Admittedly, my courtship of Kaley moved at a rapid pace, certainly faster than any of the relationship books would say is prudent. Consequently, a quick three weeks after we met found us spending our first family weekend at the beach. No matter how fast one falls in love, however, it still takes time to truly learn about another person. Quite sure that forced to choose, Kaley would pick the girls over me, I was anxious to use the weekend as an opportunity to show what a great father figure I could be in the girl’s lives.
The Shores Resort and Spa in Daytona Beach Shores has become our home away from home and preferred destination for a quick staycation in no small part because of the great memories from that first get away with my soon-to-be step-daughters. We had a fantastic room with an extra-large terrace used for dance parties, the kids enjoyed room service, the pool and beach provided non-stop fun and roasting smores over the fire pits put the cherry on the top of a successful family trip.
One area in which my beautiful bride and I have proved to be woefully inadequate is making it home after having a fun time. It once took us 19 hours and 7 tiki bar stops to make it home from Key West. We simply don’t want the good times to end and it all started that first vacation. As we packed the Jeep to go home Kaley mentioned that a friend was a guest at a beach house just down the road and we were invited to go hang out at the pool for a bit. Already missing the pool at The Shores, I quickly agreed to another day of beachside pool lounging.
The house was only 5 minutes away from the hotel so in no time at all I was back in the water, pretending to be a shark and chasing Myah and Sonya all over the pool. Sonya had already mastered bossing me around and ordered the “shark” to swim to one side of the pool or the other, to swim to the bottom and hold his breath (much harder for a Russy shark than for a real shark ) or sometimes to get out of the water and run around the pool. I didn’t much understand the last part and it was quite tiring but I was sure to earn mad points with Kaley by being such an entertaining pool buddy for the girls.
Kaley had been a gone for a bit making lunch in the house, leaving the girls and I alone to play shark in the pool. I was gasping for breath while chasing the girls who had discovered it was much more fun to split up and force me to swim back and forth to go after one at a time. The pool was long and rectangular with the side nearest the ocean being a tile wall. The lot was sloped as the house was up against sand dunes so there was quite a good drop from the tile wall down to the dunes which were covered with brambles and other sorts of thorny plants.
I was swimming to one end of the pool to get Myah and glanced over my shoulder to check on Sonya only to see that she had climbed up on the tile wall and was walking it like a balance beam, her floaty covered arms stuck out to her sides for balance. “You shouldn’t walk up there,” I told Sonya, turning back to Myah. I thought I would jump out of the pool and walk around to grab Sonya as she finished walking across the wall. After tossing her back in the pool I would explain that walking along the top of the wall was a no-no. She would listen to my sage advice and that would be that.
I swear, I looked at Sonya, swam the last 5 feet to Myah, turned back to Sonya less than 5 seconds later and…..
SHE WAS GONE!!!
I mean, gone. What the bad word???
Frantically, I began to swim to that side of the pool, checking to make sure she hadn’t fallen in and sank to the bottom but she was nowhere in sight. I had just made it to the tile wall when I heard a faint, “mommy….”
Holy mother bad word bad word! She fell over the side!
The second cry of “help…….” was so soft and pitiful it filled me dread. Shouldn’t she be screaming? Is it worse when they don’t scream? Was it so horrible she could hardly talk? I didn’t know! I simply had no idea what a pitiful whimper signified.
I pushed myself up on the wall and looked over the side. There she was, a good 6 feet below me, on her knees in the sand right between two really prickly bushes, looking lost and pitiful. I can’t believe I broke the baby, I thought. Not even 3 years old and permanently traumatized. Probably never get in a pool or go to the beach again and it’s all my fault.
I hopped all the way out of the pool, glad that Kaley wasn’t there to see her new love interest allow her baby to be catapulted into a forest of sea cactuses when I heard, “What happened?!?!”
Of course, my brand-new girlfriend had walked out on the balcony overlooking the pool at the exact moment I let her youngest daughter jump off the bad word sea wall. My mind raced trying to come up with a reasonable sounding explanation. Coming up with nothing and not trusting myself to speak, I ignored Kaley and jumped off the wall, almost crushing Sonya when I landed.
I snatched her up, checking everywhere for puncture wounds, broken bones or lacerations requiring stitches. I was only mildly relieved when I realized we wouldn’t have to call 911 as I was sure there was emotional damage that wouldn’t be discovered for years to come. Oh well, I wouldn’t be around to see it because in about 2 minutes the love of my life was going to show me the door. No way would she let a man with such poor parenting skills into her life.
I lifted Sonya up on the sea wall, climbing up after her and sat on the edge with my feet in the pool, head hung low, waiting for the justified chastisement that was soon to come my way. I wouldn’t even put up a fight, I decided. I would take responsibility like a man and go home, back to my lonely existence.
Sonya was already back in the pool swimming around by the time Kaley made it over to me. “What happened?” she asked.
I looked up with tears in my eyes. “She was walking on the sea wall, I looked away for 2 seconds and she was gone! I let her fall! I’m sorry. I’m a horrible failure of a man.”
Kaley looked over the side and said, “I’m glad she didn’t land in one of those bushes,” and then went off to tell her friend the story. In a few minutes they were laughing about it like it was the funniest thing that ever happened. Her baby girl had plummeted to her near-death and my love and her sick friend were laughing their butts off! What kind of monster had I fallen for?
Two weeks later, after watching Sonya catch her hair on fire when blowing out a candle, taking a head dive off a stool while I was serving her dinner, somehow toppling an elliptical machine over on top of herself and most alarmingly grabbing a full beer out of a cooler and shotgunning the frosty beverage before anybody could get it out of her hands, I realized that base jumping without a parachute off the sea wall wasn’t even in the top 10 of insane things this crazy little girl got herself into. Kaley wasn’t a monster – she was just numb to it all.
I learned a few things from my experience. First and foremost, women clearly handle these situations better than men. I attribute that to the fact that they aren’t as emotional and nurturing as is the male half of the population. Second, you have to keep all these accidents in perspective. If the police aren’t called, you don’t have to go to the hospital or the Department of Children and Family Services doesn’t get involved, it’s probably going to be ok. Third, you can’t take your eyes of your children for more than 2 seconds unless you are prepared to deal with catastrophic consequences.
I still don’t know what’s worse, screaming or whimpering, but I do know that either one probably means I’ve failed as a step-dad and broken my child. Again.
The Life of a Step-Dad - Failing One Day at a Time 