Barnabas Monkeypants

Growing up, my grandmother would give my sister and me an allowance each week, a wonderful thing considering we had to do absolutely nothing to receive the cash. It started out as $2 and, by the time we hit high school, it was $5. With that bounty, my sister bought Led Zeppelin albums; I bought comic books. (Can you guess which sibling is more socially adept?)

My mother, however, did not give us an allowance. Instead, we had to work for our spending money. At the time, this was horrible, as a) I didn’t particularly want to work and b) if I didn’t work, it meant I could buy fewer comic books. So, early on, I got a paper route (the now-defunct Bethlehem Globe Times), and my sister started working at the concession stand at the local swimming pool (run by a gigantic man nicknamed “Blue” who was involved in many shady activities; ask Rachel, and I’m sure she’ll tell you all about them).

But get this: not only did my mother not give us an allowance, but when we did bad things — get bad grades, not practice the piano, come home late — she fined us. Somehow, she made money in this whole scenario.

So I thought at the time. As a parent, I now know that it costs a lot of money to have a kid, and what few dollars I had to give my mother every month didn’t really put a dent in Raphe-related deficit.

It also made us realize that there were consequences for our actions, mostly that fewer comic books and albums came into the house.

I have no clue if we’re going to give Henry an allowance, or if such things are still going to be in vogue in 10 years. And in 2018, what will be an acceptable weekly allowance? $50? $100?

Likely, however, all of Henry’s allowance will already be spoken for in fines. You see, I’ve already started a talley. What is it that our barely three-month-old son could possibly have done to warrant such deficit, you ask?

It’s this: Henry has the knack for soiling his diapers right after we change them. Our son is not a quiet pooper. We all know (and cheer) when he relieves himself, and we’ve quickly learned that his bowel movements can take up to a minute to finish, and we patiently wait until we think he’s finished to start changing him. (This tale gets a little bit off color, so if you have a weak stomach, stop reading now and just look at the cute pictures.)

After the coast is clear, Kristen or I will get Henry on the changing table, take of his dirty diaper, clean him up with the nicely warmed wipes, and put a new diaper on him. (Side note: Henry currently wears 1-2 Pampers, a hybrid between the two different sizes. However, we have coming tomorrow a crate of size 2s. He’s growing up too fast! Soon he’ll be wearing a size 3, then a 4, and then he’ll be asking for the keys to the Subaru!) The thing is, one in five times, mere seconds after we’ve put a new, clean diaper on … BAM (really SPLAT), he goes again.

And, of course, he smiles, because nothing makes Henry happier than pooping.

But that smile, son? That’s a 22 cent smile! And it’s coming out of your allowance!

These post changing re-diaperings have started to add up. I don’t really want to say how many so far (such information should be kept under wraps in case he takes us to arbitration), but if, say, his first week’s “pay” is $15, he’s pretty much lost it already.

But I’m not a bad person. Really, I’m not. Because while I’m still keeping tabs on those diapers that he wears for all of 30 seconds, I have tried to quickly forget the times when he poops before we have a chance to put a new diaper on him at all.

Believe me, he can’t afford what those would cost him.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 25th, 2008 at 10:21 pm and is filed under Barnabas, Poop. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.