Watching over a group of kids in a bounce house takes some steely nerves.
I found myself in this predicament for a few minutes last weekend and I quickly shirked my responsibilities after being traumatized by a little girl getting hurt.
What happened to her? That’s not really the question. It’s more like: what didn’t happen to her?
She got bounced around the area from one side to the other. She fell. She got up. She fell again after getting knocked into by accident. She reclaimed her balance temporarily before falling again. She got stepped on. She slipped. She got kicked. She went down the slide and landed on the ground outside the bounce house.
It was that last one that caused her to cry. Everything else was followed by laughter and shrieks of excitement. All of the stuff that happens inside a bounce house is largely unintentional. It just goes with the territory.
With five or six kids bouncing inside a soft structure full of air, there are bound to be kids falling all over the place. When kids on one side of the house jump, the other side inevitably feels the impact, resulting typically in kids crashing into each other.
Without a doubt, a bounce house full of kids could be one of the most unsettling sights ever. That’s why after a couple minutes I just turned my back and tried to take my mind off my kids flipping around inside the bounce house by talking with other parents, who seemed to share my position of not looking. Inevitably, due to the screams of fun and recklessness, our attention turned to the bounce house again.
The parent grimaces and widespread anticipation of pain and injury inevitably returned and as a group we all turned back around toward the bounce house. I could only take a minute or two of observing before resigning my bounce house responsibilities.
I played golf last week for the first time since my kids were born.
In the days leading up to my first round in seven years, I quickly realized why I never play. Lining up and doling out my responsibilities while on the course for more than four hours was complicated. There were the kids’ school pickups that had to be divided between my mom and my wife. With the kids getting out of their two different schools within 15 minutes of each other, it’s difficult for one person to do both unless everything falls into place perfectly. Since that rarely happens, it’s necessary to divide and conquer.
That’s not to mention the work that has to be done to allow a half day off during my busiest time of year as well as making sure my wife was cool with flying solo with our two boys while I played with friends.
All of it got done in time for our tee time and off we went. In all, I lost more than a dozen balls and got home in time to tuck in Beckett. His little brother, Carson, was already down.
When I walked in the door, Beckett greeted me with, “Daddy where have you been? I have been waiting to go outside since I got home.”
It was, of course, dark by this time, but promises for the next day were made. It’s always nice to be missed.
Although we try and avoid talking to our kids about unpleasant current events, the situation in Baltimore impacted them this week so it had to be discussed.
We had been planning to spend the weekend in the Baltimore area, including a karate event on Saturday and then an Orioles game on Sunday afternoon.
When the Orioles cancelled their weekend games, we had to let the boys know about the change of plans. I first told Carson because I saw him first. He took it in stride and simply signed “crazy” — pointing his finger up to his ears and going in a circular fashion. I told him he was right.
Beckett had been excited for his first Orioles game and was definitely more disappointed. Pam was with him first and explained why the game had to be cancelled. Later, when we were all together, I showed him the video that went viral this week.
It showed a mom’s honest reaction after noticing her son was one of the idiots rioting and fighting police on the streets of Baltimore. She literally yanked her son out of the crowd and began beating on him. The single mom of six was largely cheered and celebrated by parents everywhere for acting in a responsible fashion.
I pulled the video up on my phone to show Beckett. Pam happened to be sitting next to him so they watched it together. Beckett didn’t say much about it, which is entirely unusual. If he’s awake, he’s usually talking about something.
Pam said to him, partly in jest, “that’s exactly what I would do if I saw you out there throwing rocks at police officers and destroying cars and buildings.”
In his matter of fact fashion, Beckett replied, “Well, then I guess I would deserve it,” before moving quickly on to something else.