My son told his classmates today that it takes him 2 and a half hours to fall asleep each night.  I said he was exaggerating to make a point and that technique is called hyperbole.  He said, “Oh, I thought it was called lying.”

Yeah, that too.

When a child is old enough to understand the significance and meaning of communion, they are fully joined with the rest of the community in Holy Communion. Send out the ffirst communion invitations and celebrate the occasion with a party. Invite all of the friends and family. After all, you can only celebrate a few of the sacraments. Make this one of them.

So when I was a kid my parents had certain gifts they gave to each child based on their age. Not everything worked this way – so you didn’t know everything you would be getting ahead of time but there were certain things that followed the pattern. For example, when you turned 9 you got a watch for your birthday and a camera for Christmas.

Now that my oldest is 9 I kept up with this (it being one of the few things I can remember clearly from childhood). He got his watch last birthday and this Christmas I’ll be looking for digital cameras that are 9 year old appropriate and won’t break the bank. Back in my day it was a kodak camera with 110 film. Now I’ll have to consider letting him use the computer to download his pictures.

I tried to explain seasons to my kids the other day. I got out the globe and asked who wanted the role of the sun and no one wanted it (who knew that was the dud role in this play) so I assigned my older daughter who can stay pretty still.

I glossed over (actually I totally omitted) the part about the sun rotating. Just seemed easier. I assigned the role of Earth to one of my sons and the role of the moon to the other. Then I attempted to get one to constantly face the second while the second turned in circles while going around my daughter and leaning slightly askew.

You can imagine how well that worked.

Then I tried to show them how the rays of the sun would be more direct at one time of the year than at another in out part of the world but the awe of knowing WHY winter is colder than summer didn’t light up their little eyes like I thought it would. I can’t imagine why.

They made it home alive and relatively unscathed in the notoriously evil social department.  No one was mean to them and the people in my second boy’s class were directed to fill each others buckets with nice words (actual mini buckets on every desk).

I guess I don’t need to rip them out of school and shelter them yet.  It’s probably for the best since I’d never be able to find a babysitter while I’m at work.

I just dropped my kids off at school for the first day of the year and I got misty as I left.  I even had to wipe a tear from my eye in public.  Ah, to return to those days of yesteryear and relive my youth.

NOT!!

I was actually thinking that it was pretty horrible of me as a human being to put my children through the same torture my parents put me through.  Sure, I was a rotten child, but my kids don’t deserve this. They’re good people and they don’t deserve to find out that the ’s’ word isn’t ’stupid’ and that holding up your middle finger means something (according to my sister, holding up any of the fingers means something disgusting – just different disgusting things for each finger).

My kids do not deserve to be put in a place where ‘friend’ is defined as ‘a person who isn’t mean to me’ instead of ‘a person who likes me for me’.

And yet I let them go.  I made them go….

I saw the words “Bob revolution” in  my travels across the internet today and was curious enough to find out what it referred to.  I initially thought it was a reference to that ad campaign from the latest presidential election but then remembered that was the Ron Paul revolution, not the Bob one.

Turns out it’s a stroller.  Bob products are baby products – mostly strollers but some diaper bags too.  They’re the three wheel kind that you can run cross country with or take into the store.

Not at all what I thought it would be.