The Baby Won't Be A Baby Much Longer

I am dedicating most of this post to my youngest daughter Keri. She is so different from her older sister. I don't look at this as bad, just different. Where Melissa is shy and tends to be somewhat of a loner, Keri is outgoing and always has things to do. She is interested in the election. She even asked me who I was going to vote for. Her teacher has been teaching the kids about politics. She even told the children that Hilary Clinton believes it's OK to kill babies that are in their mommies tummies. Nope I am not kidding. When Keri came home and told me this I was horrified. Not because I am a Clinton fan, I thought it was very inappropriate for the teacher to tell 9 year old children this. I don't even think Keri knows what the word abortion means. Well, I guess she does now.

I don't feel it is appropriate for her fourth grade teacher to be the one to explain it to her. I don't feel it's appropriate to share your personal political views with your students. Who are NINE years old. Maybe I am old fashioned, but Keri is very sheltered from a great deal of adult situations. I have no problem with her teacher teaching the children about how politics work. About elections and how they work. About voting and how that works. I was upset when she came home from school and shared this news about Clinton and her views on baby killing.

I have intentionally sheltered Keri. I don't watch movies in front of her that she shouldn't see. I don't watch movies with a lot of bad language whether she is around or not. I don't let her watch violent or scary movies. Period.

One of the reasons this country is desensitized is because of all the violence on TV. If you watch violence on TV on a regular basis, it won't be that big of a deal. I think that's one of the reasons movie makers have moved away from truly good thrillers, to people hacking each other up with chainsaws. If you don't believe me, just check out a few minutes of one of the "Saw" movies.

I shelter her because I was not sheltered. We watched whatever we wanted on TV when I was growing up. Sex, violence, murder, you name it. I probably knew about sex by the time I was about five years old. I knew about a lot of things that I had no business knowing about at that age.

The other day we were driving in the car and she heard something on the radio and asked me what rain forests are. I gave her a brief description and explained about how land developers are cutting down the rain forests, blah, blah, blah. She said, " Well at this rate your grandchild won't live to see a panda bear or a tiger".

You see, Keri is obsessed with animals. She absolutely loves them. She always has. It was no surprise that her first thought was for the animals. When she was little, instead of lining up all her baby dolls, she would line up all her stuffed animals. To this very day, she has enough stuffed animals to open up a shop. That's even considering that we took a giant box of them to Goodwill.

Yesterday she made plans to play with the little girl that she has been fighting with for about a month. I am not sure what happened, but somehow they resolved their differences and made up. I decided this would be a perfect opportunity for me to do some shopping. Alone. All alone. Oh joy, happy days. I can flip through the racks for an hour if I want to! I had no more than dropped her off and headed across town when Melissa called my cell phone and said she forgot her lunch and would I bring it to her. Rats, rats, rats, rats. I hadn't even made my first stop yet. I told her that I would bring it a little later. I was not to be deterred from shopping expedition. I needed some new clothes for work and some new shoes. Really. I did need them. We haven't had a printer for the computer in years, and I had a Staples gift card so I decided that I would shop for a printer while I was out.

Somehow I lost track of time and TWO HOURS later, Melissa sends me a text and says that she is hungry and will I please bring her lunch to work. I didn't realize two hours had passed. I completely lost track of time. I thought it was ridiculous for me to drive all the way home and get her sandwich and chips when I could just stop and get her something and take it to her. I got her something from McDonald's and took it to her. I spent her lunch break with her and headed home.

I had no more than gotten home and started installing the new printer when Keri called. She promised another friend that she would spend the night with her. Would I come and pick her up from where she was at and take her to her other friend's house. I agreed. Little did I realize that her friend had moved across town. Way, way across town.

I have realized something about that child. Right now, her being a social butterfly is cute. In a few years, I will wish she was more like her sister. When I am constantly having to keep tabs on her and what she is doing, I will wish that she was shy. I will wish that she preferred to stay home and hang out with me. When I am having to repeatedly remind her that she wouldn't jump off a bridge if all her friends did would she? You see where I am going? She is going to be a handful. But then again I always knew she would be.