My first baby is 8! :-)

Another year has come and gone in the life of ES. Last year I gave you a little background on his birthday and I sit here perplexed about what to write this year. :-)

In all honesty, we are very blessed with ES. 99.9% of the time he is a very good boy. Does what you ask; plays with his brother nicely; is calm and in control. Which of course makes those 0.1% outbreaks that much harder. But this post is not about ES being a bad kid, because he is not (but of course he has his moments).

ES is SMART. SMART and SMARTer! He devours knowledge and loves to talk about what he has read/learned about. According to him, his teacher says he is reading at a 5th or 6th grade level.

He thinks of the little details... A few Sundays ago in Sunday School his teacher was having the class act out a skit involving a chariot when ES pointed out to her that they did not have a horse for the chariot...so he graciously offered to play the part of the horse. Obviously the chariot did not have an engine. :-)

He has an imagination. He and YB are always making up games with their stuffed animals, army men, playmobile and/or legos.

He is kind, gracious and helpful to others. Just yesterday he set aside a spacial chair for our friend who recently had knee surgery and he made sure she had a foot rest. One of his favorite Sunday activitis is to help set up/clean up church.

He is coming out of his shell in little bits. This year he even tried out for a speaking part in the musical at school. I was disappointed for him for not receiving a speaking part because if you know ES; that was a huge deal for him to even want to do something like that, but maybe next year when he comes out even a little more and can be a bit dynamic.

ES is a blessing and we thank God for him everyday. He was born into a hard life of a Navy Brat, making his first of 5 cross country moves at a mere three weeks of age, but he adapts well and rolls with the punches.

Thanks for being you ES, even if sometimes you make me crazy. :-) Happy 8th Birthday!!!

Bike Helmets: Do you know the laws?

There is this blog that I sometimes read and have recently been horrified as she has posted pictures of her small children careening down the street on bikes without helmets. I was under the impression there was a helmet law. Well today she came out and basically said "don't tell me how to raise my kids"... which in general she is right. But like I said, I thought there was a law. So I googled... umm... where she is, there is no law! Check and see if your state has one, chances are it doesn't!
http://www.iihs.org/laws/mapbicyclehelmets.aspx
Who started this evil bike helmet law anyway?

My kids will still wear their helmets just because we already started down that line and we do move so much you never know what the next state is going to require. I also know people that have suffered some serious head trauma riding their scooters without helmets. So my kids will wear their helmets. :-)

Where did these people get their Driver's Licenses?

Today was a day of crazy drivers... well maybe crazy isn't the right word... anyway... is it a full moon? ES is equally nutty!

As I have explained in the past that I drive ES to school in the morning. Quite often as I creep forward in the line inside the school parking lot, I see kids bopping around in the car that are clearly not buckled in. Well as I sat ready to turn into the school, a car turned left in front of me with a child already bopping around in the car. I think in the parking lot it is unsafe to be bucked, I know we are all going about 1 mph but that is a moment when you get a multiple car pile up. So when I saw this kid unbuckled out on the main road I had to ask myself, "What are you parents thinking?"

So there I was, sitting at a stop sign in front of a store with a woman crossing the road in front of me. I catch something in my peripheral vision and it is a car driving up on my left side (wrong side of the road) trying to go around me just as the lady steps onto the curb and it safe for me to go. To prove the stupidity of this man, I start driving forward and oh the dirty looks I got and continued to get as I pulled into a parking space. Really dude, you were the one in the wrong, I was stopped at a STOP SIGN! Not sitting there for my health. Hazards were not on, just the brake lights.

So now I am driving down the main road in my town with the windows rolled down as we approach a stop light with a right turning lane. I am in the right lane in a two lane road. The car in the left lane decides to cut the dude in front of me off under the pretense they are going to get into the turning lane and make a right turn, and um, no they did not continue to the right turn lane and make a right turn. The dude in front of me, thus missed getting through the green light. So we continue along in our three car line and come up to another turning lane. The dude in front of me signals and moves into the turning lane, I signal and move into the turning lane and then... yes the car that just cut the dude in front of me off decides he also wants to go into the shopping plaza and starts to cut the dude in front of me off again. That could have been a three car pile up, good thing some of us were attentive to what was going on around us!

Yes, one more for the day... this one is minor but it makes you wonder what people are thinking... I was sitting at a stop sign waiting to turn left onto a busy road when a car came up next to me to turn right and pulled so far forward I could not see the traffic coming from the right. So I am sitting there looking to left at the BIG EMPTY SPACE WITH NO CARS IN SIGHT... wonder why this lady is not turning and getting out of my way so I can see the other direction of traffic. She sits some more, and I finally decide I have to be brave and creep out to see beyond the nose of her car. I think she was still sitting there when I safely made my left hand turn.

I used to think Hawaii had the worst drivers but after today I have to wonder... :-) Ok, I thought about it, Hawaii still wins!

So was that spew worth the wait? I haven't blogged in weeks, and this is what I come up with? Life just strikes me sometimes!