Daddy Screws Up, Version 2,652

OK, this is what happened:

Brooke had to pick up a friend from the airport. This left me in charge of bathing and putting Sydney to bed.

The normal routine is Brooke does the bathing and I read the bedtime stories and feed Sydney her bottle, after which, she usually falls asleep. On this night, I handled all three parts of the bedtime routine.

On the times I have handled the bath, I usually let her play for 20 minutes, then spend about five minutes cleaning her, then we are off for the stories. That was my plan this time, too.

Brooke threw me for a loop adding bubbles to the water (she prepared the bath before leaving). I don’t usually do bubbles, but, since they were in there, I figured I’d take advantage of it and let the bubbles self-clean Sydney. This would save me the five minutes of work at the end. The bubbles would clean Sydney while she was playing.

Now, while Sydney plays, I usually sit nearby scrolling my Ipod, setting my Fantasy Football lineups, reading the news of the day or playing Words with Friends. My job is to simply make sure she doesn’t drown. She loves bath time, so I let her play.

So I am scrolling and about 15 minutes into the bath, Sydney stands up. I immediately sit her back down and tell her “NO! We don’t stand in the tub.”

Sydney loves to get this kind of reaction from me. She thinks it is funny and it encourages her to again do whatever it is that drew the reaction.

So, a couple of minutes later, she stands up again. Same routine. I sit her down, tell her “NO” and go back to scrolling. A few minutes later, the same.

This time I tell her, “If you do that again, that is the end of your bath. We are getting out.”

Of course, she does it again two minutes later. I quickly whisked her up, threw her in a towel and walked her to her changing table.

End of bath.

I dried her off, put on her pajamas and read her a few stories. After her bottle, she was ready for bed.

Shortly after she fell asleep, my wife came home. She and her friend sat downstairs talking for a couple of hours and then came up for bed.

My wife goes in the bathroom and then comes running into our bedroom with a horrified look on her face.

“Did you see the tub??”

“Oh, sorry, I forgot to drain it. Sydney kept standing up and..”

“NO! There is poop in the bathtub! How long did you have her in there?”

“What? No, she didn’t poop in the tub. I was watching her and…”

“She pooped in the tub. There are three turds in there. It is disgusting. How could you not have noticed?”

“Well, there were bubbles and you can’t see below the bubbles and…”

“I can’t believe you. She is going to be sick from being in that water. You have to pay more attention. You are so non-observant when it comes to watching her. You have to be more observant.”

“Yes, dear.”

At this point, I was totally defeated and feeling like a horrible dad. How could I not have noticed something taking place three feet from me?

That’s the story. If letting her roll off the bed onto the floor wasn’t bad enough, my inattentiveness now has led to my daughter pooping in the tub and me leaving it there for three hours. While Brooke had a friend staying with us.

I’m sure my wife had a fun time explaining what an idiot her husband is.

Thank God Sydney didn’t decide to take a few swallows of bathwater, which she is sometimes apt to do.

Call me Daddy Disaster.

Despite my stereotypical ineptness, I really do love my daughter!

So, if you are used to playing Words With Friends with me, I’m afraid I will no longer be able to carry on a game between the hours of 8 p.m. and 10 p.m.

Sorry.