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Chicken nuggets and tots. 

This week I’ve been experimenting with a new cloth nappy fold. Mostly (like for my entire life) I’ve just used traditional kite folds with my cloth nappy squares because, well just because really.  It’s the one I know.  It works.  Kind of.  It’s pretty good at keeping the pee in your pants but thusly folded nappies get pretty saggy when wet.  Also when pinned tightly, midriff joint flexibility is inevitably compromised.  You walk like a robot that has wet itself.  Sitting down and standing up can be challenging.  Ballet thusly clad is presumably impossible.  I’ve tried the complex, almost Origami-like “Chinese nappy fold” too.  This was ok but being polar-bear shaped and quite tall, I found the front-to-back rise height to be somewhat marginal (the nappy length gets traded off with this fold).  Also I’ve had lingering doubts about the “seal” between the “wings” and the front crotch.  That zone can see a lot of pee action if I pee during my sleep and is a notorious blind spot for disposables. I also tried the “Concord” fold (named after the aircraft since the nappy fold resembles paper aeroplane construction).  This wasn’t bad and the truth of it was that I’d half-invented it myself independently.  It does however localise most of the towelling up at the front of one’s crotch.  This makes a nappy well engineered to withstand a large monsoonal downpour style of wetting (as nearly all the padding is at ground zero) but it does leave you looking like you’ve stuffed a dead koala into your underpants.  An associated trade off here is bum padding.  There nearly isn’t any: just a single layer of terry pretty much at the cleftal horizon and it could feel a little bit like laying on a wet beach towel come morning. I don’t really need that geographic concentration of padding anyway.   After many years of permanent nappies I pee very frequently in very small amounts.  Because cloth nappies do such a superb job of wicking moisture away to all points of their absorbency, having all that absorbency localised at one point just wasn’t necessary.  The wetness simply disperses across the whole nappy over time. The “Jo Fold” (eponymously named after its inventor) was one that I was dimly aware of but had never tried.  This was because when I glanced at its synopsis the first bullet point stated “The Jo fold enables you to put even the thickest 60cm terry square on a newborn”.  I stopped reading, concluding that this solution wasn’t for me. I’m not newborn baby shaped.  Fun fact: bits of humans grow at different rates.  If this didn’t happen, a newborn baby scaled up to 6 feet high would have a head the size of a large beach ball on top of legs the size of bowling pins. There’s also the question of mobility.  Newborn babies tend to stay where you put them (upon reflection, kite folded nappies may be contributing to this).  They also enjoy “swaddling” which is a kind of Egyptian mummy-wrapping (no pun intended) but you get to be alive to enjoy it.  Whilst I’m not against swaddling (assuming cool weather), it’s not great for day to day physical flexibility.  I guess this is why you never seen newborn babies up ladders or on the roof fixing the TV antenna.  These ARE things I try to do in nappies.  Because I’m an idiot. @nappybum mentioned this fold again the other day, describing the launching his own 24/7(ish) nappy career.  I considered it anatomically unlikely that he would be newborn-shaped and yet clearly it worked for him.  As the Oznl dis-expansion plan progresses (11kg / 25 lb of me has disappeared at the time of journaling), nappy fold choices are becoming more governed by choice than territorial necessity.  I read the description more carefully and realised that the “newborn” exhortation was a claim for fold adaptability rather than a reflection of the Jo-fold design intent. What’s the worst that could happen?  A catastrophic leak in bed followed by a spousal meltdown and a few days wandering around my local area looking for a bridge to live under. I decided to try it.  I’m glad I did. I won’t attempt to describe the fold in text.  Nappy folding is one of those things that truly sends home the message that the picture is worth 1,000 words: use the link to see for yourself.  If I’m using one of my more elderly (and thinner) terry nappies, I may fold up a baby terry nappy as a booster laid in the middle.  This works well enough and is the only modification I’ve countenanced. https://www.thenappylady.co.uk/news/jo-fold-terry-square-fold.html I will attempt to describe why I found it to be superior to the kite fold for me. Hip-hugging higher fit on my body:  the high rise of this fold front and back saw the top of the nappy up over my hips.  