left to chance

"you don't even have to be a good pitcher if you're a leftie," chris explained, "and you still get a huge contract with the majors. we'd be set for life!" i had just asked him what in the world he was doing, after watching him play with liam on the floor of our family room in asheville. liam, all of five months old, seemed to be as confused as i was. chris was crouched on the floor a few feet away from him, rolling a ball over and over again solely towards liam's left side. the child had just recently mastered the art of sitting up on his own -- and even that was iffy sometimes -- and yet, proud papa was trying to get the poor thing to throw him a left-handed curve ball. or something.

of course, this is all tongue-in-cheek. we are certainly no high-pressure, stressed-out, do-or-die set of parents (although i might qualify for an overuse-in-hyphen award.) but seriously ... chris really didn't care if liam turned out to be left-handed. our son might wind up hating all sports entirely and singing in the glee club, and we won't care in the least, as long as he's happy. but in the meantime, the whole dominant side thing became sort of a joke between us. "did you see that, honey? he's got all his nasty wet cheerios crammed in his left fist!" "ooh -- liam just dumped his entire tray of food onto the floor with his left hand!" "wow! liam picked his nose with his left finger!" and so on.

four years later, alas, it's become clear that liam is no leftie. he writes, brushes his teeth, eats, and yes, even picks his nose all with his right hand. based on a few preliminary t-ball practices, chris is still holding out hope that liam might turn out to be a switch-hitter, but for the most part, we're thinking that all those ball rolling exercises proved rather fruitless. but all is not lost! check out the (quite indicative) picture below of our children devouring their ben & jerry's ice cream, gripping those spoons like there was no tomorrow. and then tell me ... how much do professional leftie softball pitchers earn?