What have you done to your kids that they might not appreciate until they have their own kids? Dropped them on their head? Left them in their car seat on top of the car?
My personal best happened one day when BabySponte was about 11 months. MrsSponte was out, and BabySponte wouldn’t let me out of his sight. Nature called, and I went to the bathroom, leaving the door open so he could see me. At this time, BabySponte was fascinated with sticking his hands into the toilet, so I assumed a wide stance to prevent him from doing so as I did my business.
This turned out to be ineffective. BabySponte walked between my legs to get to the toilet - in the process sticking the back of his head right into the stream of urine.
I don’t imagine he’ll find that story funny until he is much older.
I was changing my clothes when my daughter was quite young. She grabbed my slippers, put them on, and was marching around the room. “I’m being the daddy”, quoth she. “I have everything Mommy told me I need to be a daddy.”
Another urine story. One I did not learn about for many many years.
My Dad came home very very drunk when I was a baby. And he decided he really needed to pee. So he headed for the bathroom, and did his thing. Only he wasn’t in the bathroom. He was in my room. Over my crib.
My mum found him. It was the only time she has ever been violent to him. He stopped drinking from then on.
One comes to mind, and it unfortunately isn’t funny:
When my then 2 1/2-year-old son needed his adnoids and tonsils out (bad snore, tonsillitis, sleep apnea), we brought him into surgery. He sat on my lap while waiting, then I carried him into the operating room.
And then - they had me fit the anesthetic gas mask over his mouth and nose and knock the little guy out.
At first, I didn’t think twice - they wanted me to do it because I was familiar, I guess. But when I did it, he looked at me like “wait, you mean YOU’RE the Russian double agent and are betraying me so you can explode the bomb?!” His look of utter shock and that sense of “…but…but…you’re my dad” was pretty much the most awful experience I have ever had as a parent.
He woke up from surgery crying but still wanting me to comfort him, so that was okay. Then he fell straight to sleep for a couple of hours - and his first words when he woke up?
“Does Daddy still like <WordSon>?”
Broke my heart. It worked out fine; he was sleeping better right after surgery and we still have a wonderful relationship. But man…
When she was around 2 or 3 years old I did something incredibly stupid: it was Independence Day and I gave her a sparkler and lit it for her. She played with it for a couple seconds, then proceeded to touch her cheek with it. The sparkler created a 1 inch long burn mark on her cheek. :smack:
I felt absolutely sick about it. How stupid could I have been for giving her a sparkler? :smack: :smack:
I was worried sick that she would be permanently scarred. My wife took her to the doctor, but there was nothing that could be done.
The scar healed, but it took a while. Today you can’t see it. Well, for the most part. In just the right light, you can barely make it out. But you have to be looking for it.
It was one of those Truly Horrible Moments in Parenting. My son was almost 2, and he was dead set against me fastening him into his car seat. Every time I leaned in to snap the buckles, he smacked me in the face. After about three tries, I smacked him back – not hard, but enough to get his attention. The look of shock and betrayal on his face shamed me to tears.
When my grown son was a wee lad, I had him in his car seat in the back seat of the car with me. (Dad was driving.) I went to throw my cigarette out the window (I know, I know- many layers of wrong: littering, smoking around the baby, etc.) - but the window wasn’t rolled down! :smack: The cherry fell off and I couldn’t find it. A few seconds later, the baby started screaming! Took me a few more seconds to find the fire. :eek: Poor little guy. I felt absolutely horrible.
For what it’s worth - I quit smoking four years ago. And I never burned the baby again!
Probably to even laugh.
And I never burned the baby again!