Normally I only tell stories that I myself experience on this site. A recent episode experienced by my mother-in-law, however, contains a valuable lesson for new parents and grandparents. Especially those that have daughters in diapers.
Indoor playplaces are a wonderful way to take the edge off an enthusiastic and energetic young child. For the most part they’re full of large, rubberized structures that a small child can run around and climb on and slide down on. Normally on days when Nanna has our daughter up in Madison for the day, a good few hours are spent with Micah running around the local mall’s play area.
Up until now, it’s been fairly benign and uneventful. Nanna and Micah go to the mall. Nanna buys Micah some sort of knick-knack. Nanna takes Micah to play area. Micah explores and runs and jumps (usually by throwing her arms up into the air and saying jump. Not by actually jumping) around.
Yesterday was a little different. For the first time this season, Nanna and Micah visited the play area while Micah was wearing a dress.
Now, I know what you’re thinking…this story is going to end in some sort of humorous fashion with Micah upside down, rear end in the air, with her dress around her head and displaying her diaper for all to see. Or something cute like that.
No. No it does not end that way.
It ends after Micah decides to go down the small slide in the play area. Calling it a slide is somewhat of a misnomer. So would calling it a Vertical Drop of Doom. I mean, it’s only about three feet tall, if that, but it’s at some impossibly steep angle. So the speed you might build over a longer period of time on a longer slide comes much faster as you’re basically dropping. But the ride is short and most importantly everything is made out of a rubbery substance. No harm is ultimately done.
On most days, Micah would go down this slide with no problems. Sometimes she’d make it down feet first. Sometimes she’d end up taking a bit of a tumble and end up head first. The point is, she came down, and no matter how the ride looked from a concerned parent’s point of view, she enjoyed herself and pretty much ran around to do it again.
On this visit however, Nanna and Micah learned an important lesson about friction and tensile strength.
Remember how I mentioned that Micah was wearing a dress? Now, I don’t know about you parents of daughters out there, but since the weather grew warmer, whenever we sent Micah out in a dress, she’d pretty much just be wearing the dress and a diaper. No shorts underneath. No pants. Not bloomers. Dress and Diaper. That’s it.
When Micah sat upon the slide that day, the diaper was in full contact with the surface of the slide. And apparently the diaper generated much more friction than normal clothing would. About halfway down the slide, Nanna heard two little ripping noises come from Micah’s diaper area as the little tabs on her disposable diaper gave way. Note: they did not come away from the front of the diaper, as they are designed to do. They tore away from the rear of the diaper.
The sudden absence of the diaper apparently gave my daughter a bit of extra spin. So she ended up tumbling, landing bare butt in the air.
Micah didn’t seem to mind, but Nanna was a little embarrassed.
