Sunday, June 19, 2005

Trezor box

Yesterday I looked up from a morning cup of tea and random magazine article and discovered Caroline, naked, in front of me. We’d had a conversation shortly before about how she did indeed have a messy diaper but was not willing to have it changed at the moment. Forewarned I grabbed her less messy appendages and ran to the bathroom sink to give her a quick bath.

Dry and diapered, she became the subject of intense query –

“Did you take off your diaper?“
“Diaper off!“
“Where did you take off your diaper?“
“Diaper off!“
“Where is the diaper now?“
“Okay!“

On the principle that it‘s better to know than to suspect, I looked first at the worst spots I could imagine – our cloth-covered sofa, the white carpets, linen chest and of course, under my pillow. Not finding anything more gruesome than a half eaten apple in the linen chest, we scoured the rest of the flat, Caroline holding my hand and helpfully pointing out the fossilized bread crusts that she had scattered throughout low lying points. But no diaper.

I decided that Caroline would excel as a house safety expert, and that when finally discovered, her hideout would make the perfect spot to secure chocolate or excess cash. I imagined whispering to select friends the secret to our success at eluding robbers – definitely not your underwear drawer, and not even your old maternity clothes box, the one your vacuum cleaner currently uses as a docking station. You’ve got to try...

But then, cleaning up the morning toast and tea bags, I levered our trashcan open and there, nearly neatly wrapped, was the missing diaper. When I showed Caroline the evidence, she matter-of-factly agreed, “Diaper!“ There seemed no question about it and I mourned my imagined hideaway, the trezor box beyond compare. But while I might be a romantic, able to magic missing diapers into swirls of intrigue, Caroline at 2 was a pragmatist, ready to take off her diaper and throw it away too.

Trezor = safe. Also known as sejf.

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