Having crested this anatomical summit, the waist of my nappy could no longer simply slide down.  It had some terrain to hang from.  This nappy did NOT sag.  Even by morning it remained nuzzling up against my nether regions as opposed to trying to slide down my legs.  I was even able to take off my compression shorts and jeans to wander (carefully) around the house in just my jo-fold terry night nappy and plastic pants, finishing the jaunt with dry legs! Snugger fit into my crotch:  this is probably simply an outcome of the higher ride height but the nappy felt much tighter up against my crotch but in a warm, comfortable kind of way.  It feels, well, nicer.  On a pragmatic note it was very difficult for me to see how any pee could sneak out with the towelling pressing gently against my skin.  Terry nappies are generally great but if the terry isn’t pressed against skin, depending on our orientation in space your nappy may not get the opportunity to do its job.  To date I’ve experienced zero leakage from lower elastics with these nappies with greater comfort. Less limiting to physical mobility/flexibility: this is huge.  This fold fits well under my jeans with most of the padding between my legs and across my crotch.  The leg openings are large and leg articulation is unobstructed by sail-like areas of wet towelling stretched across the backs of my thighs.  It produces a more ‘T-shaped’ outcome that just suits my anatomy better.  I can walk normally, sit down and arise from a comfy chair without looking like I’d be happier with a hoist.  It also feels like I’m wearing a very thick, terry towelling pair of underpants as opposed to a yacht’s sail.  I may attempt “Swan Lake”. Easier to pin on:  the relatively even distribution of folded towelling across my nappy zone with this construct sees me having to drive pins through less layers in order to hold the garment in place on me.  I don’t need a riveting gun to pin my nappy on myself.  (Having said that, the first of my new “Duckie” pins failed last night when the Duckies’ head split open.  It was quite an Alfred Hitchcock scene but I can’t blame the Jo-fold.  These pins have been self-destructing with monotonous regularity because they are made from lies and mindless optimism). As expected, this nappy withstood a full in-sleep bedwetting event.  I knew that it as an actual sleep-wetting event (the most dangerous kind for leaks) because it was one of those where I woke up to find myself finishing peeing.  I could dimly recall from some dream-state that I HAD started peeing but the urination that was presently well underway inside in my disposable nappy would be safely contained because I was laying on my back.  It was only when I woke up a little more that I remembered that I was actually in a terry nappy and NOT a disposable one.  I think to a certain extent the Jo-folded terry nappy felt a little bit like a disposable because of its position and padding relative to my midriff. The waking revelation that I was wearing terry cloth did nothing to sound any alarm bells.  My nappy was warm and wet whilst the bed around me remained warm and dry.  I finished and swiftly fell back asleep. Downsides?  This nappy fold sits high on my body:  With my first experiment I found my jeans to be wet when I removed them for bed. Whilst the nappy itself was little more than damp by that time the culprit was that towelling had appeared above the waist elastic of my plastic pants at my crotch.  I had another near miss on night #2 when I clambered into bed only to realise that towelling was outside my plastic pants at the small of my back.  I need to take extra care to make sure that all towelling is fully enclosed by plastic pants at the waist elastic.  This is the reverse of the lower-riding kite fold nappy weakness whereby (wet) towelling can protrude from the leg elastics. It will take a little time for me to learn the correct sizing:  Because of its fold-variable girth I have overshot and undershot fold spacing.  This has led to a couple of fold revisions being required during my evening change but I expect this will resolve itself. There are even less tactile cues that I need changing:  I’m not sure if this is a problem or not.  A snugly fitted, warm and wet terry night nappy is pretty comfortable thing to be wearing.  In the complete absence of the sagging and sliding-down that kite folded soaked nappies are prone to, I can comfortably walk around in just my nappy and plastic pants and I’ve noticed I tend to do so.   My office chair wishes to remind me that sooner or later this will end badly. Anyway, I’ve made the switch and thought I’d share.

Midweek win.

What exactly was the surgery you had? 

