On pins when needless
Wednesday April 08th 2009, 2:07 pm
Filed under: Family,Life

While I look for that one last piece of paper so I can mail the forms off…

A note from someone sparked this memory. That and the fact that one of our kids was born April 15 and I am hunting for that stray piece of paper.

My husband and I had a small infant, our first, when we were invited to a wedding reception.  His friend getting married had grown up near Richard’s grandmother, who lived in a tiny town up in the mountains above Salt Lake City.  You remember the buffalo and the fence story? When I suddenly learned how fast and how high I could jump?  Yes, that friend.  Zane.  So.

We asked Grandma if she’d be willing to take her great-grandchild for an hour or two for us; as a very new mom, it was hard to be away from my baby for any longer than that.  We’d be close by if there were a problem. She said sure.

Velcro was still a pretty new thing back then. There was a woman in the town we were living in who these days would be on Etsy, who sewed up her creations for the local baby-goods store: cotton diapers shaped to fit a baby and that closed up with velcro.

I made a point of having those diapers on Sam so that it would be easy on Grandma. No fine-fingered maneuvers for elderly hands to have to worry about, just press together and go, although, I was hoping we’d be gone a short enough time that changing the baby wouldn’t be an issue anyway. I made a point of showing Grandma the velcro and explaining it to her, just to make sure she was familiar with it. She nodded, yes, yes, got it, okay.

Or maybe not so okay.  We had a grand time at the wedding, picked up our baby for the drive home, and thanked Grandma profusely.

She seemed less than pleased.  I asked if the baby had behaved well for her?  Yes…

It wasn’t till some time later that I found out that she was not happy with us at all. How could we have left her with a baby to take care of–and no diaper pins! She’d had to search and SEARCH and search till she’d found the diaper pins she’d used on HER babies.

I found there were these huge pins going right through the thick velcro. It must have taken her quite a bit of effort to push them through it.

And as I look for that silly (why is this one necessary!) paper to keep the IRS happy, I picture my late grandmother-in-law looking and looking for those pins…


11 Comments so far
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Darn that new-fangled technology! Velcro? What’s Velcro…just something to get stuck on. (I wonder how she got the previous diaper off?) *grin*

Comment by Karen 04.08.09 @ 3:11 pm

That is such a funny story! I had a similar experience. I left my first daughter with my mom and extra diapers and pins, powder (back then), etc. Not gone long but when I return my baby was in her crib with an “unsecured” diaper. My mom couldn’t push the pins through the cloth. Fortunately, my daughter was so young that she was not able to move around much and the diaper just rested on her little body.

Comment by Joansie 04.08.09 @ 5:20 pm

Tee hee. Ah yes, the stories from when our boys were young. We used cloth, but thought the teen sitter might not “get it”…so we left paper ones for her to use. We came home to find the diaper barely hanging on..since it was on backwards!

Comment by Ruth 04.08.09 @ 5:44 pm

Did you see the story on the internet about the elderly woman in Italy pulled from the wreakage of her home 30 hours after the earthquake? She wasn’t injured, just stuck. She knew she couldn’t get out of that pile without help–so she crochetted until they found her. There’s no word on what she was making.

Comment by LauraN 04.08.09 @ 5:56 pm

I read two news reports: one quoted her as saying she knitted. The other quoted her as saying she crocheted. I think the translator(s) must not know the difference, because I’m sure Italian doesn’t have just one word for the both of them.

Comment by AlisonH 04.08.09 @ 6:14 pm

I just had to click on your buffalo and the fence story. That was too funny. The story the family told about me was the time someone took off my diaper, and I managed to give the individual a shower.

Other humor time:
Show and Tell
A kindergarten teacher gave her class a ‘show and tell’ assignment. Each student was instructed to bring in an object to share with the class that represented their religion. The first student got up in front of the class and said, ‘My name is Benjamin and I am Jewish and this is a Star of David.’ 
The second student got up in front of the class and said, ‘My name is Mary. I’m a Catholic and this is a Rosary.’
The third student got in up front of the class and said, ‘My name is Tommy.   I am a Baptist, and this is a casserole.’

Comment by Don Meyer 04.08.09 @ 7:11 pm

And, the older I get, the more I understand how difficult it can be to wrap my mind around new ideas, products, technology, etc.! “How can that be right?,” I find myself saying sometimes, sounding just like my mom. . .

Comment by Pam 04.09.09 @ 5:06 am

What a sweet story – about the diaper pins. The IRS? Not so much. I have to do our taxes this weekend.

Comment by Channon 04.09.09 @ 6:29 am

Late, but still heartfelt condolences on the loss of your Aunt.

I used cloth diapers, and when the Grandmas babysat, I had to switch to cloth==they were both leary of their skill with diaper pins!

I am getting ready to start a shawl from “Wrapped in Comfort”–trying to choose one is taking a while!

Good luck on the taxes. I am so hapyy that mine are done and gone.

Comment by Kathy Sue 04.09.09 @ 7:47 am

Oh, the wonders of velcro. It does beat pins all around the town. I just can’t stand it when it traps lint.

Btw, our pear trees are Bartlett. I’ll have to try a Seckel pear now.

Hope you find the stray paper. 🙂

Comment by Toni Smoky-Mountains 04.09.09 @ 8:07 am

Hahaha love the story!
I think the whole velcro thing went in one ear and out the other, I feel like that sometimes when explaining to my dad how to copy and paste on his computer, for the 100th time!

Comment by Alicia 04.09.09 @ 11:15 am



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