Sins of the Father

                                                     I am…your father….

My daughter seems to be recovering well from our recent excursion to the ER that I wrote about last time.  She’s been able to walk around and move about pretty well, albeit with a slight limp.  She’s a little trooper, she is.  Still, I think I’m still carrying around a bit of guilt and sometimes I wonder if she thinks of me the way ‘ol Luke up there did when he discovered Vader was his father.  It didn’t help that we’ve had yet another “episode” during the week.  Again my fault but I’ll get to that in a minute.

So the guilt part.  Although I know that my daughter doesn’t blame me for any of this, every time I see her walking around with a little limp it just sends these little twinges of guilt through me and “I’msorryI’msorryI’msorry” just rushes through my head.  This morning  I got her dressed for daycare and I put some extra thick socks on her (we’ve been having a cold spell) which of course, makes putting on her shoes a little more difficult.  The top of her foot is a bit tender still and with the thicker socks fit inside the shoe is tighter.  She whimpered a bit when I tried to put on the shoes.  Twinge of guilt.  Okay, no shoes. Then there was when she first came home from the ER and was wearing that splint (which went all the up to her knee) it just made me feel so bad.  Twinge of guilt. What’s worse is that splint is toddler sized and you know, all toddler sized things are cute.  I thought it was cute.  I took pictures.  I felt guilty for thinking it was cute and taking pictures.  I’m a bad, bad man. 

Then came the other episode this week.  One of my daughter’s favorite things is bath time.  Every evening we’ll ask her “You wanna’ go take a bath?”  and she’ll respond “Ba!!” while pointing to the bathroom.  I’ll get the water running and start getting her undressed and she’s literally squealing with excitment and doing her little dancey, dance (kinda’ like she needs to pee real bad).  We bathe her in the master bathroom and it’s a nice big jacuzzi tub with lots of room for her bath toys.  She’s having a grand time, splish splashing around and pretty much getting me soaked in the process.  We’re having fun.  Then she discovers a button on the side of the tub.  She LOVES buttons.  If something has a button on it, she wants to push it.  So she’s discovered this one huge button on the side of the tub and she’s trying to push it.  So I, in my infinite wisdom, think, “Oh! This might be fun!  Maybe she’ll enjoy the bubbles and the jets.”  You probably know where this is going now. 

So I help her push the button.  Now, our jacuzzi tub is not quiet.  It’s rather loud and obnoxious and the jets are a bit strong.  I did not think about this.  As the button is pushed the tub starts to hum and then gets on to full on rumbly, earthquake mode.  Then the jets start going.  So I’m looking at my daughter and smiling and going “Look! Bubbles!”  Only she’s not looking like she’s having fun.  Instead she’s looking around, then looks at me with eyes as wide as saucers.  Then she freaks the heck out.  What was once a fun innocent bath time for her is now….

That was on Tuesday.  So last night it was bath time again.  I didn’t really think about the episode on Tuesday anymore supposing it was a one time thing.  I just won’t turn on the jets. Lesson learned.  So we’re going through our same routine and she’s doing her little dancey, dance getting ready to go in the tub.  She’s excited to bathe and she’s covered in ketchup from dinner so she needs to bathe.   I put her in the tub and she’s starting to play.  Things seem back to normal.  Not more than 10 seconds later she begins to look around. All of sudden you see the look of recognition come across her face as she realizes where she is. And then… she freaks the heck out.  She’s crying, she’s reaching for me but she needs a bath!  So despite her crying I’ve got to scrub her down and wash her hair.  It was definitely not fun.  Bath was quick and I took her out to towel her off.  Guilt, guilt, guilt.  I’ve now ruined bath time.  Then I noticed, as I was bundling her up and drying her off, through the bundle of towels she was giving me “The Look.” You know that look.  The one where only a woman can truly give.

The Look?

Tip: Hey Dad, your bright ideas aren’t always so bright.  Think your “cool” ideas through before you try them.