Walking The Baby To The Liquor Store

   I chose to write about the short story "walking the baby to the liquor store." This story is unique in that it focuses on how the baby enjoys going to the liquor store when in reality the baby just likes going for a walk and has no comprehension where she is going in particular, but it makes you believe that she knows where she is going. "The baby adores going to the liquor store. In her infant mind there is, nothing so beautiful or significant in the world as sitting up in her yellow stroller and rolling bravely west towards some exotically remote BUNNY'S or, on Sundays, a place as unimaginably far away as KIRBY'S LIQUOR". I think it gives great detail to the story because it lets you imagine what these stores might look like in your eyes and in the baby's eyes too.
   There a part in the story where it wants us to imagine that the baby is so focused on going to the liquor store that even a german pinscher barking is not a distraction at all, "And when the snarling German Pinscher throws himself, all teeth and slather, she doesn't turn a hair." I envision this in my head and can actually see the dog barking at the fence. It states again that the baby is focused on one thing and one thing only, getting to the liquor store. "This morning she's Cleopatra and the liquor store is Rome."
   Towards the end of this story, it seems to focus on the fathers priorities and it seems his daughter is his main one. "I wouldn't miss these excursions for the world." Any person that has a child has said or felt this same thing and I really believed this part of the story. "How much trouble is it, after all, to go out walking with the baby." I used to love walking my kids around in the stroller because it seemed to calm them down and maybe this father does because it calms his daughter down.  He would give up anything for his daughter to make her happy, "How much work could one possible do in that brief half-hour? And measured against such joy, such infant bliss(which may well indeed anticipate a lifetime's happiness), how important is it that I go to work at all?" He would even be willing to give up the National Book Award just so he would not miss that walk with his infant daughter.
   I really believe in this story that the father has true love and compassion for his infant daughter. He would be willing to give up his career for her. I was able to feel the love he has for her and found it to be true. I believe he hopes these walks he is taking her on will lead to a great relationship between the two of them in the future, "Which may well indeed anticipate a lifetime's happiness." I also liked the part when they got home from their walk and they both had a drink in the kitchen, "Sometimes, when we get home from the liquor store, the baby and I are so happy we even do the dishes and have a drink."
   The baby, even though an infant still, has a great impact on her fathers life. I believed his daughter gives him the inspiration to write,"The baby knows four words: mommy, daddy, banana and doggy. Could anyone write a novel more interesting that that?" He writes in the kitchen after his daughter has gone to sleep, maybe after a long day spent with her, it gives him the motivation and inspiration to keep writing, "It's something I think about often in the glittering fluorescent kitchen after the baby's gone to sleep. And who knows what she'll come up with next?" This story shows a great love between a father and his daughter and I really enjoyed this short story. It has a lot of information in such a small story and it makes it believable.