It won’t be long now.
That baby. It seemed like only a few weeks ago she learned to crawl. Now she is holding onto one of my fingers with one hand (just for a little balance) and taking steps. Soon, she will be wholly independent.
They really don’t stay little forever.
Little ears listened intently to the “Big Man” tell his war stories at the dinner table.
About how bullets whizzing by you sound just like they do in the movies.
About how bullets sound frighteningly different when they get really close to you.
About sprinting up a hill to save some soldiers’ lives.
About other situations where the enemy died.
After the man left, little ears got a lecture on how grownups laugh when they would rather cry.
About how war isn’t funny at all.
About how our friend could have died or been injured.
About how the enemy is a person too.
Bill likes to say that soldiers pray harder for peace than anybody else.
I say, except for a soldier’s family.
My visiting friend told me yesterday of an incident last month. She had indulged her boys and bought hard candies at the grocery store. On the way home, she noticed her seven year old up and moving in the mini-van. She was going to yell at him, but quickly saw that he was choking and turning purple.
Her ten year old son said he had learned what to do in Scouts. He stood up, gave the two-fingered Scout salute, and performed the Heimlich Maneuver on his brother. Immediately, the candy flew out of the brother’s mouth.
“You saved my life,” the younger boy gasped. The older brother quietly shrugged and sat down, buckling his seat belt. Just a simple good deed. No big deal, right?
This morning, very early, I had the honor of driving my friend to the hospital for surgery. She was donating one of her kidneys to a woman she finally met for the first time last week. Most of the minor stressors were related to worrying about getting up on time, and concerns about potential traffic on the drive (I myself kept waking up and praying that the baby would stay sleeping for Bill while I was gone). But absent was any anxiety about undergoing major abdominal surgery and losing an organ.
Just a simple good deed. No big deal, right?
We got out the door on time. There was minimal traffic. The baby only screamed at Bill for 10 minutes. I was home in plenty of time for him to get to his 730 am appointment.
The surgery went well, although my friend was vomiting as of an hour ago – a typical response to anesthesia. And the transplant “took.” So far, so good. A few prayers for quick healing for both women would be appreciated.
Britain Adopts Islamic Law, Gives Sharia Courts Full Power to Rule on Civil Cases
This is seriously scary stuff. What do they do if one party doesn’t want to use the sharia court system? What do they do when the sharia courts begin to expand their jurisdiction?
What are we going to do when our Supreme Court Justices jump on the bandwagon?
Three kids have piano lessons on Tuesday afternoons.
Four kids have CCD on Tuesday evenings.
Three kids have Scouts on Wednesdays (Jenny’s homeschool Daisy Troop meets every other Wednesday). I do not know when Billy’s den will meet.
The boys have fencing on Thursday mornings (with homeschoolers).
The girls have ballet on Saturdays.
For each kid, it seems reasonable. One sport. One “activity” (Scouts). I consider piano to be academic (my students would happily drop it). And CCD is “required” (Katie is in 2nd grade – take one, taken ’em all, I figure).
But as my calendar pages are filling up, I’m feeling so very tied down.
Fritz has trouble with his “r”s, and introducing himself is difficult. I advised him to spell his name to assist those who think he is saying “Chris.” I explained that Chris is a common name, and Fritz is not.“Mommy, you know what? Know what Peter said? I didn’t teach him this. He said, ‘Shake your booty!’ I don’t know where he learned it!”
Before I had children I watched a show that demonstrated how little children (6 and under) were incapable of lying. I actually fell for it.
Bill was out of town when McCain announced his pick for VP. Hoping to elevate the dinner table conversation above the usual juvenile prattle, I brought up politics. Politics are okay to discuss at my dinner table, as long as it remains polite, which means avoiding phrases like “let me tell you exactly why you’re wrong on that” (you know who you are).
We talked about the three branches of government. We talked about the two bodies that comprise Congress. I explained the two-party system, and I identified the three senators who are on their party’s tickets. We talked about who the governors were, and how one governor had been selected to run on one ticket.
“Some people say that Governor Palin shouldn’t run because she has children at home – even a little baby,” I said. “What do you think?”
“Well,” said Billy, “they have a dad don’t they?”
It’s funny how kids can get right to the heart of things, don’t you think? Even though my brood would be the first to vote their own dad out of office of main caretaker, they do recognize that we’re a team in these efforts. Often I will tell them I am going somewhere and they will ask, “Who will babysit us?” I tell them that their father will be their dad while I am gone. He’s not stepping in to do my job, rather he’s going to his own job (just without me around to tell him how to do it better!).
Yesterday, we took a field trip for our private special interest class on political science. We went to a McCain-Palin rally. I left Jenny and Peter at my friend’s house and took her three older children along. It was fun. Cheering, shouting, loud music, clapping. We sat under a shady tree and ate banana-chocolate chip muffins and cookies and listened to the rhetoric. The kids climbed the tree and could get glimpses of the candidates.
I can’t help but be somewhat cynical when I hear candidates talk about bringing change. Change does not come swiftly in Washington. Presidents do not enact laws or raise taxes. Laws take years to go into effect anyway. I’m not saying that the executive branch is ineffective. I’m merely saying that no matter who is elected, I don’t expect the world to be radically different one year from today. If you’re going to talk about change, you need to talk about patience. But in a microwave-lunch, fast food-dinner culture, nobody wants to hear that change will take 4 to 8 years to happen.
My kids aren’t old enough to vote, but I want to make this election (all elections) memorable for them. This is history in the making, no matter who wins.
It was a poor choice of words, but for the McCain camp to act like it was directed at Gov. Palin is silly. Really, that phrase is used so much in government/military circles that it’s a cliché.
Sen. Obama is merely proving himself to be of the Washingtonian mindset by using the insider jargon readily and without realizing that the majority of Americans don’t talk like that. He did the same thing when he said that the question of when life begins is “above his pay grade.”
Fault him for talking and thinking like a Washington insider, not for calling Palin a pig.
“Mommy, you wanna play restoran?”
“Sure, Peter. Do you have a menu? What’s on the menu?” He scans his hands.
“Um…lessee…chicken…fries…soda…”
“Mmmm…how about soup? Do you have any soup?”
“Yes, soup…and rice!”
“Oh! I would like some soup and rice, please.”
“Okay, Mommy,” says my little waiter. He turns to go get my order.
“Oh, Peter, do you have any water? I would like some water, too, please.”
He agrees and starts to go, but stops and turns back. “But I don’t know how to make water.”
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