2012_12_14 Friday

Although I wholeheartedly apply the FreeRangeKids lifestyle at home, I can't help but find my heart in my throat today. Today, 27 elementary school kids were killed by two gunmen in CT, making it the worst (by #s) school massacre in history. While these incidents are rare and the news tends to overly report on them when they do occur, it's the first one I've heard of since Jonathan has been in school. So, my brain started to wander, and I realized that I don't know what the school's emergency (for any emergency) plans would be. I know they have had practice drills, but I don't know how the parents play into the school plans. If this had been his school, I don't know how/where/when I would have found him. Very sobering. And, now do I talk about it with Jonathan; not sure there's much to discuss with him, unless they talked about it in school first.

On a lighter note, Elise and I visited the zoo today. We had the whole place basically to ourselves. We were so bundled up that Elise couldn't actually climb on things and had a hard time getting up when she fell down. But we were warm! She rode the dolphin on the carousel.  We heard one wolf howl and the other three chime in; it was cool. She told me that "Jonathan has a donkey, mom. It's his stuffed animal on his bunkbed." She wanted to see the reindeer (aren't any), elephant (statue), donkey (for Jonathan), alligator, peacocks/hens (found 2 small feathers for J), and bears (which weren't out). She still isn't a big fan of the pteredon in the reptile house. Mildly successful, but the girl sure did run her heart out.