For the record, this wasn't my fault. I just want to make that perfectly clear at the beginning of this. It wasn't me. You are not going to believe me when you read this. In fact, I doubt that most of my family doesn't believe me when I saw it wasn't me. But it wasn't.
I like to think that I'm a pretty normal dad. I adore my daughter and my son. I take them every where with me. I'm at the point where I feel very confident when I'm out and about with my two little minions doing my bidding. I do normal dad things most of the times. We go to the park, the zoo and Home Depot. I teach my daughter things like how to salute the flag (did that one today) and I teach my son to guard his crotch when Little Hoss is feeling "punchy". That's when we call the cat.
And of course, like most fathers, I rough house with them. There is some throwing, there may be some top rope action and now-a-days I'm doing the pull the shirt over the head Hockey fight technique. You have to teach them all kinds of ways. Next week is drunk boxing. I have no idea what drunk boxing is but I saw it being uploaded to Neo in the movie the Matrix and I have always wondered what kind of style that is. Do I puke first or hit on your woman first? We'll get there. I suppose that the only thing that makes me a little different is that I'm a stay at home dad. But other than that, I'm pretty normal.
With all that in mind I suppose that it is no wonder that we found ourselves in the emergency room with Little Hoss at about 9 pm last Saturday night. She was screaming her head off because she had gotten hurt.
It was her little arm. It's time's like these that you forget everything as a father and just look at your little girl and wonder how she could ever be so small. Sure, you brag to people about how she is in the 90th percintile in hieght, how she can tackle the dog now and put him in a headlock and how why just the other day she found Osama Bin Laden and made him write a full page apology.
But when she's hurt, she just looks so tiny, so fragile. In contrast, this is when the "DAD GENE " kicks in, at least for me, and you seem to gain a good 20 pounds of muscle. You are looking for the culprit who hurt your precious little girl and looking to whip a little ass to make her feel better. I have no idea why you feel this way, but you do.
The truly hard part though is that there is usually no one to punch when this happens. There is no one you can put in a figure four leg lock until they swear to Jesus himself that whatever they did, they will never do it again. I think that God must think that this is funny. Because what you end up doing is pacing a small emergency room and wondering why the god damn nurse is taking so god damn long to bring your little angel some god damn water.
You also end up wondering why the god damn nurse is also so god damn calm, can't she hear your little girl screaming? China can hear her screaming for pity's sake so I either have a deaf nurse or she can't keep from undressing me with her eyes everytime she comes in. I choose option B because that makes me look cool and hot and not overweight and balding. I like cool and hot better.
So you scoop up your little girl because she needs her dad right now and that's me, cool and hot dad with my little toddler screaming and holding her arm. You pace around the room with your little girl slobbering all over your shirt so much that now you are in a wet t-shirt contest. Again, no nurse.
But you don't care. I've done a lot of gross things for my kids, things that I will certaintly bring up one day when they want to date Chester the highschool drop out who "knows the band". At that moment, I will bring up the fact that I held my daughter while she puked down my back because she was scared and I didn't let go of her so how can she break my heart like this? I plan years in advance.
The nurse comes in and I'm a little disappointed that it's not a male nurse. I might be able to punch him a little bit but I can't a female, it's just not in me. I grew up in the south and if I did that I'm sure that my entire redneck family would show up and horsewhip me and I wouldn't complain because I would deserve it. But I am a little at the end of my own rope here. I also notice that the nurse's eyes seem to be staring at my wet shirt.
In my best "do this or get an asswhiping" voice, I suggest that my daughter needs some pain killers as soon as possible and we would really very much appreciate it if the doctor would stop checking his own prostate and perhaps get his medical ass over here. I swear, I was gentle. I look over at Hossmom and she gives me the nod of approval for the way I'm handeling things.
Here's a little secret for you others out there. My wife may no approve of violence of any kind, but there are a few times, such as this, where she would actually be ok with me popping someone. She would say she wouldn't be, but the nod says different. It's her little girl to and Hossmom is glad she can call upon the muscles when she really needs to. She'll never admit it, but I see it.
The nurse agrees and saunters out of the room and I continue to hold my little girl who is still crying but not as much now. I start trying to make her laugh, which is the dad back up plan when a haymaker won't fix anything. I do jokes, funny voices, point out that there are two beds in the room and that indeed is crazy. It works to a point and she calms down enough to tell me that she hurts. The fact that she can verbilize this now I think is more heartbreaking than before and I would do anything if she would just feel better. I hurt my self all the time and I find it amazing that I actually still have all my fingers.
The doctor comes and asks what happened. The nurse, the doc and hell, even my own wife looks at me like they all know that I did it somehow. That maybe we were on the roof testing out new hangliders. But no sir, not this time, this time it's not dad.
One of the habits that my daughter has gotten into of late is throwing herself off things. She does this mainly because good old dad is always there to catch her and throw her into the air. We laugh and then go back deciding how we would bomb Russia. It's a fun game that my son is now starting to get into.
Unfortunatly, this time, I wasn't there. Hossmom was.
Dum, dum, dum, the plot takes a twist!
I also find that my wife looking at me like all the others somewhat weird. Sure honey, I'll take the rap for this one because I don't like you being hurt either. And I can tell by the mountains of tears that you have been crying that you are breaking inside just like me. Seriously, sometimes being dad sucks balls because you have to be strong when everyone else seems to be breaking down. Sometimes I want to too.
It turns out that my daughter launched herself out of a chair. Not feet first mind you, but sideways. This was intentional on her part, not bad footing. She was trying to fly like superman because usually I grab her before she hits the ground. Most times.
This time Hossmom was with her and Hossmom reached out and grabbed her arm. Hossmom was pulling up as Little Hoss was plumeting down and pop, her elbow got dislocated.
It's called nursemaids elbow and is apparently very common in very small kids. The ulna pops out of the joint and according to my daughter, hurts worse than a finger in the eye.
In slow motion replay, I have determined that team Hossmom/Little Hoss did not have enough communication doing this daring move. Perhaps some more practice time between partners would have helped. They should have started small, like launching off pillows and lincoln logs first. But my daughter is a dare devil and says damn the risks.
After the examination the doctor had to put her joint back together which apparently is done by grabbing her elbow and making her scream more. During this, I debate whether punching the doctor would do any good while he is making Little Hoss scream and cry worse than before. Before long he says he got it but I don't know if I trust him. I don't know really why but it's probably a lingering effect of him making Little Hoss scream. But I don't punch him. In fact, I don't punch anyone and we finally get out of there at midnight. Little Hoss is in a sling which she thinks is "crazy" as well. I agree. Hossmom looks almost pale and is tired. I get home and put everyone to bed, Dad did good.
She was in the sling over the weekend until we went to our doctor on Monday. She examines little Hoss and wants more x-rays, just incase to make sure nothing is broken. She asks me how this happens.
At that exact moment Little Hoss luanches herself off the examining table.
"Pretty much like that" I explain as I swoop and grab my daughter before she smacks the floor.
Not to brag, but I'm a pretty great dad sometimes.
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