Embarrassing Stories

I'm trying to work, but the servers at work are being really slow today. So, instead, it's time for an embarrassing story. (Just to see if she's reading, Rachel, I owe you $5 for something you did recently.) We were recently talking at lunch about embarrassing stuff our children had done. Instead of telling about something Rachel recently did, I'll share something that my co-worker Chris' child did.

The child had a habit of running around in just his underwear. He'd take off his pants and just run around in a shirt and his underwear. That was fine when they didn't have guests in the house, but he wouldn't make the distinction.

They sat him down one day and had a talk with him and explained that guests to their home shouldn't see his underwear. The very next day, they had some friends over and the kids had been playing upstairs. After awhile, the child came down the stairs. He was wearing a shirt, but nothing on the lower half of his body. Embarrassed, they took him back upstairs and asked what he was thinking. He reminded them that he had been wearing only his underwear that morning. But he needed to ask his mom something and he knew they had company, so he took off his underwear so that their guests wouldn't see his underwear.

Ms. Abortion

Ms. Magazine published the names over 1,000 women who had signed a petition on their website saying that they had abortions and supported the right of women to have abortions. They said they had over 5,000 people sign their petition and that the rest of the names would be on their website. At first I was shocked and horrified, and then I thought that 5,000 was a small number, and then that it probably wasn't that representative, that there would be lots who would never sign a petition like that, but who elected to terminate the life or potential or whatever.

But what got me, what I can't get out of my head, was one woman quoted in an MSNBC.com article who was 42, had a 5-year-old daughter and then murdered their next child because the child had downs syndrome. Words fail me. Well, one word comes to mind, but I'm hoping Rachel will eventually read this blog and see it as a work of love for her and not as a place where I come and post four-letter curse words. That wouldn't be a very good example.

This woman and her husband are trying again, but I think what they did was incredibly selfish and horrible. I hope that their attempts to have another child are all unsuccessful and that they are never able to conceive. I hope that they spend large sums of money in a fruitless pursuit of another child that all ends in failure. That God would say "I gave you a second child to care for and love and you snuffed out his little life before he even had a chance."

The New Elmo!

The first time we showed this video to Rachel she said "Elmo's too loud. Turn off Elmo."

The next day she asked to see Elmo again but after a few seconds again asked us to turn Elmo off and find some Veggie Tales instead.

This Week's Links

Let's Talk About Sex, Baby
BABYCENTER.COM -- I found this to be a really good read - ideas on what to share with inquisitive kids and how to deflect what's not yet appropriate.