What Comes After 6?

Today I went to lunch with a friend, who offered to share her babysitter with my two kids. As a given, I was running late. So when I dropped my kids off at her house, my friend had already left. But her sitter was there--and she didn't speak a lick of English.

At this point, I needed an adult lunch date more than I needed to communicate that my kids had already eaten and had no allergies. So trusting in my friend's trust of the girl, I turned to go. And then I remembered--the diaper. I had none. And Gracie had had her necessary dose of morning Miralax. She just may need a diaper. So I faced the sitter and used my best sign language-Spanglish to infer that if Gracie needed it, maybe she could borrow one of my friend's kids' diapers?

As I drove off, I laughed at the thought. Gracie is, well...lovably large. Like never measured on the charts large. She has actually outgrown size six diapers, but Huggies and Pampers don't offer size 7. And yeah, I would potty train her but she's kind of got that awkward clumsiness you'd expect of an overly large 2 1/2 year old. I just can't see her gracefully making her way onto a toilet. The two little featherweight daughters of my friend could both fit into Gracie's left thigh, so I knew nothing bigger than a size 4 was in their house. Oops!

When I returned two hours later, Gracie was running around in a swim diaper. And the sitter just gave me a universal sign all caretakers of children understand...a helpless shrug.