Fashion Statement by Dad

I arrived home after class around 9:30 pm on Thursday night. I was greeted by Jen and Karen. Jen told me that insurance finally approved a $1000 RSV shot for girls and they had arrived at our house that day... I didn’t even notice the giant foam coolers in our kitchen that contained them.

Jen set up the appointments for 9:20 the next morning and asked if I could go into work late and take them. I told her no problem and she asked “Are you sure you can handle it? Karen can do it if you don’t think you can.” I responded, “I can handle it, no problem.” And without giving away the whole story, I did “handle it.” But in a way only a father could handicap himself.

On Friday morning I fed the girls while Jen got ready for work. She decided to leave early since I was taking care of the girls. When Jen's Mom got to our house she asked “Okay, what is going on?” Usually, Jen is there when she arrives, and I am already at work. I told her, “Today we are going on a field trip!” As 9:00 AM got closer and closer, I got closer and closer to having everything all set. It was time to put the girls in their car seats and Jen’s Mom asked me, “Does anything need to be put in the diaper bag?” I reply, “Everything should be in there.” In all of her efforts to save me, she double checks, “Is there anything I should check to make sure is in the bag? I told her, “Just make sure that the suction and the saline is in the side pocket – as long as they are breathing we are good! It should be a quick visit, get two shots and bring them back.” She checked and we loaded up and went on our way.

Well inside the examination room, we were asked to strip down each of the girls so the TSA agent could determine they were not terrorists and they did not have any liquids hidden on their person. Just kidding. The assistant needed them to be naked so they could be weighed. Jen’s Mom had Amelia and by pure chance I got Emma. Right away I got a whiff of Scent-o-Emma. All I could think of was, please don’t leak, please diaper – please have it all contained. If you don’t have the idea yet – just realize I can change dirty diapers, but I don’t necessarily take great joy in the really messy ones. Well I looked at the diaper on Emma’s right, and it was just fine. Whew! So I removed her sleeper, and ahem, let’s just say that the left side was just slightly less reliable and had basically held up as well as the offensive line for the Detroit Lions. The sleeper in my analysis was completely ruined. Although my wife claims that these outfits can actually be washed, and worn again – it is not how I would do it. Sorry girls, one of you probably will have to wear that sleeper again at some point!

So whoop-di-doo right? So Dad had to change a dirty diaper at a doctors office? Well the real fun was when she was all cleaned up and I asked for the “spare clean” outfit from Grandma. And Grandma responded, “There are no outfits packed.” And that was how I learned that the diaper bag never packs itself. Mom always packs it! And trust me, she never leaves without a clean outfit, as this has happened before – and Mom just pulls out a clean outfit from the magical diaper bag!

The girls got their shots, then it was time to put the girls back in the car seats to go home. Emma couldn’t go home naked, so we took the three previously used burp cloths and laid one in the car seat and wrapped her up in the other two. All because her Dad thought we had a “magic diaper bag” and in all truth, the magic was at work and the diaper bag was empty!