Shopping Cart Safety

Having more than one child is such a strange phenomenon. When Jason was born, Kenny and I did everything by the book. Any first time parent would probably see themselves in us. The car seats were professionally inspected for proper installation. Diapers were changed every hour on the hour whether needed or not. And if Jason even coughed suspiciously, we were at the doctor's office.

Then came Dallas, and we loosened up a little. We felt more comfortable in our parenting skin and knew that every time that he cried, it was not the end of the world. We were still cautious parents, but not as crazy as we were with Jason.

Now that Keegan is almost 2 and a half, we are practically pros. In fact, we could probably partner up and write a parenting book. However.....

You'd think that common sense would override parenting confidence when it comes to the most common faux pas. For example: shopping cart safety.

We all know the importance of keeping our little ones strapped in their proper seat. Oh, did I mention that I'm a parenting pro? Those strict shopping cart rules are for newbies! So...Keegan wants to hang out in the larger area of the cart....Keegan gets to hang out in the larger area of the cart. Hey, he's child number 3 and all I care about now is silence....not safety. Besides, like I said, I'm a parenting pro and can certainly manage my son in a shopping cart.

Well, as much as I'd like to claim that protecting him was just what I was able to do yesterday during our afternoon run to Wal-Mart, I just couldn't overcome the law of physics. Those laws would indicate that when child is standing in a movable object, and the object moves without the child prepared to move with it....said child will stay in place while object moves from under him. Translation: When I pull a shopping cart backward while Keegan is standing in it, chances are he is going to fall forward out of the basket and land directly on his head. Low and behold, that's just what happened. Right there in lane #12 in front of security cameras (I'm expecting CPS to knock on the front door any day now), customers, workers and other mothers shooting me their glares of disapproval.

I fully expected him to vomit in response to such a violent strike to the head. I was sure that he would have at the least, a concussion. However, he actually turned out fine. Just a small lump on the corner of his forehead. It sounded and looked much worse than what it was. That didn't stop the Wal-Mart manager from asking me to fill out an incident report. (Gotta protect themselves...completely understandable.) But on the flip side, Keegan did get a free bag of M&M's out of the ordeal. Once again, I suspect that the majority of the scarring will be taken on by my emotional state. The guilt kept me awake last night. If I said, "I know better than that." once, I said it a million times.

I guess I'm just grateful that God made children so pliable. I realized early on that Keegan would take full advantage of that fact. We are talking about the same child who snapped off the tip of his finger earlier this year, remember?

I now fully understand why my parents always said that it hurt them more than it hurt me. If I could have taken the fall for Keegan yesterday, I would have done it a thousand times just to keep the tears from rolling down his face. The sad fact is that I could have prevented it. But the basket seat was wet and rather than ask for a towel to dry it off, I let Keegan have his way and ride where I knew he wasn't the safest.

Was the lesson learned? I'd say so. I just wish for my children's sake that I didn't always have to learn things the hard way.