Bringing Up Bobbin

Ok... so I get it, but it's still scary

FDA Approves Handgun for the Handicapped

I get this part (quoting from the article):

"'This allows someone to do something that a normal person can do,' said Clark. 'It allows them to overcome some disability to act in a more normal way.'"

But this is the part that scares me (again, quoting directly from the article):

"Thanks to the gun's designation as a medical device, doctors could eventually write prescriptions for it and then be reimbursed by Medicare."

**UPDATE**

Apparently the above mentioned article was updated sometime after I published my post, and is now stating that the FDA nixed the proposed "prescription pistol". Thank goodness sanity still prevails in places.

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Yet another avoidable tragedy involving guns and kids

It seems every week, there's another example of parents with a complete lack of judgement and sense of responsibility when it comes to guns and children.

October 27th it was an 8-year-old boy who killed himself at a gun show.

November 10th it was an 8-year-old boy who's facing charges of murdering his father with a gun.

This week it's a 6-year-old girl who was fatally shot by her father as he cleaned his guns while downing shots of Vodka. The other side note in this story that is almost irrelevant given the tragedy that did ensue, was that the father had "told detectives he had asked his daughter to bring him the .45-caliber handgun" in the first place. So we could have been reading about an entirely different story about a 6-year old girl shooting herself while dutifully bringing her father his gun. Either way you go, not a happy ending.

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When are people going to figure out that 8-year-olds should not be allowed to handle guns?

On October 27th I posted a link to an article about an 8-year-old boy who killed himself at a gun show. Tragic and senseless and completely avoidable had the parent had even a modicum of common sense or sound judgement.

Today I read an article about an 8-year-old boy who's facing charges of murdering his father and shooting a second victim.

The caption under the headline photo is "The Rev. John Paul Sauter said Vincent Romero, 29, had consulted him about whether [Romero's son] should have a gun." Because apparently, it's not inherently obvious to parents in this country that 8 years old is just TOO FRIGGIN' YOUNG for handling a deadly weapon. No matter what the law permits.

I have my issues with the gun laws and the general "second amendment" interpretation. I've resigned myself to the fact that I've chosen to live in a country where guns are considered an inherent "right" by many and that the laws that "regulate" them (and I use that term very loosely) are what they are, and are not likely to change. Fine. But really - just because the law doesn't prohibit it, does that mean it's ok to do it or allow it?

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My little patriot

Bobbin's class has been learning about elections all week. Not the yucky politics. Just the basics. Like this, which are the answers I got when I asked her what she learned at school yesterday and today

1. Our country is called the United States of America


2. It has 50 states


3. We live in Washington State


4. The 50 stars on the flag represent the 50 states. Each state gets a star


5. In the United States we elect a President.


6. America has a National Song. An America Song. It's the same song we sing at football games

And today, she came home and taught me something I did NOT know, in my 15 years living here, simply because I've never had to repeat it. The Pledge of Allegiance:

"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands: one Nation under God, indivisible, With Liberty and Justice for all."

Only when she says it it goes more like this:

"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and Stand, under God, invisible for all"

Which wasn't entirely inappropriate, given the last 8 years :-)

I'll stick with the official version though when I apply for citizenship. Probably wiser :-)

Easy to fix.

When I told her that Barack Obama had one the election she said, and I kid you not, "Barack Obama? I like him. I want to go meet him and talk to him"

About what, I wondered. That could be a good conversation...

But I responded with, "Well, He'll be moving into the White House soon. Maybe we can take a trip to see the White House". And then she asked "I want to see this white house. Where is his white home he lives in?" and then I explained that it was in the Other Washington, Washington DC. To which she replied "Near Aunt Sarah" (who, with Mike, just moved back to Canada from Quantico. The kid's got a memory in her).

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Words cannot express

How awesomely inspired I am feeling right now. What an amazing, historical night. I will never forget it.

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WTF?

8 year old boy accidentally kills self at gun show

Reading this story made me sick.

Also, I did not know that "It is legal for children to fire a weapon if they have permission from a parent or legal guardian and are supervised by a properly certified and licensed instructor". Seriously? Really? That is SO fucked up. It's not legal for an 8 year old to drive a car. It's not legal for an 8 year old to drink. But it's perfectly legal for an 8 year old to go down to the local gun show and shoot an Uzi submachine gun.

But that's just the tip of the iceberg on gun ownership and operation laws in this country. I have so, so many problems with this on so many levels.

"The boy lost control of the weapon while firing it". No frickin' kidding. I would lose control of the weapon too upon firing, I'm sure, and I'm a full grown adult. He was EIGHT. Where's the parent's judgement? Forget about judgement, even. Where's the basic logic?

