Sunday Six - summer!

"Sunday Six!" is a game where Kelly asks us to have six questions answered. Remember, the idea is to post answers to the following six question, but the trick is to get your kids to answer them! If you don't have kids, use your imagination... Your pet, your neighbor, your elderly family member, your roommate, etc. Did you play? Let me and Kelly know so we can visit you.

Today I was able to ask Sarah (SB - age 6 yrs) and Sydney (SK - age 3 yrs) the Sunday 6. I asked Sydney first so she was not influenced by her big sister's answers. Here they are:

1. What does Summer Solstice mean?

SK:

SB:

2. What do you like best about summer?

SK:

SB:

3. Is summer always hot?

SK:

SB:

4. What do you do during the summer?

SK:

SB:

5. Which do you like best, summer, winter, spring or fall?

SK:

SB:

6. What do you not like about summer?

SK:

SB:

This was as much attention as I could get from the girls. They are too busy playing with their cousins to pay attention to Mommy's questions. So, they don't like bugs (and Sarah will tell you that she doesn't like jellyfish now that she has experienced one up close and personal.) They love playing in water - esp the way Pops plays (sprinklers on the swingset slide with a plastic tarp down the grass making a slip n slide or filling the back of the pickup truck with water to make a wading pool).

So, maybe another time.

My sister only has dial-up, so I'll add pictures later this week.

I'm HOME!!

Ever since I left for college, I have always felt that I have two homes. One is where I'm currently sleeping, one is where my family lives.

Yesterday, I flew home for the first time in three years. I've not seen my sister or nephews in that time. I really miss them. They have not seen my girls in that time.

The girls did pretty well on the flight. DH couldn't come this time. It was just me. But, I've flown with them alone before, so I knew I could do it.

My only complaint with visiting home is that I never get to visit my friends because my family is a bit protective of my time. That, and my mother/father live a couple of hours from everyone on one direction, my sister in the other, so it's not really easy. When it was just me it was no problem, but harder with the kids.

But, this time, I'm looking forward to a low key visit.

But, WE ARE GOING TO THE NATIONAL ZOO!! I love the zoo (good ones, the ones that don't stink) I used to bring a book to the zoo and sit near the lions and tigers in the grass and read for the afternoon when I used to living in Arlington after college.

So, I'll be intermittent, but then again I've been pretty intermittent lately anyway.

Thanks for sticking with me.

To Obliviate or Not to Obliviate

Last night, I sat comforting my husband. I set aside everything I had planned to do last evening, and let him tell me about his past 48 hours. I knew something had been wrong, but I couldn't ask him about it until then.

You see, DH had been called for Federal Jury duty. Because of where we live, the Federal courts are 100 miles away, so he had to stay in a hotel. He said it was probably a good thing because he wasn't sure he would have gone back if he had come home.

The case he was put on was a sexual abuse of a minor by an uncle. He didn't tell me exactly what that entailed but based on the tears he shed, I don't think I want to know. He talked about how this 13 y.o. girl had sat on the stand and bravely talked about what her uncle had done three years prior. He said that she sat through everyone else (including her Aunt's) testimony - much of it contradictory to her own.

He said she did everything right, she told him no, she told her aunt who didn't believe her and then she told her guidance counselor.

DH felt helpless that all he could do was find the guy guilty. I told him that was a lot. That for this girl to know that people believed her did help. It gave her power. I hope I'm right about this and it's not just me wanting it to be so. If anyone has insight, please share.

But, it won't fix anything.

I wonder sometimes why we don't just have a process to erase our minds so we don't have to dream about the horrors that exist in the world. But, if we turn a blind eye to them, the horrors don't go away. I think back to the 50's when things like this weren't talked about. All the people who suffered not knowing they had the right to say "no," the power to face them in court.

Yes, we have to be aware of genocide, abuse, torture, etc. But aren't we better for knowing it exists and trying to fight it?

But, as I held my husband last night, wanting to take away he pain for this little girl, his fear that our daughters are only so safe, I wish I had a way to make it all go away. But, I'm grateful that he could turn to me as helpless as I felt.

Oh, and if anyone is wondering why this was a federal case, it is because we live close to an Indian Reservation as the defendent was Indian and this occured on an Indian Reservation it was a federal case.