The Trouble With Babies

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Wednesday - November 21, 2007

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I mentioned last week that my brother-in-law, his wife and 2-year-old daughter blew into town for a week of vacation. It was great seeing them, and it’s a nice excuse for our families to get together. For one night of that week, my wife and I were asked to baby-sit their daughter overnight.

That way, they could stay at a resort in Waikiki and kind of have a second honeymoon. Their daughter is a joy, and so doing that was not going to be a problem. In fact, my wife and our 10-year-old daughter were looking forward to it.

I had forgotten what it was like to have a toddler around. You basically have to give them your attention all the time, you can never leave them alone and you have to do nearly everything for them. That encroaches on my territory but, hey, it was only for one night.

Although our niece’s parents had us well-stocked with baby supplies for the night, I think it’s tough to know how many times a diaper is going to get soiled. In this case, we ran out of diapers. Suddenly I was transformed back in time to 1999 when our daughter was 2 years old.

My wife dispatched me to the nearby Foodland to purchase diapers and some other stuff for our little house guest. Of course, now it’s 2007 and I’m nearly 50 years old. I filled my cart with disposable diapers, baby shampoo and disposable wipes.

I pretty much know all the cashiers since I tend to frequent their store nearly five times a day. That’s because I always buy the wrong thing and my wife sends me back until I get it right. In this case, however, I was dead on with these baby supplies.

I loaded the counter, and the cashier scanned each item before realizing it was me. With one eyebrow raised she loudly commented, “Mr. Nagasawa!” as though she was about to congratulate me and ask if I wanted to buy a box of cigars.

I peeled off a few bills to pay for my purchase and merely replied, “Get real.”