Summer is racing

It's August now and summer has just been so quick that it makes me excited and sad all at the same time. Trying to pack in all the fun that comes with sunlight in Oregon.  We have such a long and dark winter that it makes me appreciate the days of light.  I love summer!  We have been going to the pool as much as possible and my children just morph into calm and happy when they enter the water.  Maybe that is everyone actually.  Hooray for swimming!

I have written nothing because the days have been so full.  We took our children to their first renaissance fair.  My daughter fell in love with it, as I knew she would.   I also survived the county fair with  hours of hot concrete and questionably safe rides.  It's been great.... and then if I stop and glance out of my bubble, it has been a devastating and horrible summer.  My car stereo usually switches to NPR during the school year after the kids hop out and get loaded into the classroom.   These days it's rare that I catch a glimpse, but when I do I just want to cry, and sometimes I do.

  I can't help but fill with tears because all this stuff outside my bubble of swimming and fun, it is real and it makes me so sad and angry and helpless.   I want so badly to take in refugees, stop bombs, and slap congress... so badly to change any one of these things.   Instead I focus back into my bubble, into these children who will hopefully be in the future making changes long after I am around to guide them.  I teach them tolerance, kindness, acceptance, peace and somehow for today that has to be enough.   It rips my heart out to imagine the face of a child seeing a sign of hate after a treacherous journey and a hot bus ride through a foreign place, a place that you were told would be full of hope and opportunity. America the beautiful.

I imagine if I was that Mexican mother, if I lived in a place where drug lords told me I better do what they say or they would take my precious daughter. To think that they would train my little adventurous boy to be just like them.  You can bet that I would grab my children and run away! Because I don't think I could imagine the journey running away would be worse than the reality of staying.  Still, how scary that run would be, and how impossible the odds. I can't even begin to come close to imagining what those mothers are facing.   Just the thought of my children's faces terrified by their world, I can hardly take the sight of their faces when they have a rough day at school.   How can anyone hold a sign with hateful words to such innocent people who are just trying to keep their children safe, keep themselves safe.   I don't care who you vote for, what "party" you are in.  re-attach yourself to humanity, open your eyes, put your sign down and help someone.

Coming off my soap box now... but if the problems of your summer sound more like mine be thankful and show some love to those who are hiding in bomb shelters, sneaking out of violent countries, and scared for their life.

My summer problems have consisted of what type of fruit to freeze in the popsicle container and saying things like "you've had 2 hours of minecraft... turn it off!!!" "Stop climbing the washing machine." "Find a tissue and why on earth would you NAME your booger?"
  I feel like a jerk for thinking that these are problems and my life is "stressful"