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…