Adventures in Ordinary Life

This week’s photos are of Jake being Jake, the view from our bedroom window and the view from our front door.

This past week had some interesting moments. At lunch at school one day, some kid threw a piece of ice at another kid, as I understand it. The kid who got hit asked who did it. Some other kid jokingly replied “Texas”, meaning Jake. So the kid who got hit by the ice physically attacked Jake, who was apparently holding his own too well, so a friend of the attacker joined in. Jacob still acquitted himself well in the scuffle, despite being outnumbered in a surprise attack. He had a little mark on his cheek and a bump on the head, but wasn’t much worse for wear.

The amazing thing was that the school responded with common sense. Dallas area schools are firm believers in “zero tolerance for school violence”, by which they mean that they punish assailant and victim alike, and call the police when a 6-year-old kicks his teacher. I actually had personal experience of those things as a parent advocate in Dallas. In Jake’s case however, the school recognized that one kid was the innocent victim and the other two were unprovoked assailants and told Jake so, and expelled the other two kids. I love this country!

To make it even better, he had a number of friends offering to go beat up the assailants for him, which offers he of course declined. And the next day, he had to dispel the rumor that he had gone after the original assailant and beaten him up after school. So in one fell swoop he managed to be completely innocent while proving he can adequately defend himself if need be, he got to be gracious in response to the protective indignation of his friends, and he got to see the depth of devotion his new Australian friends feel for him.

Karen would tell the story completely differently, of course, but to a father, it was a moment of pride more than horror.

Charlotte and Kaylah worked at the same store for the first time this week, but their schedules were so different that they actually worked together only 30 minutes the whole week. Karen distributed flyers in a couple of retirement communities a couple of weeks ago, offering to run errands and clean house for a fee. She got her first call back this week from that. And the substitute teaching looks like it’ll keep her reasonably busy right up until Wesley gets here from Texas 18 days from now! YEEHAH! We can’t wait. Life is good.