I find myself stricken. Don't worry, I'm not stricken by
illness. Although, my face is slightly sore from running into a tree branch
while playing capture the flag on Wednesday night into Thursday morning. (Thanks
for asking.)
 |
| I'll show you, Mr. Tree Branch |
No, I'm stricken by something else and that would be the
ability to disappoint poor Bethany. Now, I realize that it's probably pretty
common for members of the male sex to inevitably disappoint their wives in one
fashion or another. In our house, it's normally something along the lines of me
not doing something I said I would do.
"Jesse, will you take out the diapers?"
"Sure, of course I will."
"And would you mind terribly doing the dishes?"
"Uh huh."
"Maybe toss in a load of laundry while you're at
it."
"No problem."
Just so you know, Bethany is nowhere near that nagging. In
fact, when she reads this, she'll probably ask if she nags too much.
 |
| I'll get around to it at some point... |
The point is that I have a propensity for saying I'll do
things, then I inevitably get distracted, put it off, and well, it doesn't get
done. Now, don't worry as I normally do get it done...sometime that week. The
funny thing is that I generally don't feel too badly about those times. The
things I feel badly about are when I fail to adequately document some very
special moment in young Ellie's life. In fact, one of those moments occurred on
Thursday.
What exactly was that moment you ask? Well, Ellie actually
got an invite to her first big kid pool party. She has had play dates in the
past revolving around water but never actually in a real swimming pool. With my
college roommate housesitting for his parents, he and his wife decided to take
advantage and host a pool party for all of their friends with kids. So, with
the invite in hand, Ellie and I loaded up around 1:00 after her post-lunch nap
and headed towards St. Joseph.
Honestly, I was a little concerned that Ellie would be among
the youngest there and that it could potentially be awkward as a result. It
turns out that worry was totally in vain as Ellie found herself smack dab in
the middle in terms of age.
Once we arrived, I dressed Ellie in her purple one piece
swimsuit and bucket hat (no bikinis for the baby yet), tossed on my own trunks and headed
towards the pool. I was a little uncertain as to how Ellie would respond to a
big pool. Obviously, she loves her kiddie pool and her baths, but there's a
huge difference between those two things and a full-size pool. Namely, many,
many gallons of water.
With Ellie in my arms, I cautiously walked down the steps to
enter the shallow portion of the pool with baby in hand. Once I reached solid
ground, I bent my knees slightly to put the water level right around Ellie's
chest. Her response? Squeal in delight and begin hitting the water excitedly.
In fact, before long, I was giving Ellie her first round of swim lessons. In
case you're wondering, that pretty much looked like me turning her horizontal
with one hand on her chest and one on her backside to support and brace her.
She was actually doggy-paddling like a champ and everything.
Before long, two hours had passed for us and it was time for
our pool fun to come to an end. Unceremoniously I must add as my sweet daughter didn't even get to go down the big water slide once. As I removed Ellie from the pool, dried her
off, and wrapped her up in a fleece cover-up, she took one final glance at the
pool, pointed, and sadly declared "Ha!". Unfortunately, there was no
more pool fun to be had on that day.
Doubly unfortunate, after we were both dressed and back in
the car, I looked down to see my cell phone sitting in the cup holder. I then
came to the realization that I had completely forgotten to document the day for
Bethany in any way, shape, or form. Man, am I a bad dad/husband or what?
Hopefully this blog post of approximately 700 words can help
fill the void left by the lack of photographs in some fashion. If not, we can
always document Ellie's second pool experience and declare it to be "the
first". Is that slightly unethical? #DaddyWrite
No comments:
Post a Comment