September 11th

It was a pretty emotional day at school today. We did a lot of different activities to commemorate the events that happened 5 years ago. As I was sitting with my class this morning, listening to a prayer service, I thought about how all of the children I am teaching this year were realliy just babies when it happened, about a year old at the most. 5 years ago I was teaching 3rd grade and I can remember clearly how much the events of September 11th changed those 8 year old's perception of the world. We spent the school year talking through their feelings and helping them make sense of that day and the days that followed. In many ways, I feel closest to that class, my second ever, because we shared so much, and we changed so much together. It made me sad for my students today, that almost their entire lives have been spent in a world with terror threats, pictures of planes flying into buildings, and war in Afghanistan and Iraq. They've really never experienced that feeling of safety (alhough it turned out to be a naive feeling) that we all had before that day. When I was a child, it never would have occurred to me to think that someone could hurt me our my country. My own sons will not know what this is like. Evan was almost three that day, and we happened to be home from school together since he was sick. Even though he was so little, he deeply remembers the day and watching it on TV. I knew as it was happening Evan shouldn't be seeing it, but I couldn't turn the TV off. I just had to know what was going on, everything was so scary. Today as we were driving to school listening to the Today show on the radio, he wanted to know if it could or would happen again. Will our children ever get to feel safe again?


In a totally opposite train of thought...Charlie said his first word yesterday! At dinner he was pigging out on crackers, and he kept screaming every time he wanted another one. I thought, okay! Time to break out the baby sign language. Before I gave him the next cracker, I said more, showed him the sign for more, and helped him to make the sign too. By the fourth try he shocked the heck out of me. He yelled to get my attention, looked straight at me, said "More!" and grinned. Okie dokie! Let's bypass the signing and go straight for the talking! He even said it a few more times, until I had to cut off his cracker supply. GO CHARLIE!!!!