Some Perspective

I've been complaining a bit about the girls' behaviour the past few entries.  While I cannot say that I will not complain about it in the future, I will say that I have some new perspective today.

In Orange Park, Florida 3 days ago a little 7 year old girl named Sommer went missing.  She went missing while walking home from school with her older sister and a friend.  The walk was from start to finish 1 mile long. In a middle class neighborhood described as nice and lined with trees.  Sommer had an argument with the friend they were walking with and when her sister told her to stop, she got upset and ran up ahead of her sister and friend to the point that they couldn't see her.  When they didn't catch up to her after several minutes had gone by, they started looking for her and couldn't find her.  They ran home and told Sommer's Mom.  The police searched and the community searched and they couldn't find her anywhere.  Yesterday, after one of the police officers realized it was garbage day in Orange Park, the police followed the garbage trucks from the neighborhood community where Sommer lived.  They followed them to the dump.  As each truck dumped its contents into the landfill, the police searched through the trash for her body.  THE TRASH.  And there after one of the trucks dumped its contents, they found this poor little girl's body.  They've done an autopsy and are examining the trash that she was dumped with.  They've interviewed 155 registered sex offenders.  And they do not even have a person of interest yet in her killing.

Today I am thankful that my girls are alive.  That they are healthy, strong willed, happy, and that I can hug them and hold them, and even get frustrated with them.  I weep for Sommer and her family. I wonder how her sister is feeling at the moment.  A little girl who upset her sister and then she disappeared.  And I am sorry not just for their loss but also for not always appreciating my children  - who even when pitching a fit or arguing with me over a shoe or something ridiculous, are truly the lights and loves of my life.

I can't talk to them about this of course.  At their age it would frighten them beyond belief.  But I will never be sorry for how vigilant and overprotective I am of them when we go outside of our house.  It is sad that we live in a society where people prey on helpless, innocent children, where we cannot let our children walk 1 mile home from school without the possibility of never seeing them again or seeing them after they've been assaulted.  These people should be put to death.  I am not a fan of the death penalty, but people who prey on children have a sickness that cannot be "cured" and not only for the crimes that they commit that wholly change a child who survives it (not to mention those who don't) but also for the safety of all of the children they might decide to harm later, they need to be put to death.  Just as our society puts to death dogs who attack, so should these monsters be put to death.

On that happy note, the girls and I had a fun evening last night.  After I picked them up from daycare, we went to the store in search of felt to make bats.  No felt was found, but we did find some fun static stickers that were spiders and decorated our front door's windows with them.  We also put up some spider webs and drew jack-o-lanterns - some with happy faces and some with "pooky" faces (as Angelfish drops the s).  Tonight we plan to make black construction paper bats and put up more fake spider webs.  Tommorrow after soccer, we're going to go to a pumpkin patch nearby that is having face painting, pony rides, hay rides, etc. This year is the first year that our Little Ladies have gotten into Halloween and it's really cute how much they like to decorate for it and how excited about it they are... although I think Angelfish is really looking forward to the candy part a bit more than Ladybug is.  That's not to say Ladybug isn't thinking of candy, but she's more into the idea of being Snow White for Halloween than the candy she will get, which is just an added bonus.  Our community is having a Halloween Street Party that is family oriented next Friday with a costume parade, a Haunted House (we'll skip that this year, although Mr. Darcy might go in), a pumpkin carving costume, games, etc.  That should be fun too.  Let the Festivities begin!

Oh and I did 18 miles in 47:30 on the stationary bike at the Y this morning.  It felt good but I missed my bike... at least until that upper left calf started to hurt a little at the end.  I gave it a good stretch, so hopefully it will not hurt later.  We'll have to see how it goes.  I don't like this super modified schedule... I need some more mileage and activity!  My body is sending messages to my brain like "it's such a pretty day outside.  Wouldn't it be a nice day for a 5 mile run? Or a couple of loops on the closed road on the bike?"  And then my leg/back/lungs send a complaint in the form of an ache, sciatica, or cough.  But at the moment, the idea of tougher workouts is overriding any bodily complaints.  So let's hope for a better calf and a better back and decreased coughing SOON!