nope.  I fell right back into "completing the task at hand" screen saver mode and pressed ever onward.

"Knee in my eye, David.  Knee in my eye..."

"Yeah, DJ...that's nice..."  (Spoken while not really listening and yet working feverishly to achieve a spotless bum.)

"Knee in my eye, David.  Knee in my eye..."

What was that?

"Knee in my eye, David.  Knee in my eye..."

At this point, the aforementioned light bulb exploded in my head as I realized that, once again, I was hurting my little friend and that my attention span had jumped to, yes, new heights of interstellar brain power as I began to experience the high and lofty levels acheieved by, for the sake of argument, the most intelligent cheese mite walking the planet.

"Oh my gosh!  DJ...I'm so sorry."

Once again, here was the deal...In my desire to not wedge his little head up against the railing, I had confined our working space to a one square-foot area in the center of the changing table and, as such, had folded DJ in upon himself such that his left knee was now pushing up against his left eye...hence the brilliant—and timely—"knee in my eye" critique from the Deejarino-man, my on-the-spot changing coach.

Needless to write, the diaper got changed, and “Daniel,” as he now likes to be called, survived (with head, knees, and eyes intact), went on to complete an illustrious high school wrestling career, and then got into probably one of the best schools on the east coast.  I do joke with him about how he's at UVA because he couldn't get in to Tech.  (Go Hokies!  Football, not basketball, though.  [I’m just sayin’…])

And me?  Well, I headed back down stairs with the notion of job well done floating around somewhere in the mush between my ears.

"Thanks for doing that, dearest," Brenda said.  "How'd it go?"

"Just fine," I said with a smile and a not-so-slight nod of my head."

"Hey...come here for a minute."

"Yeah?" I said, walking over to her.

"I think you've got something in your eye," she said as she reached up to brush something from my eyelash.  "It looks a lot like a knee."

Busted.  Again.  You know?...Solomon was right...there really is nothing new under the sun.

Peace out, y'all. 

THE END