I think there's a lot of threads in this story now, and I'm hoping it's not too obvious how they might weave back into the main plot    109. My Time To Relax I couldn’t get in touch with Ffrances. I left messages for her, but there wasn’t any kind of response. I couldn’t sign in to my computer at home. I tried sending messages to Tess instead, asking if the wifi was working at home, but she didn’t answer. It was early afternoon by that point, so I didn’t know if Spike would already be there. He was coming over some time this afternoon, they had said, to study with Tess. I knew that wasn’t true; I was pretty sure that he was going to try playing Daddy for her, even if he’d not had the courage to get my approval. He’d asked a couple of questions that I was sure were trying to get a better feel for Tess’s desires without actually asking; and I’d mentored him as best I could. Would today be the day he actually tried it? I’d been hoping so, but now that I couldn’t watch them, I wondered if it might be better to hope that the boy was too nervous to try anything just yet. After a lot of introspection, I was drawn back to my work. There was a lot more of it than I would have hoped for. I didn’t like to micro-manage, but there were so many things that could have gone wrong at a conference like this, and whenever something unexpected came up, I would be the one to make sure it went smoothly. After a couple of incidents, I got the impression that some of the creatives – movie directors whose names I would probably have recognised had I paid more attention to those parts of the news – were really appreciative of my contribution; maybe even liking me as much as the first few people I’d spoken to at Claughton Innovative. There was a certain thrill with being able to make things work in a way that made so many people happy. I was rushed off my feet for most of the day, and when I got a chance to relax in the evening I was sure that things wouldn’t stay quiet for long enough to risk going home. I decided that it would be better to show my face in any case, so I hurried to one of the restaurants which had pretty much been taken over by movie people this week. A waitress bustled up and down between tables that were occupied by a whole host of famous faces. The people working today were supposed to be the older and more reliable among the staff; those who could be relied on not to ask for autographs, or to report on who was here. That was one part of the organisation that I still wasn’t entirely satisfied with, but I knew there wasn’t really a better option. I got myself chicken in a basket. That would make it easier for me to dash off if there was something else that demanded my attention. I just hoped that I would get a few minutes to myself, with my laptop out on the table so that I could try to figure out what was wrong with my computers at home. But I kept my radio on the desk beside me, to remind myself that I needed to be able to dash off at a moment’s notice. Everything I tried led to the same results as before. Perhaps I could take a quick break instead, checking up on new chapters of Mommy’s Little Devil. I pulled up FetishLibrary, and was immediately distracted by a new chapter of The Baby Button instead. That surprised me because I hadn’t been expecting the story to progress so quickly, so perhaps today was my lucky day. “Hi folks,” I read out the author’s note under my breath. “I’ll be working more than usual the next few days, and I’m not sure if I’ll be able to finish another chapter. Maybe I won’t even be online to check messages, and I didn’t want you all to worry, but I know how disappointing it can be when you see an update and it’s nothing but apology for absence. So here’s the next chapter early; and I hope you’ll agree that it’s a really good one. And I’m on my break now, so I’m just going to see if I can get some help with organising our little meetup. Wish me luck!” I smiled. The Author’s Little Sister was always so professional when it came to keeping people updated on the events in her life. There were several people in my office who weren’t so courteous and hardworking; which made her behaviour even more impressive considering that this was just a hobby for her. And I was already excited to see what was going to happen next in this particular story. “Mind if I sit here?” a voice interrupted. I grunted, and nodded to the empty seats around the table. I didn’t really mind anybody sitting anywhere they wanted, so long as they didn’t bother me. I suspected that it would be the same for many of the celebs in here; they would be used to people bugging them for autographs. I hoped that I wasn’t about to be mistaken for somebody famous by a stray autograph hunter who’d sneaked in. I tried composing witty responses in my head, making them a little more assertive as I grew certain that some guy was looking at me and waiting for me to look up from my computer. I took a deep breath and looked up, only to see the last person I had expected to speak to again. Tyler Walthamstone, equally famous for being the bad boy teen girls obsess over, the star of a cheesy vampire movie, and for temporarily dropping out of Hollywood life with the intention of becoming a flight instructor, until he found out just how much work was involved and returned with his tail between his legs. “You wanted something?” “Yeah, I… What you saw before…” “You want me to keep your secrets?” “Yeah, I… Look, it wasn’t what it looks like. Image is everything for people like me. I could lose my job if anybody sees those pictures. You wouldn’t want that on your conscience, would you? I’m just trying to do the best I can, and what I get up to in my own room doesn’t affect anyone else. Can’t you just–” “Mister Walthamstone,” I said sternly. “What happens in your own trailer is nobody else’s business, and I’m sure there is nobody at all who would be interested in hearing about an inflatable unicorn and a roll of electrical tape. What is my business is when your tardiness interferes with the organisation of my conference. Doing my job well is very important to me. See how that works? You want an opportunity to continue showing off in front of impressionable young girls, I