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When she discovered the water and the way the incoming tide worked, it was a repetitive game of running straight toward the incoming water until it met her halfway, followed by flapping her arms, giggling and running back. When she got bolder, Dad was there lifting her over little waves that would have knocked her over.
Eventually, Marley ran off in a direction away from the water to explore. She tried to get in on a football game being played by a group of teenage boys. She approached another family and tried to run off with their beach ball. She chased a group of seagulls around.
Then she made a beeline for one of those beach houses that post signs all over making it clear where the public beach ends and their valuable little slice of waterfront begins. No matter how many times I yanked Marley into the air and tried to relocate her heading in the other direction, she would head back for that house.
Marley doesn't talk yet. She babbles in what sounds very much like complete sentences, even with question marks on the end. And she says a few words, like "Dada" and "No."
But she is very effective in getting her point across when you ask the right question, because even though she doesn't say much, she understands a lot.
Finally, something clicked in my head and I asked her, "Do you need your diaper changed?"
She nodded yes with her head and her whole body practically, and reached her arms up to be picked up after trying to avoid being picked up for the entire time she was enjoying her beach adventure.
She was heading for a house, because houses have changing tables and diapers, of course.
I felt horrible for the time it took me to realize she was walking around in a messy diaper and was uncomfortable.
And I got to thinking about our newspaper's work along with the United Way of Northwest Connecticut this summer in launching the Northwest Connecticut Diaper Drive .
The babies and toddlers we are aiming to help with the Diaper Drive can't say to their parents, or the community at-large, "My innocent young life is being made miserable today because I'm in this messy diaper."
Or "I know you're trying to save money by changing my diaper only when it's soiled, not just wet, but a wet diaper feels pretty yucky, too."
When every other required expense is going up, like gas and home heating oil, and your income isn't, it's tempting for parents to try to stretch that diaper supply.
If they don't, the money spent on diapers is taken from somewhere else...medicine, food, other basic needs.
I am blessed in life enough that my only problem with diapers is being a little slow to realize what it means when Marley tries to break into someone's beachfront cottage.
And because I am blessed, I feel it's my duty to give to the Northwest Connecticut Diaper Drive.
Matt DeRienzo is publisher of The Register Citizen. He can be reached at 860-489-3121, ext. 350, or by email at mderienzo@registercitizen.com.
