Cuter than a carrier pigeon

Speaking of Be Prepared, I took a moment yesterday morning to try out one of its many simple suggestions: “Surprise [your wife] by writing notes on the baby’s diaper with a Sharpie, making sure that she’ll be the next one to change him.”

Why not, right? My wife works hard all day, and she could use a laugh. So I grabbed a marker and wrote “Hi, Mummy!” (British for “Mommy”) on the front of my kid’s first diaper of the morning. Then I dressed her, headed off to work, and waited for my wife’s reaction.

That reaction didn’t come. No texts, no emails, nothing. By the afternoon, when I knew there was no way she hadn’t yet seen the diaper, I started to suspect that she’d respond in a different fashion.

Sure enough, when I came home from work and tagged in for dad duty, my daughter’s diaper had “Hi, Daddy!” written on it.

And so began a new ritual! I wrote an even cuter message on the front of this morning’s diaper, which I won’t share because I don’t want to make anybody puke. It was a lot more legible, too; I discovered that it’s easier to write on a diaper before you try and put it on a squirming kid.

Either way, I’m probably more excited than I should be about heading home and “checking my messages.” I’ve never played a game of chess through the mail, but it probably feels a lot like this.

Do you want to know the weirdest part? Neither of us has actually said a word about this to the other. For all I know, my baby’s actually the one who’s been writing me these messages.

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