Better to Drop the Keys Than the Baby

Mrs. Cornucopia and I went to Another Brick in the Wal-Mart yesterday. We exchanged baby for keys, I giving her the baby (now six months old and very adorable, thank you very much), and she handing me the car keys. I struggled with the exchange, making sure that the baby was safely cradled in Mom's arms before I took firm grasp of the keys. The Misses made a comment about that, and I replied, "Better to drop the keys than the baby!"

That really got me thinking -- about how I had parked very close to the line on the driver's side, so that if someone parked too close on their passenger side, there could be denting issues. But that thought only lasted a second. What the baby incident really got me thinking about was do I ever "drop the baby", meaning do I ever ignore or set aside the kids' needs in order to placate my own?

Case in point - (shame alert) - A few weeks ago I was thoroughly engrossed in watching the telly broadcast of my favorite baseball team, the Double-A minor league New Britain Rock Cats. Being a rainy, chilly Saturday afternoon I had pulled out the "indoor roast marshmallows over stinky Sterno" kit and cooked up a few. The kit comes with some sharp jabby sticks that aid in the roasting and I had carelessly left them on the floor. At the time, the baby was just learning how to scoot around. So, of course, she scoots her way over to pick up one of these potential eye-gouging devices. My third favorite player, Maxwell Silver "Goat Cheese" Williamston, was up to bat. He hit a towering drive, Matterhorn-like: high but just not long enough. The center fielder snagged the ball on the run, slammed into the "Good & Plenty" sign, broke his bacteriophage, and had to be carried off the field. Well, since the hit was not a home run, there was no traditional "circling of the bases" ritual to watch, so I unwittingly turned my head to where the baby was lying about ready to poke her eye with my roasting stick. I quickly grabbed it out of her hand and saved the day. (In my haste I stepped barefoot onto the other roasting skewer and got a nice little gash.)

So there you have it. I nearly sacrificed my own child's welfare in order to satiate the need to root, root, root for the home team. It's really a good thing Goat Cheese didn't hit a home run, because my baby might have lost an eye, and because I was actually betting on the other team.