It’s a cool foggy morning out and you can see the humidity in the air. The misses and I cannot stop thinking about the pain the parents of those children killed must be going through. It put all the dog hair and the kids mess around here a bit more into perspective. We really didn’t care about it and just wanted to hang out as a family and hug our kids. A few parents at our school are talking about home schooling their kids and others are buying guns for protection. Emotions are all over the place with people searching for answers. As a parent you have to wonder about how safe your kids are. Yesterday the police arrested a kid in Tulsa OK that was planning an attack on his school. Things like this always bring out copy cats and you question whether or not it could happen at your school. My friend who’s a former Swat/police officer and trains people on firearms is super busy. He’s been at the range from sunup until sundown and says he’s never seen anything like it.
Here’s a comment from Grandma Annette,
I think you are right about mental illness but you can’t force an adult to take medication. I think this country should put a lot more money into programs for mental health for middle and high school kids instead of all the money that goes to administration. According to the news all the guns were registered to his mom. What kind of mother has guns in the house with a mentally ill 20 year old? I think you did the right thing talking to the boys and waiting for things to calm down. I’m sure something else will come along for the news to jump on. Gun control laws aren’t going to help, it will just create a bigger black market for guns. I’m on a soapbox so I will stop now. Hope Jaggers birthday party is fun give the boys a kiss for me. I was thinking about them alot yesterday.
Lots will be said in the coming days and as I said yesterday, no matter where you come down on gun laws, we all need to take a deep breath and really take a look at not just what happened but why it happened. I agree that no way the Mom should have had unlocked guns or maybe any guns in a house where there lived a known mentally ill kid. Let’s hope we can come up with some sensible solutions that will address all the issues and not just focus on the size of the magazine or type of gun this deranged person had. We have to get at the root of the problem which as Grandma Annette said, is mental health. We cannot continue to ignore these people as a society.
Now to yesterday, we had a family birthday party for the oldest at 3pm with Grandma, Uncle T and Aunt B. The oldest is so grown up now, those of you that haven’t seen him in a while would hardly recognize him. Not by his looks but by his maturity. Uncle T and Aunt B gave him a Henry Mancini book for the clarinet and it wasn’t 30 minutes before he taught himself how to play the Pink Panther on his instrument. He really has a gift for music. Meanwhile the youngest who was banned from electronics for most of the day, was eating every cookie, candy cane and pieces of cake he could find. He was pretty amped up with lots of pent up energy. Throw in Lacey the lab who gets excited whenever Aunt B shows up and it was pretty busy around here.
Today Aunt B is taking the kids to the movies to see the Life of Pi. Here too you have to worry a little bit how safe a movie theater is after our recent shooting in one a few months ago by another mentally ill guy. I think I’ll tell Aunt B to sit close to an exit and not smack dab in the middle of the theater. How sad that I even have to think like this, what’s the World coming to.
The misses and I will do a little Christmas shopping while the kids are at the movies but not until the Broncos game is over, we have lots and lots to do. I have no idea where to start. The oldest and I did get the misses something small yesterday but that’s it so far. Our little tree that we cut sure is nice. I think we all like it better, probably because it’s in the tv room and we see it all the time but also because it’s real and just has a few simple ornaments on it. Aunt B and Uncle T brought us a string of cowboy boot lights which are the latest addition, they’re great!
So take care, stay safe and live each day to its fullest. I’m sure no way any of those grieving parents thought that a few mornings ago would be the last time they saw their child. God Bless.
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