Drowning Pooh

Posted by danleone on December 3rd, 2007 filed in Baby Goats, funny, parenting

I am not proud. My behavior the other night was not one which I would want my kids to emulate. I should be disqualified from the whole parenting game full stop. My license to parent should be revoked (I say with a glimmer of hope in my eyes).

Let me preface this story by telling you that we live in a shoe box. We are on top of each other when we sleep; literally due to the fact that we are ALL IN THE SAME EFFING BED! OK, maybe it is not that bad. But it is bad. Another important point to remember is that I am not a drunk! I enjoy a drink here and there but nights out are far and few between.

So, when I got home last night around midnight after a dinner party with some coworkers at a local sushi restaurant, I needed to tip-toe. My Baby Goats will manage to wake up at a blink so it is important to be quiet. I was also just a little bit inebriated, and I definitely did wantwant them to see me stumbling in. The Goats are still young enough to believe that I am a hero. They will learn soon enough that I am merely a mortal who fails more often than I suceed at this parenting thing.

I showered the night’s events off my body and sat at the laptop to type some wonderful Japanese sake-induced account of my evening to share with Both of My Readers (BoMR).

But before my fingers hit the keyboard, my head hit the pillow.

Imagine the dreams I had. Imagine the wasabi-based dreams that floated prettily in an out of my head. Now imagine the sound of Winnie the Pooh emanating from the Goats’ toybox at 2AM. As parents, we are way too familiar with toys that talk only in the middle of the night. We all know that the only people that would ever buy a toy without an OFF button are our single, childless friends.

Now imagine, my sashimi-induced rage as I launched myself from the couch and proceeded to disassemble the toy box all the while Winnie laughing maniacally; taunting me with his honey pot sweetness.

I finally found the sucker and removed him from the box, leaving the remaining toys on the floor. The Baby Goats hardly stirred. It was a Winnie the Pooh key chain that somehow managed to escape my cleaning rampage when we no longer had 6 month olds in the house. I flipped this Winnie key chain around in my hand trying to find an OFF/ON switch. Nothing. I then looked for the battery and proceeded to stick a steak knife into the miniature screw that so securely holds the 400 AAA batteries. The knife tip broke. Meanwhile, Winnie seemed to be getting louder and my eardrums felt like they were going to bleed.

I pride myself on having good judgment and remaining calm. Apparently, Calm Dan went out the window, which is where Winnie should have gone and left for the raccoons to tear into him. Instead I decided… on second thought, it actually wasn’t all that logical, it was more like I “reacted”, by filling the bucket in the sink with water and throwing Pooh into it. I told you I wasn’t being rational! At 2AM, this made a whole lot of sense to me! I thought the best thing to do to stop the blaring was to drown Pooh!

I almost felt sorry for this bear as the gurgling sounds diminished. Except for the fact that the gurgling sounds never ended! Pooh was caught in a loop of final agonal breaths and all I could do was my best to ignore it. This was my digitized version of the Tell Tale Heart, written by Edgar Allen Pooh!

Ignore it, I did; until my 6 year old woke up at 5:00 and heard the sound coming from the bucket. He looked inside and you can imagine what went through this kid’s brain. He began wailing. I woke up and I tried to comfort him as he held the waterlogged key chain in his hands. I told him that this was an infant’s toy and we had no infants in the house. He said this was his “FAVORITE” infant’s toy. I then told him it was an accident, despite the CSI-inspired crime scene sans the blood and yellow tape. He keeps looking at me like I am the very definition of evil..perhaps I am.

Clearly, the rule of thumb here, is stay away from Sushi Night Out with coworkers!