Not to mention what's the lesson that was intended by allowing the kid to fire the gun?

I'm too disgusted and depressed to get into all the other stuff I'm thinking about this.

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The questions just keep gettin' harder to answer

I'm not American, although I've lived here for 14 years now, am married to an American, and have given birth to an American. But I still claim the fact that I'm not American as an excuse for my ignorance of things like... Flag Day. Which was today. Sure enough as I sit here typing and glance over at my calendar, there it is in small font next to the big "14". Flag Day.

I decided this morning upon waking that we were going to play Soccer Hookie today. I just wanted us to do something a bit different. So after breakfast and our compulsory trip to the coffee shop for bagels and hot chocolate, Bobbin and I headed out to Kirkland to a little playground by the lake. The attraction was the lake, not the playground. The playground was actually quite pitiful compared to the rest of the east side's privately funded money play pits. But it was right on the "beach" (I use the term loosely, as I've been to real beaches - the kind on the ocean or for lacking of an ocean, the kind you find along the great lakes). To its credit, it is a pretty sandy beach, and clean if you ignore the cottonwood tree debris that is blanketing everything in the greater Puget Sound region these days. Nice, quiet, with tame little waves that lap up onto the sand just enough to tickle your toes. Bobbin enjoyed herself immensely, writing in the wet sand with a stick and watching the waves come up and "erase" her artwork within seconds. She thought that was magic.

After playing there for about an hour we decided to head back to the local outdoor mall for lunch - hotdogs, of course. What else?

Lunch was a bit of a test; she had soaked her shoes and socks at the beach and they hadn't dried yet by the time we got there but Bobbin was so hungry she didn't want to go home first. So I carried her into the restaurant and she sat barefoot at the table happily gorging herself on turkey hot dog and a bowl full of melon chunks. Both were gone in the space of 10 minutes.

After lunch Bobbin decided that she wanted a cookie for dessert. She knows the "Cow Chips" is upstairs (not my fault!) so I carried her up the steps and we ordered a "Cookiedoodle" to go. This is Bobbin's version of a Snickerdoodle (also something I claim ignorance of for lack of American heritage. Who the hell outside of the US has ever heard of a snickerdoodle? Sarah, am I wrong?). And while we were up there, we noticed a firetruck parked in the middle of the street immediately below the circular skybridge we were on (it's an outdoor mall. California, I get it. But the Pacific Northwest? You gotta admit the idea of an outdoor mall in this area is a bit misplaced). Bobbin ignored her bare feet and insisted we go check it out. And as we were standing right in front of it, having fun waving at the firefighters who were amiably waving back, the ladder started to move.

Up up up, right in front of us, the end passing literally a couple of feet in front of our faces as it ascended. Hanging from the last rung was an American flag. It was Flag Day. I glanced behind us on the other side of the bridge and saw a number of VFWs standing tall, waiting until the flag reached its apex so that the Flag Day ceremony at the mall could commence.

Bobbin and I headed downstairs to witness the ceremony. After an exhuberant "BYE BYE FIRETRUCKS! BYE BYE FIREFIGHTERS!" from Bobbin that the entire mall could hear, we made our way down the steps and over to the section of folding chairs that had been laid out in the center of the street.

There were bag pipes, and trumpets, and speeches, and saluting, and flag raising and flag folding, and of course, the American national anthem, or as Bobbin likes to call it, The American Song. She requests it during bath time all the time and I always oblige because I like the way my singing sounds in the bathroom :-) So she knows a lot of the words already and is quite the patriotic little lady.

I don't know what it is about soldiers in uniform saluting the flag but it always chokes me up and brings tears to my eyes. And then the flag waving in the light breeze as the anthem played. And then the colour guard marching forward as the piper played. I was a snotty mess by the end of it, and when the commanding officer gave his speech about flag day and made mention of the men and women serving in uniform to defend our freedom and ask us never to forget what they've done for us, and are doing for us, and their bravery and loyal service, that was pretty much it. The tears were rolling. They always do. The emotion just swells.

Before you go giving me too much credit, I have to admit that the same emotions swell during any military or national ceremony regardless of what is being celebrated or paid tribute. Fourth of July. Canada Day. Victoria Day. Rememberance Day. Veterans' Day. Memorial Day. The moment of silence during the 7th inning stretch at the opening day of baseball. The Canadian National Anthem in the Stanley Cup playoffs. I even choked up in Milan when I listened to the German anthem play over the loudspeakers as Michael Schumaker took the podium to accept first place for the Formula One race he had just finished.

