Reliving A Past Life

I had the opportunity to play with my twenty-seven month old grandson this morning. It wasn't really an opportunity but done to give Lizzie some time off as grandmama since she's been doing the heavy lifting at my daughter's home the past week. My daughter and her husband have a four year old and she's expecting another crumb cruncher in April so any help she gets is a plus. I'm the kind of guy who gets into being with the kids when they get to be around age four. If you're a guy you know what I mean. They don't babble and 'do-do' in their diapers. Which reminds me that the 'D' word brings up a subject from my past. I did something yesterday morning I hadn't done since 1979. I changed a diaper and it wasn't one of those 'wet' kind. The only difference between now and then is people use Pampers instead of in the old days when all we had was cloth. I had a technique probably used by most husbands in pre-Pamper time. I'd take off the diaper, clean the bottom, then grab one small end of the soiled piece of cloth and drop it in the toilet. Then I'd wait for Lizzie to come along and clean it before it went into the clothes washer.
DK and I rolled around on the floor for a couple hours then went outside to dig dirt with his shovel. This makes me happy. DK has a zillion trucks. I'd rather have this than his wanting to put on a ballerina outfit and prance around to some Mozart musical. His indoor toys are plentiful, too. Toys are different today than when I was a lad. Who would have thought the word, 'China' would have been on any toy then. The only item that came close to a Chinese toy were those cylindrical woven tubes won at the carnival and they might have called Japanese girl catchers. Today's toys are all plastic and make noises. e.g. A baa-baa here and a baa-baa there is sung for them. In prehistoric times we had to learn that junk ourselves. I can only remember having one truck. It was a Tonka lumber truck and I got it for Christmas when I was five. The cab was made of real steel and it was red. The bed was made of wood and it had vertical poles of metal to keep the logs from falling out. It was sturdy. I was a favorite of all kids everywhere who played with trucks. I was born with a protrusion on the outside of my left pinkie finger. When we needed roads made I'd put the outside of said pinkie in the dirt and slide it along to make the perfect highway with the perfect dividing line. I was famous and in great demand in the neighborhood.
As I observed DK this morning I was reminded of Ben Davidson, defensive tackle of the Oakland Raiders a few decades ago. You're going to ask yourself how can MJ segue into his grandson from this example? It's easy. Davidson played in the NFL in the Sixties and early Seventies. In order to get into shape for the upcoming season he'd film his two year old son rolling around on the floor then he'd mimic what he saw. I tried this in 1978 and after ten minutes I was exhausted. I observed DK this morning for ten minutes and while lying on the floor and felt the need for a nap. Kids are non-stop go, go, go.
After my toddler watching stint approached two and a half hours Lizzie came in and asked if I wanted to be relieved so she could take the kid to the park. Aha! This was my chance. "Well, I guess if you really want to", I said.
So, DK was packed up and put in a stroller. As they walked down the driveway I felt the need to yell out, "Did you check his diaper"?