want to get everyone where they’re supposed to be. So let’s stick to our own jobs. If you manage to turn up to all of the week’s meetings on time and sober, then there’s no reason for me to spread anything to the rest of the world. Understand?” “Yes Miss,” he mumbled, and then appeared to realise what he’d just said and clapped a hand over his mouth, blushing furiously. I shook my head, and returned to reading my story. Or at least tried to. Because it seemed that Tyler Walthamstone still wanted to make conversation. He tried asking me what I was working on, and what I normally did when the circus wasn’t in town. He asked about my job and my home life, questions I managed to field without actually saying anything. After a few minutes he was acting like we were friends, and he seemed entirely impervious to both subtle and not-so-subtle hints. Perhaps I should have reminded him that I could make an awful lot of trouble for his career if he didn’t let me do my job, but I didn’t want to fall back on blackmail again. Especially not when I started to suspect that was the reason he was talking to me in the first place. Had my harsh rebukes when I caught him in the act somehow made him feel submissive? Was this his ineffectual, awkward way of working out if I might somehow want to be his Mistress? Or was he just reacting to instincts he didn’t really know the name of, oblivious to the way he was acting? Either way, I didn’t want to encourage those feelings by being more assertive or commanding with him. “Excuse me, Miss Noel?” I might have broken out into a smile when I heard my name. Could this be an excuse to get rid of my unexpected celebrity admirer? I could only hope that the newcomer was going to be less annoying with her questions. I glanced up, and realised that I should have recognised Carter’s voice immediately; she had been in my office for quite some time now, and I had spoken to her almost every day. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but I know you’ll have to complete the Persons Present report for the conference this evening. And I was wondering, could you show me how to do it? I mean, it’s no problem if you’re busy, but…” “Of course,” I beamed. “Legal paperwork has to take priority over simple fraternising. Of course, I wouldn’t want to keep you, Mr Walthamstone. I’m sorry, but I still have my job to do.” “Yeah, thanks,” he said. “See you later.” And he was gone. “I was going to do the persons report in my room before I went to bed,” I turned back to Carter. “But I can do it now. Are you hoping for a promotion some time soon?” I really couldn’t see her being in charge of a whole conference, even one much smaller than this. But I couldn’t fault her work ethic in this case, and I thought that trying to learn new procedures was a sign that she was trying to better herself now. Whether it was something I expected of her or not, I could appreciate that kind of dedication to the job. Not to mention that I was grateful she’d given me an excuse to send my new biggest fan away. “I know,” she said. “I mean, I know you’d normally do it later. I was putting off asking, but that guy seemed a little bit pushy. Wasn’t he the stalker in that… Never mind. You could have said no, but I thought…” “Yeah, he was being a bit too much. Didn’t seem able to take a hint. And I appreciate the excuse to do something else, even if it has to be work. I’ll have to do it sooner or later, so I might as well teach you while I’m here. But do you really think it’s useful to know?” She did, and I wasn’t going to argue. We went through the various forms I needed to fill in related to the number of people who were staying here as a part of the conference, and once I’d explained something she seemed to pick it up very quickly. Carter seemed really driven today, like there was a real reason she was interested in all these things. And even if I didn;t know why, that was an attitude I could respect. I did my best to teach her, and thankfully got all the way through my dinner without having to talk about my personal life again; or anyone else’s for that matter. The intern was eating chicken nuggets with ketchup, a meal I had never expected to see someone her age enjoy, but that was a tiny quirk compared to the last person who’d tried talking to me, and I promised myself that I wasn’t going to say anything about a choice that would have been so easy to mock. And unlike Tyler, Carter was quite capable of walking away to talk to someone she had a more personal connection with – a friend named Vicky in this case, though I wasn’t sure if that was someone on the conference staff or closer to her home – so that I could continue the tasks I had started before. I almost managed to start reading the latest chapter of The Baby Button, before I was distracted by an XV message from Ffrances. She explained that the router was fine, but that she’d switched my computers off as a precaution after spilling a drink near them. Smart and rational, just like I expected from my girlfriend, and I couldn’t say anything bad about that. She offered to turn them on again, but based on my knowledge of the systems I’d been using, I knew that wouldn’t restore my camera feeds until I could manually start them again. It was the worst outcome, but at least I knew what was going on now. I asked her whether Tess’s meeting with her young stalker had gone well, and she said that there had mostly just been small talk over dinner; totally normal, and no hints of romance. I was pretty sure that wasn’t true, but I couldn’t challenge Ffrances on it. I could only hope that it hadn’t gone too far. And I could be confident at least that everything hadn’t completely self-destructed in my absence. I would have to give Spike another push the next time I saw him, so that he would actually broach the baby thing with Tess, and destroy all the unfounded trust she had in him. But that was for the future. There was already a call on my radio about a group of rogue fans who had recognised one of the executive producers, and the security staff needed someone to help make the sensitive decisions. I packed up my laptop and dashed away to do my job, glad that for now everything was almost going to plan.