God Looks Out for Babies and Fools... RS

There is an old cliché that says God takes care of babies and fools. I believe this to be true because this past weekend my little girl turned 10 yrs old. She is my baby… and I am a fool… and God has taken care of us both.

Have you ever had one of those moments as a child where you looked at your parents and just wondered how and why they were granted the right to be parents? My daughter has one of those moments every time she’s in the same room as me.

Flash back eight years or so. My family was slated to arrive in town. I forgot to set my alarm clock. Shit! Now I’m running late to pick them up from the airport… Now I have to hurry to get me and my kid ready.

OK, how am I going to do this? Well, I guess I should just get myself ready while she is still asleep, then get her ready when I am done. Or, I could wake her up, get her cleaned and dressed and then let her eat while I’m getting ready. Or, I could get ready and just pick her up and put her in the car asleep. Or, I could put her in the bathtub and let her play in the water while I wash up in the other bathroom. Or I could just leave her here with my roommate and his girlfriend. The possibilities were endless. Sensory overload set in.

After sitting there for 20 minutes deciding how I should handle the situation, I realized that I had in fact just wasted 20 minutes. I sat there for another five minutes stressing out about how I had just wasted 20. After reconsidering all my options one last time, I finally made a decision: get her washed, give her something to eat and then you get ready.

I hastily picked her up from her crib.

In case you don’t have children you might not know: you should never hastily pick up an 18-month old. It’s just stupid. Picking her up so quickly startled and woke her.

But being awake wasn’t a problem. Her screaming because I’m a dumbass was. I tossed her on the bed and took her clothes off, amidst her cries and pleas for help. I figured once she was in the tub shit would be cool. Kids love the bathtub. They can slosh water around, they can play in the bubbles, and they can eat soap. The tub was the answer.

At that moment the worst thing that could have possibly happened did happen. I had a great idea.

I’m not going to put my 18-month old in the bath tub. That would take too much time. I’m going to give her a shower.

Yes, the shower. This is going to be great. I’m going to save time, and everything is going to work out for the best. My mind was racing at 100 mph as I took handfuls of water from the shower and dumped it on her to get her wet. Never mind that now the bathroom floor is soaked. It’s cool because this is all part of my plan.

It gets worse. Implementation of the next stage of my master plan... putting soap all over her. Let’s step back for a minute, and take a good look at what is actually taking place. A naked, freezing, screaming 18-month old girl in the middle of a bathroom; her idiot father sitting on the soaked bathroom floor, in his boxers, lathering her up with Dial Body Wash.

It gets worse still. After feverishly lathering up my offspring, I put the finale part of my masterpiece to work. I got up off the soaking wet floor, picked up my soapy, slippery angel, turned on the shower and shoved into the path of the water. She screamed like there was no tomorrow. Figuring the water to be too hot, I turned up the cold water and shoved her back in the H2O’s violent path.

The screaming continued, but I figured it was cool. I had about half the soap off her at this point, so I was confident that she was going to make it thought the ordeal. The only problem was that I really couldn’t rotate her 180 degrees, without actually getting halfway in the shower myself. I was kind of leaning and twisting and turning, but I was just missing too many spots.

By this point I was so wrapped up in plan execution I had forgotten her screams. I now had one leg in the shower, and was trying my hardest to get the last of the soap off -- while she kicked and yelled and spit water at me. I just didn’t know why. The water was nice and warm.

Hearing the screams for help… my roommates girlfriend came to assist me… She walked in and there she saw… a naked, soapy, dripping 18-month old held captive in a stream of rapidly moving water. Her father standing there in soaked boxer shorts, with one leg on a slippery floor, and the other off-balance in the shower…

“What the fuck are you doing,” she asked. Rightly so I think.

People should have to pass a test to have children… I’m unfit to be a father even now… but I continue to try my very hardest…

Happy Birthday Baby Girl…

RS