do not read this.

This week is banned book week.  Interested in what books we don't allow children to read in schools or people to have access to in some libraries?  Check here for  top ten challenged books  (you'll be surprised what's on the list) or here for an ever-changing list.


I find it interesting that some of the books I teach in my classroom are on the list as well as The Hunger Games series (which I love!) and The Giver by Lois Lowry.  Write a book that makes people think or question the status quo and you can guarentee sometime, somewhere, you'll be banned.  Way to go, freedom of speech.


In honor of banned book week, I thought I'd share a young adult book that I re-read a couple weeks ago.  This book has been so controversial that the author even brings up censorship in a question-and-answer section in the back of the newer editions. 

Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson is a book about depression. The summer before Melinda's freshman year, she attends a party and things go horribly wrong.  And because the whole school blames her, she has no friends and no one to confide in.  And her secret is destroying her.

The book follows her through her ninth grade year and the reader gets to watch, horrifyingly, as Melinda, literally, becomes less and less of a person.  It's heartbreaking to read. 

But that I can relate to it and see many of my students in different aspects of Melinda is why it is a book that should be allowed in schools. 

I can't imagine the number of kids that would find themselves in this book.  Find, not only someone like them, but find help. 

That's the power of a good book.  And not allowing students to understand and experieince that power is a shame.  No wonder kids hate reading and we're raising a generation that has reading levels of 3rd and 4th grade when the "graduate" high school.  Good job, America, good job.

And, as a Christian, I think it's important to note that many of the books that are banned have been spear-headed by Christian groups.  This is so frustrating. 

Maybe we wouldn't have such large numbers of kids going off to college and renouncing their faith if we let them hear and experience different opinions and thoughts as younger kids.  And have healthy conversations with them about the things they're reading.  And explain how it relates to what we believe. 

Keeping it away from our kids obviously isn't working.  Let's try something new.

Just a thought.

So in celebration of this week, read a banned book. 

When we went to the library on Tuesday, they had a display of banned books and I picked up one I'd never heard of before, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie that, apparently, is all over banned-book lists. 

That's next on my reading list.

ticket fried rice

Apparently, we take Elliott to too many fairs and festivals.

I've been gone a lot recently.  Between school, Thirty-One, conferences, and meetings, I haven't really been home much.  Which sucks for many reasons. 

So after work yesterday, I took the girls to the library so Chris could get a little break.  He didn't ask for a break or even complain, but I know he needed it.

I didn't plan on going anywhere else so I just grabbed a diaper, some wipes (learned from a bad diaper experience with Elliott and the Beech Grove Library.  It was traumatic.), my library card, Ellie's busy bag and we left.

After the library, I decided we'd pick up some Egg Roll #1 for dinner because Chris (and I) loves that place.  Also, I didn't want to have to cook dinner when I got home, but mostly because I wanted to do something nice for my husband.  And I didn't want to cook.  But, mostly the husband thing.

I ordered it while still in the library parking lot and then headed to the restaurant.  As I'm getting out of the car, I realized I didn't have a wallet.  So I didn't have any money.

I tried to explain to Ellie that we had to go home and get money because Mommy forgot her purse.  She didn't understand this at all.  Sitting in the back seat, I could see the little synapsis firing in her cute little head, trying to comprehend why we couldn't just go inside and take the food.

Then she said, "You mean you're out of tickets?"

This she understands.  No more tickets means no more rides at the fair.  No more tickets means no more train at the fall festival.

"Yes, I ran out of tickets."

This she understands.  So we head home to get my tickets. 
 

It takes exactly eleven "The Wheels on the Bus" to get from Anderson Orchard to my house.

It's true.

Today I met my little family at the orchard after work for the first of many apple cider slushies and caramel apples. And they've recently put in a playground and Elliott literally flipped her lid when she spied that thing from the driveway.  Good call, Anderson Orchard, good call.

Afterwards driving home, it was just Ellie and me in my car.  She requested to ride with me because I have a CD player and all her CDs.  The 1997 minivan has a top-of-the-line tape deck, but, shockingly, we don't own any kids' tapes and so she doesn't get to jam in the van like she can in Mommy's car.  So I understand she just uses me for my music.  And I'm mostly okay with that.

As we were heading down Thompson Road, Ellie was yelling, not singing, but yelling, at the top of her lungs the words to "The Wheels on the Bus."  It was a rendition only a mother could love.  That poor baby inherited her mother's singing ability.  Sorry, Elliott.

But as I listened to her singing and looked back to see her hand hanging out the window and her fingers wiggling in the air as it rushed by, I was overwhelmed with a need to stop time.  I don't know where it came from, but it came fast and strong. 

