Ankles

Lyla is exactly one month away from being one year old. She's never eaten cake, but I imagine her first time will be on that day. Things will get messy. Cake will perish.

I discovered an amazing diaper changing technique today: don't pull off the pants. Those legs can go crazy at the most inconvenient times, so leaving the pants at the ankles impedes leg mobility, like a straitjacket. Plus, you just pull them up when you're done rather than struggling to thread the feet through.

I can't believe it never occurred to me before. Am I an idiot? Shh: that's a rhetorical question.

This technique isn't perfect, however, as it might occasionally result in the unintentional smearing of feces. If my sense of smell and paternal instinct ever tell me I am about to encounter the apocalypse in Lyla's diaper, I might err on the side of a full pants removal just to be safe. But for ordinary diapers, it's pants on, baby, and it only took me 11 months to figure it out.