The Katie Chronicles: Confession is Good for the Soul Edition

Recently, Katie and Ethan played in our basement and had to clean up the mess. Ethan complained that Katie only did one or two things and he did most of the work. We are so numb to squabbles over insignificant (to us) differences between the kids -- an ice cream dip that is one or two microns smaller than a sibling's, an extra page of a bed time story that one got and the other didn't -- that we didn't pay much attention. And then about an hour later, Katie hands me this note. In case you can't read first grade penmanship, allow me to translate: "Dear Mommy, I love you so much but Ethan did do all the work. All I did was sweep and pick up my shoes and my stuffed animal. Love, Katie. PS, I cannot find my books." Superego achieved? Well, we're working on it.

The Katie Chronicles: Southern Charm and Zombies

Recently, Katie and I were watching TV and I remarked how pretty the lady in the Chico's commercial was. Katie said, "Yes, she's pretty, Mommy, but not prettier than you. She's only the second prettiest lady." Awww, sweet baby. And it's not even close to Christmas or her birthday. Then later, Rome was kissing Katie on her forehead several times. She said, "No eating my brains, Daddy!" She's right. We have a strict "no brain-eating" rule in our house. You can't be too careful. You never know when someone will lure you in by comparing you favorably with the Chico's lady and then go zombie on you. 

Keep Your Guns Away From My Child

My home state of Georgia recently passed a law that I believe is dangerous.  One of the provisions allows felons to use the awful "Stand Your Ground" defense if they kill someone...with a firearm that it's illegal for them to have in the first place.  Apparently the nonexistent Second Amendment rights of felons are more important than the safety of anyone who unintentionally "threatens" them.  There are also provisions involving schools that my husband and I specifically protested by writing the following letter to our daughter's principal and copied to the system superintendent.

Dear Principal _____—

We'd like to begin by thanking you for everything you do for _______ Elementary School.  We are so pleased to have our daughter in a school where teachers care about her and she is getting a high quality education, despite the many challenges and barriers faced by educators these days.  That doesn’t happen without a strong leader.

We are deeply concerned about House Bill 60, which was recently signed into law.  In fact, we cannot overstate our concern about this.  Our understanding is that the law allows any school official to carry a weapon on school grounds as long as permission is granted by the district.  The law also prohibits police from questioning anyone about whether they have a permit or checking for permits, because no statewide database can be created, which basically grants everyone a concealed carry permit, regardless of criminal background or mental history. 

We are gun owners and we both grew up around guns.  We aren't anti-gun but we do believe it defies common sense to have loaded weapons around children.  We don’t believe that school officials would ever harm our child intentionally – in fact, we believe they’d give up their lives defending her if needed -- but we do know children are curious and persistent and adults make mistakes.  If guns are allowed in schools, we are certain that tragedy will ensue when a child is able to get access to the gun of a teacher or a gun is misfired by an adult, as has already happened in a Texas school.  We don’t want our daughter (or anyone else’s child) to become just another gun death statistic or to be catastrophically injured.

Given our level of concern about this development, we respectfully submit two requests

1.      Please deny anyone (other than trained police officers) who requests to bring a gun onto school property. 

2.      If you cannot deny such requests, please immediately notify us if anyone in the school other than a police officer is carrying a weapon on school grounds.  We will then request information about how to have our daughter removed from the classroom if that person is her teacher and removed from the person's presence if not a teacher.

It would break our hearts to have to remove our daughter from a teacher she loves, but we will go to any length to protect her from physical harm and trauma.  We cannot, in good conscience, ever allow her to be around well-meaning but untrained individuals with weapons and children who may grab them.

Respectfully,

The Katie Chronicles: DNA In Action Edition

Katie has a new teacher while her old one is out on maternity leave. The new teacher has changed to a "red, yellow, green" behavior management system, where we get a behavior summary like a traffic signal. I picked Katie up after school recently and this conversation ensued after the usual greetings:

Me: So, how was your day?

Katie: <silence with a sheepish look>

Me: Was it a red day?

Katie: Yes.

Me: Katie Brown, why was it red?

Katie: Talking. I had a green day until I talked too much during reading.

Me: It's always talking that gets you.

Katie: Yeah. I was just made to talk, I guess.

The Katie Chronicles: Snuggle Management Edition

We are a very physically affectionate family, with someone constantly hugging, smooching, holding hands...interwoven with lots of tickling, pretend pinches, and feigned gnawing. One of Katie's early sentences was, "No eating me, Mommy!" (accompanied by buckets of giggles) because I used to pretend to eat her feet while I had her on the changing table.  So recently, Katie was sitting with me in a chair watching a little TV. Her dad sat down in another chair and she started to get up and go over to him. She paused because she seemed to believe that I deserved an explanation. She said, "Mommy, I need to go snuggle with Daddy right now. You know how I snuggle with you all the time? Well, Daddy doesn't get as many snuggles as you do so I need to snuggle with him now. I'll snuggle with you later." I asked her to pencil me in for a 7:00 and she agreed. Now, where's Ethan?

The Katie Chronicles, Bits and Pieces Edition Guest Starring Ethan

Ethan has crossed over from Cub Scout to Boy Scout and his den's final outing was Saturday night to a Hawks game. Ethan gave me the game update afterward and summarized it by saying the Hawks beat the Denver Chicken Nuggets, 97-92. Later, Katie was playing pretend and we overheard her telling an imaginary friend that he was "getting on her nerds." (I hate it when people get on my nerds, too.) Later still, Katie wanted to hear a particular song so I found it on YouTube. The song had a bad word in it (thanks, Katy Perry) and I said, "Oh no, a bad word!" and started to turn off the song. Katie said, "Don't worry. I didn't hear it." 

The Katie Chronicles: Girls’ Nights and Hip Hop Hats Edition

Jerome has been a Cub Scout leader for four years now and every time he has a den or a pack meeting, Katie and I have a Mom and Katie Night.  Tonight is Jerome’s last den meeting as a Cub Scout leader. I will enjoy having him home more but I’ll also miss my special nights with Katie.  Tonight’s activities featured Girl Scout cookie delivery to our local Johnnie’s New York Pizza and staying for dinner, of course.  Then there was ice cream and there might have even been some Taylor Swift singing -- “We are never, ever, ever….”   -- in the car on the way home.  During dinner, I discovered that Katie’s green stocking cap is her “hip hop hat.”  When I asked her what hip hop was, she gave me a pretty good answer, along with an example song.  She also told me that it’s called “hip hop” because it makes you shake your hips and hop around.  How can I give this up?  We’ll definitely have to schedule some more Katie and Mom Nights even after the boys are back. Taylor Swift is optional.