What a Week

I mean, WOW. The last time I posted our banks were merely struggling through a credit crisis. Remember that? How sweet those time were. Now we're in a full-fledged banking crisis, we (meaning our tax dollars) bought ourselves an insurance company, a big part of Texas was devastated by a hurricane, politicians got into a flap over lipstick and in my neck of the woods we had a playground kerfluffle, two birthday parties and one tooth extraction. Lots going on (hence the non-existant posting).

Last week in school, after a moment of silence to commemorate the seventh anniversary of September 11th, Leave-No-Stone-Unturned Sophie asked her teacher "WHY ARE WE BEING SO QUIET?"

God bless her teacher. She handled the situation well. There were very top-line, broad stroke explanations, which answered her original question but have given rise to others, like "Were you there that day, mom?" and "Can that happen to your office or Dad's?"

Since then we've had so many conversations about this event in the form of nightly question and answer sessions. The questions are so hard and sometimes I don't believe myself when I answer them. Like when she asked if people can buy bombs to hurt other people. I said "no" because really, you can't buy a bomb off a store shelf and does a seven year old who has suddenly been given a harsh glimpse of the world need to know the details about militants and internet recipes and fertilizer? She locks every door now as an extra precaution. She has also asked what we're supposed to do when there's a fire (we'll be holding fire drills to help ease her mind).

I try to answer honestly but the subject matter is strangely delicate and gruesome at the same time. As her mom it's been really hard watching some of her innocence slip away like that.

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On a lighter note, for homework this year Sophie's class will be given two new spelling words every night. Their homework is to write each word three times, use each in a sentence and then circle the word in that sentence. The first few weeks will use basic sight words as a refresher and to help them get back into homework groove.

Here's an interesting sample of the sentences Sophie wrote (spelling word in bold):

"What are these shoes doing on the floor?"
"Where do you think you're going?"
"Are you paying attention?"
"Who made this mess?"