I want her to stay this way always.  Singing loudly because she doesn't know to be self-conscious of her voice (or lack of).  Not caring at all that her shorts were wedged up too high and her chubby little thighs were hanging out.  Or that she had caramel smeared across her cheeks.   

I don't know if this is a result of being around kids that have had to grow up too fast.  Or have seen too much and are eleven and twelve years old, but haven't been kids in years.  I don't know if it's carrying over from last week when one of my students came to school with his face covered with cigarette burns. 

I don't know where these intense emotions came from, but I just looked at the beautiful little girl that I've been entrusted with and wished for a way to make things slow down. 

And I almost didn't want to write about this, because I don't know what to do with these emotions yet.  Then I thought if I got them down, it might make more sense.

But I think I'm even more lost than before. 

One year for Christmas, when I was a scrapbooking fiend, I made a giant book of memories, pictures, and stories for my mom.  It took forever.  On the first page, I used a quote that I had found years before and it had always stuck with me.

Making the decision to have children--it's momentous.  It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.

~Elisabeth Stone

And for now, that sums up how Thompson Road, "The Wheels on the Bus," and Elliott Quinn made me feel today.

gun shy {and} thirty

I said I was over the whole creepy picture thing, but maybe I'm not.

I keep thinking about all the things I want to write about and then I do nothing about it.  Which isn't normal for me.  Usually, I think about something and then I do it.  People that just talk about doing things, but don't actually ever do them get under my skin.  I'm a doer. 

But now I'm not doing. 

I'm avoiding.  And doing pointless things like changing the background of my blog as opposed to writing on my blog.

I do this all the time.  When I have something important that I don't want to do (like work stuff that I bring home--which I rarely do), I'll do anything else but said work.  Like last night.  I was doing laundry like a champ.  For no other reason than to avoid working on a project.  It was 11:00 at night and I'm folding socks like there could be a sock shortage any second and all the Grahams needed to be prepared.  It was definitely one for the record books.

I'm a doer, but I'm also an all-star avoider.

These are just some of the many talents I possess.

On a completely random and unrelated note, I turn 30 in exactly one month.  I have no specific feelings about this.  Oh, except the feelings I have about so many people making a big deal about their thirtieth birthdays and the me-me-me, let's throw a party thing.  That's super-annoying and seems immature for someone leaving their twenties behind. 

Also random, I'm so much better than I was a decade ago.  And last year, actually.  So that's how I'm going to celebrate the big 3-0, being better than I was last year.

And I also might do some reminiscing and embarrassing pictures, but mostly just be happy I'm better than I was.  Still a work-in-progress, but more done than yesterday. 

white

I was recently on this blog and loved how crisp and clean it looked.

Just all white. Calm. Orderly.

All things I'm a big fan of.

So I'm trying it out.

snapshot

This past week went too fast.  And I didn't get to write as much as I would have liked (or at all, really).  And then when I sat down to finally write, too many things were swirling in my head to concentrate on just one thing.  So here is all of it.  I'm embracing randomness today. 

Fall!  I can't wait for fall.  October is my favorite month of the year and it's only partly because it's my birthday month.  Harper will be a skunk, just like Ellie was on her first Halloween.  And we picked up Elliott's costume this weekend and I'm excited to see her strut around the neighborhood as a kitty.  She loves all things cats right now so it's the perfect choice--and she picked it out all by herself.  Meow.

A break from coupons.  I'm glad it was a holiday weekend (thanks, Labor Day!) so I could get caught up on cutting coupons.  I've been getting a little behind on the coupons-and-grocery-shopping thing lately and this weekend meant no new coupons.  Whew.  

Gunastics! 

Or, gymnastics, if you don't speak Elliott Quinn.  We picked up Ellie's ruffly leotard (who else thinks that a funny word?) this week in preparation for her first gymnastics class today.  I'm completely bummed that I'll be at school when she goes.  But I've got her outfit laid out for her and her little bag all packed.  It's going to be super-cute.  And Chris better take four million pictures and send me text updates.  I will be on edge from 10:30 to 11:30 just thinking about her adorable little self running and hopping around the gym.  Yeaaa.

Chris Graham turned the big 2-8 this weekend.  I was doing a little reminiscing about when I met that guy and how much he's changed and grown.  And what an absolute turd he was at twenty one.  What was I thinking?!  Geez. 

Thirty-One.  Well, this little adventure is going well.  And it's fun.  And I got a free bag in the mail last week for being awesome. 

Bags make me happy. Sigh.

Dragons.  Ellie has a book entitled Milk and Cookies.  There is a dragon in it and now she spends her days hunting dragons in our house.  She has a pink sunglasses that she has to wear when hunting dragons and must use Chris' giant, heavy mag light.  This is a recipe for disaster, but half the time, I'm at work when this goes on and have no say in it.  On a positive note, our house is dragon free finally.  Relief.

