He broke her nose?!?!

Graeme broke his primary teacher's nose. Yep, broke it. Bleeding all over the place and everything. And, as if it wasn't bad enough that he broke it, I didn't actually find out about it until Sunday night as we were putting him to bed. He prayed for his teacher's nose to stop bleeding. I of course called her Monday morning and found out that it was indeed broken (I know I keep repeating that but I'm still kind of in shock about it), it was an accident (thank goodness) and she's okay. The bright spot in all of this is that now when other moms are complaining about the naughty things their kids do, I can top 'em all. Hopefully his teacher will look at it that way too. (nervous chuckle)

Dear Annie

I'm very disturbed by a column I read in the newspaper a couple of days ago. It was a regular advice column (Dear Annie) which I read almost every day. I usually agree with the advice being offered and have come to view the writers as moderate and trustworthy. Two days ago, however, one of the letters published was from a woman who was concerned because her husband was looking at pornography on the Internet. She said he was a good man and treated her and their children well, but she was uncomfortable with this habit of his and wanted to know if she was overreacting. They told her that she was! I was stunned! Their response to her said, in essence, that most men look at pornography and some women look at it with them. The writers more or less told her to deal with it. I was very upset after reading this. I don't think pornography should be socially acceptable for anyone. Pornography presents people and situations that are unrealistic; this leads viewers to change their own expectations to unrealistic ones. Once you've seen an image, it sticks in your brain. If you're looking at pictures of your kids, then your mind is full of your kids. If you're looking at pictures of people in sexual situations then your mind is full of sex. This is not a good thing. Physical intimacy definitely has its place but thinking about it constantly makes it difficult to think about anything else; e.g. work and family. Pornography is also extremely selfish. People who look at pornography aren't doing it to help someone else, they're doing it for self-gratification. Being selfish is not ever the way to be happy. I'm sure this sounds very self-righteous and preachy but the fact is that I believe we are all capable of controlling our urges and passions. Not only capable, but morally responsible to develop a certain level of self-control. Besides, my kids are still young and innocent. The thought that they might lose that innocence to pornography keeps me up at night. I can't make their decisions for them, but I will do all I can to change social perceptions before they're grown.

housework is for chumps

I hate housework. I mean really hate it, not just a general feeling of I would rather do something else. I honestly believe that most people would rather do something else. Go to the dentist, for example. I think this housework hatred of mine has its roots in my childhood (of course). I had four sisters growing up so I think the scheming, sneaky side of my brain decided that with all those other girls around I would be a chump to do housework. I got surprisingly good at covering up housework that I didn't do. Of course now I have my own house where the only other girl in sight is 8 and I'm finding that my cleaning skills leave a lot to be desired. I often think that maybe I'm just incredibly lazy but then I remember how much time and effort I used to put into pretending to do housework and I realize that no, I just really hate housework. I guess that scheming, sneaky part of my brain managed to convince the rest of my brain that housework truly is for chumps. Now the trick is figuring out some way to earn enough money to pay some chump....uh, I mean person, to come clean my house for me. Either that or I'll finally let my husband fulfill his dream of running away to Alaska to live in the wild. We'll all be cold, hungry, wet and dirty but at least I won't have to do housework.