911, Starting School and My 2 Cents

Recently my 2 year old son gave my wife and I quite a scare. He was sitting in a spinning office chair while his sister rolled him around the house. At one point she spun the chair and my son tumbled out, landing with the side of his face on the carpet. Since he was holding his toy stuffed kitty, he didn't even put out his hands to stop the fall. I ran and picked him up, and the first thing I noticed was that he looked dazed, and he wasn't crying. My wife came out then and took him. While we were both looking down at him in her arms trying to ascertain the extent of his injury, suddenly his eyes shifted and then rolled up and his lips went white. In near mind numbing horror I grabbed the phone and called 911. Even before I hung up the phone though his eyes rolled back down and he looked at his mother, then just as suddenly as they went white his lips turned red as the blood began to flow to his head again. At first I thought that he must have hurt his neck. But the firemen and the paramedics who arrived less than 2 minutes later explained that when the head receives a good jolt it will shut down the blood flow for a moment, but will start up again as long as the injury isn't severe. It sounds a lot like a computer rebooting to me. Before the firemen left my son was up and playing again, though a little dazed, and he enjoyed sitting inside the fire truck. As for me, I am still recovering from that moment when his eyes rolled and his lips palled.

My daughter started the first grade last week. I am sending her to the Waldorf School and she loves it, so much so that she complained about not going to school on Saturday. She loves drawing, and I received not one but 4 beautiful birthday cards from her that she made herself. I guess I am truly sentimental; I could never throw those out!

Also starting a new grade is my 12 year old stepson who just started Jr High. It really brought back memories of my own school experiences watching him deal with his anxiety about starting a new school. He is doing very well now though.

I recently read something on the Natural Child web site called "22 Alternatives To Losing It". Most of these I practice already, but in day to day life the reminders are always very helpful.

And finally, I have to add my own two cents about the disaster in Louisiana. Yesterday I read a news story entitled "Bush Takes Responsibility". That's great. Sounds like he's finally saying what everyone wants to hear, and it's what he should be saying at this point. But it is what a person does that defines who they are, not what they say or even what they believe. Just a few days before Bush "took responsibility" he announced in front of a group of reporters that Mr. Brown (former head of FEMA) was "doing a heck of a job". Mr. Brown has now resigned and clearly, he was never qualified for the job Bush gave him. I can't fathom how anyone, with ALL of the disasters that this President has overseen so incompetently, can still believe that he is "doing a heck of a job".

That's all I got to say about that... for now.