Back to babysitting

Lots has changed since I last changed a diaper.

Technological advancements, I found, aren't limited to electronics.

I'm an old enough parent to remember cloth diapers, safety pins and plastic pants.

I'm an old enough parent to have used tissue and baby cream to clean up a diaper change.

And I'm an old enough parent to have warmed up canned baby formula in a glass bottle in a pot of water heated up on the stove.

But I’m not an old enough grandparent yet, it seems.

We Baby Boomers have a new role - as grandparents and, as such, as babysitters. We've gone from wanting to change the world to being asked to change diapers.

I recently got the assignment to look after Rylin, two-month-old daughter of my stepdaughter Kelsey and her husband Jeremy.

The last time I looked after an infant by myself? Probably a couple of decades ago when my own two children - now grown - were babies.

Here’s what’s changed:

Diapers now tell you when they need to be changed: A yellow strip on the diaper changes to blue;

Baby wipes are warmed in an electric heater gizmo. No more baby reeling from the harsh, cold reality of a frigid wipe;

Another gizmo with a little bit of water steams the plastic bottle of milk to just the right temperature;

A web-cam baby monitor is infrared, giving the appearance of a Navy SEAL operation of some kind.

While much has changed, much has stayed the same. There’s a continuum as children become parents, parents become grandparents.

Some things I found the same.

Cooing and laughing and making bubbles out of spit don’t change.

Also, I found two of my favorite stories in her growing library of books: “Goodnight, Moon” and “Runaway Bunny,” both written by Margaret Wise Brown.

It’s impossible to know how many times I read “Goodnight, Moon” to my Elizabeth and David. I remember Elizabeth, my oldest, pointing out on the page the little toy house and young mouse as I read. David was captivated by the imagined adventures of a little bunny who wanted to run away from his mother by being a trout in a stream or a bird.

Two-month old Rylin and I did just fine in the three-plus hours we spent together. Neither of us went to bed that night too worse for the wear. She wet her diaper. I managed to stay dry.