Hengwen Yahma Hengwen Yahma Bahda

One thing that I heard frequently during Katie’s pregnancy concerning my impending fatherhood duties was always a version of the following: “Oh man! A father! Good luck changing diapers – what a task that can be!” Well, in a purely informational version of the Condad Chronicles, let’s dispel the rumors for all once and future parents, shall we?

Changing a diaper is not that hard.

There are a lot of things in this world that are, in fact, hard. Teaching oneself the laws of advanced thermodynamics is hard. Making a Black Forest Chocolate Cake – that’s hard. Driving home from Williamsburg during a midnight blizzard – rather difficult. Double shifting a job with grad school – not easy. Editing an Oscar Party video is hard (and more on that soon). Running through an airport terminal with three bags of luggage and an all-too-close departure time is hard. Those damn Magic Eye puzzles (is that a schooner?) are damn near impossible. And while the intensity, dexterity, and strength needed for these tasks are all very high…

Changing a diaper is not that hard.

I mean really, it’s a simple changing out of the old and installing the new. We go through these motions all the time. Can you change the oil in your car? Replace an old, boxy computer monitor with a sleek flat panel? Making a sandwich for your wife and prior to presentation remembering she asked for Provolone, not Swiss? Look, it’s a presto-change-o operation, changing a diaper. And since the diaper isn’t 1) 400 lbs. heavy, 2) covered in slippery axle grease, or 3) invisible, this is a rudimentary procedure.

Here is a simple set of instructions if for some reason, somebody placed a baby on your desk RIGHT NOW and refused to take the baby away until you changed its diaper:

1. Place the baby, face-up, on a flat yet comfortable surface.
2. Undress the baby’s lower half in order to gain access to diaper.
3. Remove diaper by peeling back the adhesive strips and sliding diaper out from underneath baby.
4. Wipe baby clean with moist wipes, which you have nearby (perhaps next to the stapler.)
5. Apply diaper rash cream (if necessary.)
6. Lift baby’s feet and slide new diaper underneath.
7. Adhere new adhesive strips to front of the diaper.
8. Re-dress baby’s lower half.
9. Pick up baby, and hold her towards the sun while singing “The Circle of Life.”

Geez, what was so hard about that?

Now you can sure that this may become a repetitive process. After all, a baby is not unlike adults in the sense that this is just the final piece of the digestive system puzzle (that’s strictly a figurative term – no one actually wants to construct a puzzle that includes 47 pieces of intestine jigsaw.) And it’s not exactly true that this is only a daytime operation – a happy baby needs to be changed, no matter what the clock says. However, changing a baby’s diaper at 4 in the morning isn’t any harder in terms of actual physical difficulty – no, no. It’s just a bit more challenging. And this extra challenge definitely requires an improved set of instructions:

How to change a diaper at 4 in the morning, so that you can get back into your warm bed as soon as humanly possible.

1. Place the baby, face-up, on a flat yet comfortable surface.
2. No, that’s a stuffed bear, and he doesn’t need to be changed.
3. Pick up your actual child (hint: the crying one) and place face-up on a flat yet comfortable surface.
4. Remove swaddling clothes, as to grant better access to disaster relief area.
5. Undress the baby’s lower half in order to gain access to diaper.
6. Remove the diaper by peeling back the adhesive strips and sliding the diaper out from underneath baby.
7. Ok, buckle like a belt and turn on the light in the next room. Hey look, THERE’s the baby. You guessed right.
8. Wipe baby clean with moist wipes.
9. Wipe your forehead with a different moist wipe to wake yourself up. Turns out you’ve just spent 2 minutes mopping the bottle of baby powder.
10. Locate baby again. Apply wiping technique.
11. Apply diaper rash cream, and make sure that you put it BACK in its place. No one wants to confuse it with toothpaste in an hour.
12. Lift baby’s feet and slide new diaper underneath.
13. Re-dress, and re-swaddle.
14. The Baby. Not You. You look ridiculous.
15. Lie the baby back down to sleep.
16. Tip toe back to your bed.
17. Scream silently as your ram your knee against the nightstand. Do NOT wake the baby.
18. Collapse to the floor in pain. Realizing the baby could stir if you get up, resign yourself to sleeping there until morning.

It’s the Circle. The Circle of Life.