Oh dear. This happened a couple of weeks ago, but boy does it easily slip into second spot on my world’s worst dad moments list. And to be fair, it should firmly feature as Ryan’s first world’s worst uncle moment too! (Just in case you’re wondering what was my first world’s worst dad moment, then undoubtedly it would have to have been that time when I accidentally spilled scalding hot water from my coffee mug over mini Jessica, back when she was still just a couple of months old – thank goodness nothing serious came out of that, other than me feeling like an extremely horrible and useless dad of course).
Anyway, after a fantastic Sunday afternoon spent with my family at Mom and Dad’s pad whilst Chantelle was out watching a theatre show with her family, I decided to cap the day off with a visit to the local duck pond. Jessica and I made the stop off for some bread, and through some surprise circumstances, ended up at Sonstraal Dam with the full roster of Mom, Dad, Ryan, Monty, Cheryl, Chantelle and Robert in attendance, where we then proceeded to feed the ducks and enjoy the fresh, albeit a little chilly, outdoor air.
After all the bread had been gobbled up by the hordes of ducks and Egyptian geese that had descended upon us, Ryan and I thought it would be a good idea to entertain Jessica by walking with her hand in hand and swinging her up into the air we went along. This was coming along swimmingly, and Jessica would giggle in glee as we swung her upwards into the sky after every count of 3, until that infamous and regrettable moment when both Ryan and I simultaneously lost grip on Jessica’s hands at the start of an upward swing, with the result being my daughter flying face first into the gravel before us.
Oh dear.
Blood, tears and a very angry wife, not to mention a deep feeling of shame.
So yes, definitely second in my probably yet to be finished list of World’s Worst Dad moments.
(The creche asked about the scab and the bump the next morning mind you. And my colleagues laughed and made fun of me. Sigh, not my best of moments as a daddy then. Luckily for me, Jessica has a particularly short memory, and quickly got back into the “swing” of things. Snigger. See what I did there?)