The last time I got hit roundly in the crotch was 5 years ago. I remember it vividly; my son was reaching for something on the shelf and my privates just happened to be in the way. It felt like a Nazi bayonet being shoved up my abdomen and I went down like a peasant paying tribute to a king. I remember vowing through gnashed teeth never to let something like this happen again.

Tough luck. I woke up this morning to the vibration of a different alarm clock, one in the form of a toddler’s heel crushing my bagpipes. My three-year-old daughter, sleeping beside me and perhaps dreaming of football, shifted in her sleep and accidentally hit me in the babymaker. I woke up the way they do in the movies when an actor has a terrible nightmare and bolts upright to the sound of clapping thunder. Except the lightning was in my bladder, my shriek as dull as the gray morning.

“My balls…!!!” I managed, clutching the family jewels to make sure there were still there.

The pain was like a killer tsunami. It began as a wave of unbearable hurt, much like watching an Adam Sandler movie. I assumed the fetal position and made some distant connection with my feminine side as the anguish gained momentum, looming large and bitter, making me wince and wish I’d written my last will and testament. I was engulfed in such a paroxysm of pain, it’s all that kept me from consulting the dictionary to check what “paroxysm” means.

My wife tried to help me by giving me a forlorn look and some words of consolation. Not that I could hear her; I was too busy trying not to drown in my own drool.

The pain eventually subsided and the sun came out. I gave up concentrating on dancing sheep and my glowing inner core. I turned to look at my still-sleeping daughter, wondering whether I should wake her and tell her how close daddy had come to enlightenment.

Any annoyance or remaining pain simply flushed away at the sight of my snoozing child. It’s hard to be angry when faced with a purring baby, especially one that smells like milk and morning sweat. I’ll miss her when she’s old enough to have her own room and Dora-themed bed sheets.

Parenting. I guess the occasional whack in the groin is worth it.