*OT* Father's Day *OT*

So... today was Father's day.

My baby grrl decided to make Daddy an original painting, just for me... I'm so proud. Only thing is... her chosen medium was poop, and her canvas was half the toys in the playroom. And herself, of course.

One emergency bath later, and then I'm washing everything in the playroom with sanitizing wipes... I finally get a chance to clean myself up and make a bite to eat.

"WHUMP! WHUMP! WHUMP!" is the sound the TV in the living room makes when she slaps the screen; she does it whenever Pinky Pie or Mojo Jojo is playing on the Netflix.

"Baby grrl, stop beating on Daddy's TV." The sound stops. I go back to my meal.

"WHUMP! WHUMP! WHUMP!" again a few minutes later... "Baby grrl, I told you..."

"DADDY! Baby sisser POOPY!" my 5-year-old son interrupts me. I wolf down the last couple bites, already knowing what I'm going to find.

And it's worse than I feared... all over the TV, all over her hands, all over her face, even her hair.

Fatherhood. The gift that keeps on giving.

As the likelihood that she had gotten it in her mouth dawned on me, I realized it was time for her to get something she'd never had before... a spanking. This was a behavior that we could not permit her to repeat; I was terrified she would wind up with e Coli poisoning. The TV had nothing to do with it; it's an old projection set, and we keep it because we don't want to get a new one for her to beat on. We hope it will last until she outgrows that behavior.

I hold up one poopy hand, tell her no, and give her one swift swat on her bare bottom. The look of disbelief, then betrayal that she gave me in return; it made me want to cry. Just like with her brother's first spanking.

Then it was time for another bath, and scrubbing the TV, and wiping it all down with disinfectant. Thankfully, mommie took over the grrl after I had her wrapped in a towel.

A little while later, I see an eMail from iFixit; I was a regular there for a while. Still scope out their teardowns from time to time. There was a link to an article by the founder, talking about his grand-dad:

Fix Things, Never Force It: Lessons From Grandpa | iFixit

...and I thought about papa Edwards; he was a great gruff bear of a man, and very much the same story as Kyle's, with the exception of papa being a ship's cook & medic who became a Master Machinist after the war, and the farm he "retired to" was in the middle of the Finger Lakes region of New York State. He was the closest thing I had to a father growing up; the picture in the article even looks like him.

I cut my teeth on one of his brass drifts in a playpen in the kitchen of a house in Burlington, NJ that he built himself out of a kit ordered from Sears, Roebuck & Co. He moved us all lock, stock & barrel to the farm a few years later driving a '62 Chevy flatbed he bought at auction & rebuilt the engine himself; I remember mom-mom telling me how he freed up the pistons by soaking the block in the bathtub full of kerosene & transmission oil. My own son cut his teeth on a 10mm ignition wrench he snurched from my toolbox; baby grrl cut her teeth on me and a sippy cup; mostly me.

As I ruminate over these and a thousand other memories, my son comes and rests his head on my side; he sighs, knowing that I'm not likely to want to get up once I start reading my E and such. Still he asks, tugging me to go play with him and his sister. Weary, back aching from scrubbing two rooms I think of saying no... and immediately I think better of it. "Take time to be a Dad on Father's Day, you putz." I tell myself and allow myself to be dragged into the playroom. We roughhouse a little, and play catch with some indoor balls with his sister, and when I need to, I sit on the hood of his wooden rocking car. Thank Ifni that thing is built like a tank.

The next thing I know mommie is telling us it's past time for bed; she gets the baby ready while brother and I decide on his 3 storybooks for the night. She plops baby on the bed next to me and we have a few melees of tickleattacks; then we read the three stories while little sister kicks the boy senseless. I've warned him not to play too rough with her time and again; that when she gets older she's gonna kick his butt and not a thing he can do about it. He's learning that lesson now just like I learned most of what I learned growing up; the hard way.

Tuck everybody in, bedtimes hugs & kisses then milk for the baby; & I come out to the computer to try and capture the ephemeral moment before it vaporizes into the aether. Around the point I'm writing about Burlington, I hear mommie shouting from the bedroom: "Oh, baby.... not again..."

I take the baby grrl away for another round of "Karen Silkwood" while mother gets the disinfectant and clean bedclothes for the crib. As I scrub my baby girl's cheeks for a third time today, I see how utterly confused she is by the whole thing. I know she just got yelled at by mommie, so I smile kindly and speaking softly, I tell her that she has to stop playing with her poop; that this is going to happen every single time she does it, because Daddy doesn't want her to get sick. And I realize even as I say the words that I am speaking the absolute truth; that I will still not hesitate to do it the 10th time, or the 20th time, or the 100th time if it comes. Because she's my little grrl, and I'm her Daddy. And nothing is more important than that.

Fatherhood. The gift that keeps on giving.


mnem
I'm still not putting that one up on the fridge.

 

It's good to hear from you mnem.


That gives a whole new dimension to having a cr*ppy day.

 

Lord! Good luck sir!

Hope you had a good one other than that!

 

It WAS a good one.

I Guess I didn't express it clearly enough; but even after all the mess, I found myself reminded of how important being her Daddy was to me. THAT was the gestalt of what I was trying to pass along; that in the end, all of it paled insignificant next to the fact of how much I love that little grrl.






mnem
I hope everybody's father's Day was as good as mine.