So I was awash in tears, and Bobbin, who had been paying me absolutely no mind at all for most of the morning leading up to this moment, suddenly turned to me and with grave concern and great volume, shouted out "Mommy? Are you crying? Mommy? Why are you crying? Did you fall down? Mommy, why are you crying?!"

I promised to explain it to her later in the car if she sat down quietly to listen to the rest of the speech. It didn't really work though. The next 10 minutes were filled with loud whispers and occasional vocal outbursts of "But Mommy, why are you crying? Are you ok? What made you cry Mommy".

We eventually got through the rest of the ceremony, which filled me with just as much emotion as the first part. I even learned something. Like the fact that the 13 folds of the flag don't actually symbolize the 13 colonies of the original United States as apparently most Americans believe. I didn't believe that; I actually didn't know what the 13 folds symbolized but had enough intelligence to realize they symbolized something. But for those of you who were under this false impression, the truth is that each fold represents the "religious beliefs upon which our country was originally founded"; I quote the officer who spoke these words. If you are interested, here is the meaning of the 13 Folds of the American Flag, and this is what they recited at the ceremony as they folded it in front of us. Needless to say, a fresh flow of the tears were streaking my cheeks by the time he had finished. Although again before you giving me too much credit (or taking too much away) for the perceived devotion to christianity that my tears represented, I have to also admit that behind the emotions triggered by the uniformed solemness of the ceremony that were dominating my foremost thoughts, in the back of my mind I was having a more logic-minded discussion with myself about how exclusionary this now seemed to be, given the diversity of religious beliefs that exists in the country today. And then I rethought that and realized that said diversity actually probably doesn't exist in large portions of the country given that this is also the country that elected the likes of George Bush twice. And then I reflected on the "separation of church and state" hypocrisy that is this country. And then the moment had passed.

So anyway, the ceremony ended and they put the folding chairs away. I went up to the commanding officer and thanked him and he was very gracious to me in return, and he chatted with Bobbin who hid shyly behind my legs the whole time. And then we went and checked out the firetruck and said "Hi" to the firefighters and watched as they packed up their things and got ready to go. We waved our loud "BYE BYE" to the truck as it drove off, and we headed back to the car.

And once in the car, the questions resurfaced immediately. Bobbin holds you to a promise, and she NEVER forgets.

"Mommy, why back there you were crying? What made you cry? You were sad? Why were you sad?"

And I answered as best as I could, explaining that I was sad because the man in the uniform was remembering all of the soldiers who have gone to fight in wars and defended our freedom, and so many of them died and so many more of them were hurt, and their families were hurt, and it was a very sad thing that so many people had to die even if it was for a just cause.

And that led to the next line of questioning which was

"Mommy, what is a war?"

and

"Mommy, why people have to fight in a war?"

and

"Mommy, why so many people have to died in a war?"

and

"Mommy, why you can get hurt in the war? Why people hurt you?"

and

"Mommy, hurting people is not ok. Why people are fighting? Fighting is not ok"

and finally

"Mommy, I want to go see a war. Can we go there? I want to go there" ("There" was a reference to Iraq and Afghanastan, which I told her is where there are soldiers fighting wars now).

I'm going to spare you my answers. I did the best I could. I was honest, but I didn't go into the gory details. But I also wanted to try and paint the right picture, which involves a lot of grey and no black and white when it comes to war being "good" or "bad" and the people fighting them being "good" or "bad". Wars can be fought for the right principles, and good people can get hurt, and the people fighting on the other side themselves aren't "bad" they are just doing the same for their country, and on and on. There really is no explanation that an almost 3-year-old can comprehend. I don't fully comprehend on many levels myself. I don't think you can unless you've fought one. But I did my best.

And was infinitely relieved when her 3-year-old attention span kicked in and the conversation was immediately switched to "Why is that man on the sidewalk holding a bicycle tire in his hand. Mommy? Did you see that? He didn't have a bicycle. Why he had a tire? What he is going to do wif it? Mommy, are you listening to me?"

I think I'd rather have an indepth teenage "birds and bees" conversation with her before another conversation explaining war.

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Happy 4th of July!

Happy Independance Day!

Well - 3 boxes of kleenex, 2 3QT containers of orange juice, 4 cans of chicken noodle soup, and 6 "Breathe-Right" Vapor Shots later, I appear to be over the worst of my cold (knock on wood) :-). Just in time for 4th of July celebrations :-)

Tim has to work - he's doing the sound for the WAMU Family 4th at Union Lake so it'll be a long day for him. He headed out around 8:30 this morning, and the fireworks show starts at 10pm so I'm thinking he'll be back maybe around midnight, 1am.

