Playing Hooky

Since I've become a stay-at-home mom, I've had the opportunity to be out and about in the middle of the day. And I've noticed some pretty alarming trends among the youngest in our society. They're not at school. 

There isn't a day when I go to Target or the grocery store or just on walk when I don't see obvious school age kids just hanging out. Sometimes they're with their parents and sometimes not. I mentioned this to my friend Beth the other day and she, always the optimist, suggested that perhaps these kids were visiting from far away because of a family emergency. Probably not. And then there's the old "maybe they're home schooled" standby excuse. Except everyone knows you can spot a home schooler at 100 yards and most of these kids are definitely NOT home schoolers. (If you don't know what I'm talking about, take a little visit over to my friend Jeff's blog. He's on my blog list.)

So this brings me to the only obvious scenario: these kids are skipping school. And most likely, their parents are letting them. This is a travesty! All the crap society gives the school system about how we teachers are failing our students and how our kids can't pass required tests, and this is what we have to work with. Miniature school ditchers. It just makes me sick. So next time you see one of these delinquents, do me a favor and yell at them to get back to school.

Proud mama

Yesterday I had a first. 

My friend Beth, who is also my pastor, does a small service at the Life Care Center in Mount Vernon for the residents. It's wonderful, really. There are all these old people shouting out which hymns they'd like to sing, commenting on the scripture, and Beth yelling her head off so they can all hear her. Oh, and sometimes they fall asleep.

I decided to take Jack yesterday since we didn't have anything going on and I figured the residents would like to see him. I plan on going back every week and here's why:

They all loved him! Luckily, he was in a great mood and didn't mind at all being poked and touched. He even gave Catherine the biggest grin he could muster and I'm sure it made her day. It made mine. There was another old guy, Casey, who was so excited about Jack he could hardly stand it. He kept saying, "Well, Jesus Christ!" and "My God!" Taking the Lord's name in vain was never so adorable. And then there was Natalie, who talked to Jack as if they'd been friends for years. She'd ask questions about him and I'd begin to answer but before I could, she'd say something like, "Oh, is that so?" to Jack. They were having a grand old time.

All of this was the first time I'd watched Jack bring true joy to others just by being him. I know it will happen lots more in the future (and I know there will be times when people are less than joyful to be around him). It made me very proud.

We'll see how he behaves himself next week.

I surrender

I've finally done it. I'm a blogger. I've been thinking for months that I should start my own blog. Things would happen or I'd have some random thought and I'd think, "Hey, I should blog about that." But I never did. Until now.

I've long been one of those blog lurkers. You know what I mean. Those people who frequently read and appreciate other's blogs but never comment or create a blog of their own. Yep, that was me. I don't know what took me so long to start my own blog. Maybe I thought I wasn't interesting enough. Maybe I was worried no one else would find me interesting. Maybe I thought I didn't have enough time but now that I'm staying at home with Jack, I've lost my excuse. Who knows?