My husband and I received great news a few months ago; we will be grandparents again come the end of October. We found out the baby will be a girl. We are nicknaming her Fiona (of course her parents will name her what they want). Since we will be visiting the family in August, the expectant mother is going to have a baby shower during our visit.
I found the cutest ‘thank-you’ for the baby shower gift on one of the baby shower web sites. I decided to make bookmarkers out of the little poem fo be given out at the shower. I had an idea I would attach a little charm to the bookmarker with a diaper pin. What I found was I could not do so.
It seems that like the dinosaur, the diaper pin, is also extinct. I searched stores in two counties trying to find them but none seem to carry them. In fact I did not even see cloth diapers. Perhaps I did not look hard enough for the diapers, but I must say I looked for the pins. In fact my husband also searched the stores for pins and he too came up empty handed. No doubt I could probably get them from some site on the internet but wanted to buy them in person.
I remember years ago baby sitting and having to secure diapers with those cute little pins that had a blue duck, pink duck, green or yellow duck on them. I knew those things could also be painful if the pin became unattached and stuck the baby. I was always careful to make sure the pin was closed securely before I would put the rubber pants over the diaper. Memories of long ago which I am sure parents today call the ‘stone age’.
As I looked for the last time at one of the stores for the diaper pins, I ran into a woman of thirty-something. She said she had diaper pins at home and I told her to hang onto them as they may become collector’s items.
As I shopped for baby shower items I thought about how no one even knits booties these days. Well a week ago, my husband found a pair of knitted booties on a white elephant table at a veterans club where we frequent. Of course we had to buy them; reason number one they were green and the new granddaughter could wear them for St. Patty’s day and reason number two the money we paid would be used for charity.
It appears we live in a disposal world anymore. Diapers are not the only items that are disposable. We throw away razors. I recall my husband having to put a new blade into one when the old got dull. I recall purchasing refills for pens instead of throwing one away once the ink went dry. I do try to recycle as much as possible and purchase ‘earth friendly’ items. The pens I currently am using were made from recycled materials. . Madonna sang a song about living in a material world….well we are living in a disposal world and unfortunately like everyone else I am a disposable individual.
Until next time, if you have any of those old fashion diaper pins lying around…keep them…they may be worth a dime or two.
