Counting Down Once Again

Except for my unfortunate encounter with the bathtub, the week could have been much worse. Elcie and Rochelle had a great time with my friend Stacie, her mom, and assorted cats and dogs. They raved about Stacie's cooking - scrambled eggs for brunch yesterday and supermarket pizza for dinner. Just like home some nights but food always tastes better when one is on an adventure.

We've come up with the equivalent of "brunch" for one of those meals too late to be lunch and a little early for dinner but we can't decide whether to call it linner or dunch. Any preferences from the peanut gallery?

Another quiet day. I overslept and Ray wasn't up to church so we played hookey today. No, nothing wrong out of the ordinary but he tires easily and has a badly swollen hand from the needles. Ouch. Rebecca (the only one home) was a little disappointed so I took her with me to the store and then stopped at Jack-in-the-Box. Salads for me and Ray and a hamburger (no cheese please) kid meal for Rebecca. First french fries of the month. She's one up on the other two. And no they don't get to carry over the allotment from one month to the next. Use it or lose it is my motto.

Tomorrow we begin shoveling out the house, beginning with the girls and moving on to the floors, the tables, you get the idea. They've become quite good at picking up their own trash, dishes, wet towels, and dirty clothes which to me are the biggies. Next we'll work on rinsing the dishes but just getting them to the kitchen sink is something.

Rebecca spent much of the time hanging out with me. She loves adult conversation and probably would have made a perfect only child.

Watched my Giants once again snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory (while checking up on blogs and email of course). Does that count as multi-tasking? I didn't think so.

Had baked chicken with stuffing, green beans, and applesauce for linner/dunch. We're doing a pretty fair job of working around Ray's low fat/low salt requirements. Most of what I cook already falls into that category - just cutting back a little more.

We had one scary moment. R & R were playing across the street when my neighbor called to ask me if I heard the noise. What noise? She didn't know - firecrackers or gunfire - hard to tell.
I took off out the front door screaming for the girls. Over and over forgetting to hang up the phone. I was just heading out to look when they came around the corner of the house across the street, right where they were supposed to be, together and safe.

"Grandma, we heard the noise but so-and-so said it was just firecrackers". In April? Meantime all the other neighbors had surfaced either from the noise or my yelling, whatever, and our Sheriff's chopper was circling overhead. I asked them why they didn't run inside my neighbor's house or straight home as soon as they heard the noise. Around here, they know the drill. In the house, go to the back, stay away from windows. Their reply - "well, grandma, we were going to do that but we thought it was firecrackers and we didn't see any dead bodies so it was okay". My God. Starting over on safety rules that I should never have had to teach.

If there are no dead bodies, it's okay? What are they learning? Gunfire is not a nightly event around here and we haven't had a shooting in the immediate vicinity but we have far too much gang violence. My fear is of someone getting caught in the crossfire or by a stray bullet. It has happened in this city and one innocent kid died watching t.v. in her own living room.

There's nothing I can do about it. I can work to eliminate the gangs and the conditions that allow them to flourish of course but I can't dress the girls in armor and I can't keep them locked inside the house. I must let them be children as much as I possibly can.

So they roller skate, they ride their bikes, they play with their friends, they hold mini-yard sales with their old toys (more of a swap meet actually), and do all the other things kids of their age do. And I figuratively hold my breath.

They're now peacefully asleep, as safe as they can be. I look at them and want to weep for all the children of the world who are forced to grow up before their time or worse don't get to grow up at all.

And I should hit delete but I won't. Perhaps I needed to write it down. It's something I never did before I had the blog but it seems to help. Tonight I'll pray for no nightmares or "what ifs" and tomorrow will be a better day.

Thanks for listening to all this and take care everyone.