We need food.  Here is what my refrigerator looks like right now.

Chris informed me that he's running out of options for Elliott's lunches.  I see spinach, Jell-O, cheese, apple cider, and coffee.  I can come up with at least seven nutritious meals with those ingredients.  Suck it up, mister.  Lazy.

Bunk beds.  Fall break will be "big kid bed" time in the Graham household.  I'm already anxious to get bunk beds.  Those are going to be fun.  And now Chris will have a place to sleep the next time he complains I was sleeping in the middle of the bed.  ha.ha.ha.

And I'm back...

I've prayed.  Cried.  Confessed to my husband (telling him that story was horrifying).  Been angry.

And now I'm done.

Because here's what I've figure out--okay, actually, God told me and I just listened.  Which I don't normally do, but this was something I had to listen to.  Or things were going to get ugly.  Because I had fantasies of killing people.  Or going to jail in a blaze of glory a la Lorena Bobbit.  I'm serious.

Conclusion: people are messed up.  But I already knew that.  It just overwhelmed me when it involved my children.  And this is the first time I've actually wished God would just come back so we could just stop all this madness.  I know as a Christian I'm supposed to long for God to come back and want it immediately.  And I do, in theory.  And I understand that heaven will be a million gazillion times better than earth, but I still think selfish things about wanting to see my kids grow up or wanting to retire and travel (because that sounds fun!) or a hundred other things that I have on my to-do list.   And I know that is short-sighted and naive.  But it's the truth.

Then this weekend happened and I actually prayed and longed for heaven.  Where there wouldn't be hurting and pain and guilt and my babies would be safe.  Because no matter how much I try, I can't keep them 100% safe.  Only God can.  And that's a little power struggle the two of us are having because I can't imagine anyone loving them more than I do.  But He does.  

So I will continue to blog.  I changed some settings to make things safer (thanks for the tip, Kate!).  I will never post a picture without looking at it twice (and then a third time, just in case).  I will not let people I don't know infiltrate my thoughts and consume me like they did this weekend.  I will be safer, smarter, and more aware, but not quit.

And I have some peace.  Which reminds me of Phillipians 4:7 (from a song my mom used to sing when I was little), "Then you will experience God's peace, which exceeds anything we can understand."  That's where I'm at right now.

  

 

disgusted

I sat down to do some blogging.

Something I've been meaning to do all week, but life kept getting in the way.  And now, all I want to do is delete my whole blog.

Apparently, I messed up.  And I am sick about it.  Literally sick.

For those of you who don't blog, when you login to update your blog, it gives you different options to click on like design, comments, settings, stats, etc.  And because I haven't blogged much this week, I was curious to see if anyone had been reading my old stuff.

Well, someone has.  But not anyone I want.  

On the stats page, it will list my five most popular blogs with view totals.  And normally, they're the most recent blogs or ones I've mentioned on Facebook.  But today, the top blog, with 26 views was "Naked Babies"--about how summer was hot and I let my cute kids be in underpants/diaper all day.  I thought that was weird because the post is from June and nothing special.

And then it tells where the site traffic comes from.

And this is the part that is making me cry.  And be ill.

The traffic sources are from Google.  Specifically, when someone searches "naked kids" or "naked children," they were being sent to my blog to see three pictures of my kids in their underpants. 

People were searching for child pornography and ended up on my page.

What.have.I.done?

I keep looking at those pictures--my innocent, little babies.  And the thought that someone was looking at them in such a sick and perverted way is breaking my heart.  And it's something I could have prevented.

As a mom, I'm consumed with keeping my kids safe.  Every time we're in the front yard, I'm on edge about someone driving too fast while Elliott is within fifty feet of the street.  When my girls were little babies, half my day was taken up by going in to check on them while they were sleeping.  I had such fears about SIDS and them dying in their cribs (there were times I'd just have to stop and pray for God to take the irrational fear away--it was literally the only thing I could think about).  When we're at the store and a nice, old man says hi to the girls or compliments me on how cute they are, I immediately (after saying thanks) leave that aisle because it freaks me out.  People are weird and I'm super-paranoid.

But then I come home and post pictures of my kids on the internet and let anyone look at my girls naked.  How paranoid am I, really?

I feel so guilty.  My precious babies are in their beds sleeping (I know, because I just went and checked) and at some point this past week, sometime while they were playing at the zoo, having story time at the library, or coloring at the kitchen table, some pervert was looking at my kids.

I haven't decided exactly what I need to do.  At first, I just deleted the pictures and changed the title.  Then I removed the post completely.  But that still doesn't seem like enough.  This feels dirty now.  Which is frustrating, because I was looking forward to writing today.