Kids 3, RedPlanet 0

Dodgy bit of parenting tonight. Deanna worked late and I steered my herd of little dudes down to the town picnic. While the three-on-one ratio did not appear promising on paper, I am older, wiser and faster than the three combined so I had a bit of false confidence going in. The first half passed fairly uneventfully aside from the repeated failure of the twins to grasp that pistachios need to be shelled prior to eating, and my cockiness grew. Turns out the fates, or perhaps the kids, were just toying with me. The second half started with me realizing I had forgotten the diaper bag, the parenting equivalent of having to play a man down. Then some kid stepped on Owen’s forehead during one of those constant scrums that any gaggle of five-year old boys seems to engage in, leaving a large welt. During the next 5 minutes I hit up all nearby moms for a band-aid (not due to bleeding but because of the well-known magical curative powers of band-aids), came up empty, and was forced to jog to the nearby police station for a band-aid after leaving the kids in the care of friends. Upon my return, I predictably found Cooper freaked out about my absence and in a crying frenzy. After finally getting him calmed back down and back out of my arms, he promptly disappeared into the crowd. After a desperate couple of minutes of searching I rounded up a posse of neighbors and friends who quickly spread out through the crowd. Cooper was retrieved, hysterical once again. It was at this point that I threw in the towel and decided to cut my losses by returning home. Tough game, no doubt, and not one that raised my stock in the race for POTY. But, as Coach always said, losing the game is better than losing a kid. Amen.