Men Who Stare at Diapers

I'm a hands-on dad.

By that I mean I have my hands on diapers many times a day.

I change diapers about once every two hours for each of my twins--which comes to about 24 diapers per 24-hour period. That means that in the 3 1/2 weeks of their young lives I have handled approximately 500 diapers.

By extrapolation, that should work out t0 6000 per year or about 15,000 by the time they are both potty-trained. Combined with the 16,000-20,000 diapers from my first round as a father, I think I will qualify for consideration in the diaper Hall of Fame.

I'm not saying I should have a concrete baby wipe in the sidewalk around Kimberly-Clark, but I think Huggies will owe me some kind of Golden Diaper in a couple of years.

Is this important?

Well, those dads who shy away from the process of diaper-changing for some chauvinist reason, or, more likely, because of the occasional unpleasantries associated with the process, actually are cheating themselves. The act of making your little one's life less uncomfortable and of spending some quantity time (because the idea of substituting quality time for the actual hours they need you is nonsense) is invaluable--now, and for the future of the parent-child relationship. I mean, how can we ever tell a teenager to take responsibility for his or her actions if we don't do the same when it's most important?