I'll be at home with our neurotic, fireworks-phobic, dog Tommy. We got him some doggy downers to get him through the big bangs. He's been a total wreck all week - basically ever since the reservations started selling fireworks and kids started setting them off for fun in our neighbourhood. It's gotten worse since the legal fireworks stands opened up this weekend and Tommy was a complete mess yesterday. I ended up having to give him two pills yesterday evening because he was coping so badly - constantly shaking, panting, wild crazy look in his eye, and he was completely glued to my side. To the point where, when I had to go to the bathroom (which these days is approx every 15 minutes or so) he would sit outside the door, lean against it (like he was trying to meld with it) and whine like he was dying until I came out. Of course, there's NO getting him to go outside to go potty while all this is going on, and at one point I think holding it in got to be a bit much for him because around 10pm when I went in to straighten out the bed before I went to sleep I discovered a minor explosion of sorts had taken place at some point and soaked all the way through to the mattress. It was too large to be from one of the kitties, so I suspect it was poor tommy, and that it happened sometime while I was at the hospital (a separate blog entry, below ;-)) so last night at 10pm I was doing laundry because we were out of clean bedding! Luckily (?) Tim was still at the fireworks site prepping (they did a walk-through last night at 10pm so he didn't get home until midnight) which meant everything was clean and dry again by the time he was home.

Anyway - so that brings us back to today - 4th of July. Now that I'm feeling somewhat recovered from my cold, I'll be able to actually enjoy part of the holiday! Debra, Chris and Ella are coming over later this afternoon to BBQ and hang out with Tommy and me for a bit (since I can't really leave him alone to attend any festivities - he really needs constant companionship during this holiday, even, or especially, when he is medicated) which will be a lot of fun! And then later this evening I'll watch the fireworks show that Tim is working on TV. Between now and 5 I'll probably do my usual - go for a walk, tidy and vaccuum the house a bit so that it looks somewhat civilized for later, and get something fun for dessert. Might even poke my head out at the property again if it stays sunny. That's all I've got planned!

And then it's back to work tomorrow ;-)

A safe and happy 4th of July to you all!

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Today's topic is: Drinking and Driving

I had no idea that there were states that actually allowed drinking and driving...

No more drinking and driving in Mont.

I had thought that all states had some kind of law around drinking and driving. Just call me a Naive Canadian, I guess :-)

I found it interesting that the argument in Montana FOR drinking and driving is that they "think we�re a very different place than other places and that we don�t have to run by the rules that other people have to in more congested areas� and yet "Montana has the highest rate of alcohol-related deaths, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration"...

I guess one could argue on the "personal freedom" side that one has the right to endanger or even kill one's self by drinking and driving if one chooses, (without knowing what the suicide laws in Montana are), but you can't assume when you drink and drive that the only one who would be in any danger is you. Even in a "less congested area".

Not that having a law there now is going to make a difference though since the penalty for violation is "a $100 fine, and the offense does not show up on a person�s driving record" assuming, of course, they are caught in the first place.

Anyway - didn't realize there were places that existed in the US where it wasn't against the law to drink and drive. I knew there were LOTS of places where it is very common, but didn't realize it was actually LEGAL too. Interesting. So of course, I had to learn more :-)

I found this survey of Drinking and Driving Laws by country, state, and province, of North America and Europe done by the National Highway Transportation and Safety Association.

I also found the "Setting Limits Saving Lives: Case for .08 BAC Laws" which explained to me that in October 2000 Congress passed a .08 BAC as the national standard for impaired driving as part of the Transportation Appropriations Bill. States that don't adopt .08 BAC laws by 2004 would have 2% of certain highway construction funds withheld, with the penalty increasing to 8% by 2007. States adopting the standard by 2007 would be reimbursed for any lost funds.

Which helped me understand the statement in the Montana article that "Montana had stood to lose $5 million a year in federal highway funds if it failed to pass the law".

I also learned that at the time the report was published almost all states had a BAC limit (exception being Massacusetts) but that the limit in many of those states, Montana and Mississipi included (which were the states referenced in the original article) was .10 at the time.

Anyway... enough research and ramblings. It's almost time for our Friday Night festivities. And I'm the designated driver of the family these days ;-)

(P.S: All of the links I listed in this entry and in previous entries I discovered by using MSN's new Search Engine. Never even had to go past the first page of results for any of them. I tell ya - I'm lovin' it! Oh... wait... wrong tag line ;-)).

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