Yes, Dear, I did drop the baby

My personal meat thermometer popped after a half-lap of the store. I was in a heavy sweater with Sam in a backpack, and had already walked a brisk 10 minutes from the car dealership across the street -- I was making heat like one of those boil-water-in-90-seconds stovetops.

So I unstrapped the backpack and lowered it awkwardly to the floor, a process that involves swinging it by one shoulder strap while the priceless 30-pound bundle inside dangles helplessly.

I stripped off my sweater, took Sam out, took off his jacket and tied both garments onto the back of the pack. Then, anticipating further struggles putting the pack back on, I set it on top of a stack of boxes, so I could back in and get both arm straps on at once.

I set Sam in, strapped him up, then let go so I could turn and get my shoulders in.

Whether I heard the backpack tip, saw it or felt it I don't really know, but I whipped around just in time to get this indelible flash-photo image of my little boy, on the day before his second birthday, smashing down face-first on top of the rail of a shopping cart, which was sitting next to the stack of boxes.

Perhaps my memory will discard that image one day. I hope so. But I doubt it.

Vaguely aware of the gasping shoppers around me, I snatched him up. There was a white line where his cheek had hit the metal rail and a little punture mark where a nub from one of the wires had dug in. As I watched, the puncture wound started welling with blood.

"I'm so sorry, Sweetie; I'm so very very sorry," I started telling him, pulling him from the pack to cradle him as the howls began.

A store manager hustled up with gauze and a bandage. "He'll be fine," I said shakily, mopping blood from his face. "He'll be fine."

He kind of had to be, I realized as I assessed my situation.

We were using the backpack in the store as the result of a chain of circumstances that started when some mass of cold air and some mass of warm air got together and decided to go all winter on Western Pennsylvania.

This had caused my wife, who was at work, to think of the bald tires and missing windshield wiper on my car. She had called me to alert me to the coming storm, and I had called the car dealership. Since the only time they could get me in was at Sam's nap time, I decided on the backpack as a way to keep him amused.

So as I studied the wound on my crying little boy, my car was on a high-lift on the far side of the highway getting new rubber -- or so I thought. I couldn't take Sam home, and I couldn't run by the emergency room for a just-in-case look. I couldn't see calling an ambulance -- he had hit down square in the fleshy middle of his cheek, and I couldn't imagine it had broken any bones or teeth.

So I bandaged it up, smothered him with kisses and put him back in the backpack -- on the floor this time. I sat on the floor myself, wiggled my shoulders into the straps and staggered to my feet.

The next 45 minutes were long ones. Sam got quiet in front of a display of cartoon figures strewn with Christmas lights, and was briefly mollified by a cheap green tractor (I de-packaged it right in the aisle and carried the box with me so I could pay for it later), but spent most of the time crying. I spent most of the time leaking guilt like a cheesecloth bucket.

Finally, the dealership called my cell phone. I could escape!

"Well," the service manager said, "we didn't have the right size tires, and we didn't have the windshield wiper in stock. We did put your old wiper back on."

Golly, thanks!

There are, of course, several lessons that can be taken from the event. First and foremost, if you're using a backpack to carry your child around, be careful! They are wonderful things -- Sam and I go tramping through the woods almost every day -- but they are not very stable sitting on their little stands with kids inside them. And only a complete idiot (yes, that is my hand you see raised) would try to perform this function atop a stack of boxes.

But the second lesson was a bit deeper.

Sam was asleep when my wife got home. I knew I had to tell her something, but what would it be?

An out-and-out lie was not really an issue; it's not in my nature. But some subtle shading, a bit of selective emphasis would perhaps make me look a bit less foolish and negligent. Besides, it was not even just my wife who would hear the tale - I'd have to tell me step-kids, my kids, my parents and likely to any number of others. How embarrassing! And how easy it would be to just tweak the truth a bit!

But after some frantic internal struggling over that question, I harked back to one of my cardinal principles of parenting: Don't lie to your kids.

Now, obviously, that's not as simple a rule as it looks. There are aspects to my divorce, for instance, that I will simply not discuss with my kids. Nor do I feel compelled to offer pointless details about my personal life. "That's a conversation I'm not going to have" is an honest answer to a potentially harmful question.

But in this case, the only reason to avoid the truth was to avoid embarrassment, and that's not a good enough reason.

So I owned up. I told the story flat-out to my wife, and bluntly accepted the guilt. She was very forgiving (of course, Sam was asleep at the time, so she had not yet observed the damage). I told all the kids, my parents, even the nurses and doctor when we had him checked out the next day.

Everyone was very nice, very understanding about it. And I hope it was an example to the other kids, showing them the honor in owning up to your faults and mistakes and taking responsibility.

Most heartbreaking of all, of course, was that Sam forgave me, crawling up into my arms just like always.

I'm not sure I deserved it, from him or from anyone, but I'll take it.

Brian David/Oct. 29, 2008