Disaster & Parental Failure

[captain_slinky]

Today I am an absolute failure of a parent. Molly woke up a little bit sicker than she ahd been the past few days (lots of snot, sneezing and coughing), but I had been promising her an awesome day out today. We were going to go to Lynndale Park in Lynnwood for a nifty little juggling show and then playing with bjorker and Aurelia. She was stoked to do this, and so was I!

First bad sign was that all the roads I knew of to get to Lynndale Park were closed for construction. Spent a half-hour following detour signs that took us further and further away from the park... I eventually cheated and cut through the construction to get to a little-used parking lot that was right on top of the area where the juggling was gonna happen.

Then it started to rain. Not hard, just enough to let you know that it's raining. Just enough to make Molly insist that we take an umbrella with us.

The first ten minutes there were great. We found Aurelia, we sat, she shared her umbrella, they blew bubbles... it was nice.

Then Molly got bored.

She stripped off her coat, shoes and socks. I *think* she beat Aurelia with the umbrella and refused to say she was sorry. And then she decided to give up on the jugglers and head for the playground, shoeless, in the rain.

Every time I tried to play with her or talk to her or even look in her general direction she yelled at me to stop it, even when she was asking me for help.

Once she was nice and dirty, we went back to the jugglers. Molly found a stick and made sure the other girls had them too so they could all swing them around and hit each other with them. Molly refused to stop, I took her stick away, she burst out crying.

Then she became very interested in the jugglers. So did I... they brought out KNIVES.

And then Molly was GONE. She had run off the to the playground on her own in the 7 seconds that I didn't stay 100% completely focused on her, one of my biggest fears.

She played int he playground and continued to tell me to quit it, so I told her that I had had enough of her attitude and in to the car seat we wnet, crying all the way.

On the way home I bought her a Happy Meal just to shut her up for a few minutes. I was THAT FRUSTRATED.

I feel like the worst Father in the world right now :(

Comments

[nealbailey.livejournal.com]

You are not. A bad father would have beaten her with her own stick.

I knew a dad who made his son kneel on coarse sand.

You're a good guy, my friend.

[captain-slinky.livejournal.com]

Thank you :) I know I'm not *actually* the worst father in the world, but the amount of fail today has made me feel like a bad dad by comparison.