by Joe Owens

Created on: May 21, 2008   Last Updated: March 10, 2009

If we were intelligent, organized individuals we would take the time to document the hundreds of funny occurrences our children provide that we will retell hundreds of times with the expected embellishments to the stories. My children are 13 and 11 and have given me a rich pool from which to choose. Trying to determine one event to fit the size of the article is not easy, so I may have to include a couple.

From the birth of my son I have been a totally hands on father. In the delivery room, I was able to cut the cord for both my children. No, I did not incubate them for the first 9 months of their life, but from their entrance into the world, I have been there to support and help them succeed. As a matter of fact, I had the kids on my own every Saturday due to my wife's work schedule. As a hairdresser, she had Sunday and Monday off while I always have had a Monday through Friday job.

Interestingly though, this story comes from an adventure we had one evening after I came home from work, while my wife was still on maternity leave. From the time my little boy woke until roughly five thirty in the afternoon, he and my wife had time to bond. As with all babies, particular days presented pleasant bonding, while others were filled with challenge. My wife decided that she wanted to take on the mowing duties on our brand new riding mower to get a "break" from the bonding and allow me to have my chance.

Always the eager father, I jumped at the chance to have my own time to connect with my baby boy. This particular evening, I was tasked with giving my son a bath. We found that the easiest way was to get in the bath with our son so that we did not make a terrible mess and so we could hold him in a safe way while bathing him sufficiently.

All was going very well, I thought. He was pretty satisfied with the arrangement; at least until the cup I used to rinse his hair tilted a bit too much and sent a torrent of water over his face. Anyone who has a baby knows that when a baby gets scared, the first thing the do is jerk back and suck in a gulp of air. Well, my son got not only air, but water.

I do not remember the next ten seconds, but somehow I made it out of the bathtub with my son, wrapped a towel around my waist and ran out onto the back deck of our house where I proceeded to scream my wife's name loud enough for the entire region to hear. I know she could hear because she immediately jerked her head toward the house to see me holding my sputtering boy out like some toward of raving lunatic.

She immediately drove up to where I was and after seeing that everyone was going to live, tried hard not to laugh. I was not in a humorous mood, so the amount of chuckles I enjoyed was limited. Needless to say, my son has no recollection of the event, although he does blame me for almost drowning last summer when he got too tired swimming in a nearby lake.

Funny days help you overcome the struggles in life. I hope this story will make you exercise the best medicine in the world as you laugh.

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