This past weekend we took our daughter to a Bowling birthday party. This was her first experience bowling so we weren't quite sure how she would do. Overall, she was pretty excited, but she tends to startle easily and the first sounds of the ball hitting the pins made her pause and take a few steps back. It took some convincing, but I finally got her up to the lane to bowl. We had one of those ramp things so all she really had to do was push the ball, which she did. The ball didn't have a lot of velocity on it coming off the ramp because, well, she's two. Nevertheless she got a few pins and we were on our way.
It was at this point that I decided to start working the crowd...or at least anyone who would listen to me. The comedy came out of the unique ability that many fathers/men have to turn everything into a contest. By dang, my kid will be the best 2-year-old bowler here, I thought! So, as I was rambling on about how embarassing my daughter's performance was thus far, I drifted back to get the 8lb ball for her to push for the second part of her turn. Unbeknownst to me, she had drifted back with me. Just as I was delivering the punchline to my joke, it turns out I was also delivering an 8lb bowling ball to my kid's forehead. I picked up the ball, told my joke, turned, and WHAM! Knocked her down with one clean shot to the head with a bowling ball.
As she was screaming, I went from stunned to embarassed to feeling like the worst parent in the world for having just put my kid down with a bowling ball for crying out loud. If you ever want to feel really bad about yourself, accidentally injure one of your children...it's a real trip.
If you want to feel even smaller, have your buddy email you a video of his kid bowling with you in the background taking a bowling ball to your kid's head with the headline "Someone Call Child Protective Services!"
What a Pinhead!
Ouch! Hope she's ok.
ReplyDeleteI have an example of bad grandparenting. We were over at my father-in-law's new condo yesterday with the boys. He started lecturing us on how we need to child-proof our house better now that the kids are close to walking, despite the fact that we really have no sharp corners in the room in which they spend the most time. Just as he finished talking, Liam crawled into one of the 5,000 sharp corners in my father-in-law's living room, causing a one centimeter cut just below his eyebrow. Buys a condo in Northern VA so he can see the grandkids more often, and he fills it with jagged furniture.
I will testify that you are a good parent if you are taken to court.
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