Diaper Derby: Catch That Baby! by Nancy Coffelt

TIME TO GET DRESSED NOW, RUDY!

Them's fightin' words, Ma'am. At least if you're toddler Rudy, just out of his bath and sleek and slippery as a seal. Before Mom can slap a Pamper on that cute little patootie, Rudy is off and running, and the race is on.

Of course it's advantage, Rudy as he dashes through the house, under tables, over tables, behind furniture, eluding everyone in the family, hustle, bustle scoot--Dad, siblings, grandparents, even an perky pup who joins in the pursuit after him. Rudy even taunts his pursuers with gleeful giggles and his own liberty battle cry:

NUDIE RUDY!

Everybody gets the giggles as Rudy continues to give them the slip. Where did that baby go? Buddy the dog is pressed into service as their own search-and-rescue hound.

WAIT! HAS BUDDY GOTTEN TO THE BOTTOM OF THIS MYSTERY?

Buddy points the way to Rudy's room. Is the diaper derby in the home stretch at last?

It's a familiar family scenario, that fleeing just-bathed baby, but Rudy gets the last and best laugh as he emerges from his room, having attired himself in a Rudy-mental way--his shirt on his legs, socks on his hands, and his pants on his head, as he victoriously crows...

"CUTIE RUDY!"

In Nancy Coffelt's latest runaway romp, Catch That Baby!, (Simon & Schuster, 2011) her brief text is charmingly augmented by the illustrations of artist Scott Nash, who coyly figleafs the runaway nude modestly while letting this "nekkid baby" have his fun run with his adoring family. This one belongs right up there with the rubber duckie as a bathtime classic.