One of those days...and beyond

Today was the first day back to school after Spring Break. Yay, right? Ha.

C and I have this thing, every morning, where we drop J off at his classroom, and then C goes from J's classroom to his own. J's is a portable, so I drive away. As I drive away, C walks along the sidewalk and waves to me. It's our own little thing, just a little special something we share. And he forgot this morning! It was rather disappointing.

But that wasn't the worst part of my day. No, that was something else entirely, something that actually had no effect on my family at all, but still just blew me away. In our area, there was something that happened that led to a high speed chase between the cops and a suspect or suspects, during which the suspect(s) fired on the officers. From what I understand, no one was hurt by any of this, which is a huge relief. BUT, apparently, a school bus for our school system got shot. No kids were on the bus, and the driver was not hurt, it just broke a window and dented the bus body. As good as that is to hear, here's the problem: The school system calls to let you know when things happen, to reassure and comfort. Nice, right? Nope. The call is a recording and it starts like this: "As you have probably heard by now, one of our buses was shot today." Uh.....NO, I HADN'T HEARD THAT YET! I mean, really? This is how we reassure parents, by announcing blythly news they probably HAVEN'T heard yet? Honestly, I was home all day, except for a couple of errands, and had been to our local news websites, and had no knowledge of this bus. So, I imagine the parents who were working or out running around all day had even less knowledge of what happened this morning than I did. So, perhaps that was not the best way to start that "reassuring" phone call. It seems to me that someone needs to remind our school superintendent about the old cat on a roof.

Could the superintendent really not come up with something better than what he did? I mean, how about "We want to reassure you about our commitment to your child's safety. With that in mind, we would like to inform you about an incident that took place today. Firs,t let me reassure you that no one was injured, and no one was in any danger of being injured..." and the move on to the bus being in a shootout. Hey, maybe I can apply for the superintendent's job?

Oh, and the last not so great part of today? The kids are grounded. No outside for a week. What fun. Hours of afternoon and brightly lit evening listening to "Please, can we go outside?" I hate when I have to do this to them. Not just because they hate it, and they whine, but because I really like them being outside. So many kids these days sit around watching the boob tube or playing video games, instead of being outside, getting fresh air and exercise. Don't get me wrong, my kids watch plenty of TV and play their fair share of video games, but they spend most of their free time playing outside. And, also, in the interest of honesty, the video games aren't that bad. They're the V-Smile educational games, no violence, and very helpful with their education. They get to play some games on the computer, as well, but again: educational only. After seeing how their father got addicted to video games, I'm going to make sure if they develop an addiction, at least it will be a helpful one.

I must go prepare for what will hopefully be the last cold snap of the season. I'm thinking of starting a petition that, if you are outside in shorts for Spring Break, wishing you could swim, that there cannot be any more cold snaps after that. Do you think it'll work?

I didn't think so either.

But a girl has to have some dreams, right?