It's A Jungle Out There

Every time I look at the news I always tell myself I will never look at the news again! But then I always do and I'm usually left with the same feelings of disgusts and heartache. There are the occasional stories that restore your faith in humanity but those are few and far between. There have been so many tragedies that have happened already worldwide since Lilly arrived last April. I can't imagine how many more will have happened by her 5th, 10th, and 20th birthday. And I dread the day that Lilly sees one of these tragedies on the news and I have to explain to her what evil is. Children are so innocent. That is one thing I love about teaching. Innocence is such a precious thing that we only have for a short while.

It KILLS me when I hear kids talking about that R rated movie they saw last weekend, their new video game that is super violent, or their favorite song that only has 127,497,469 cuss words in it. Seriously!? The only question I'm left with is WHY?? Why do you think it's ok for your child to watch that movie or sing that song? Let them be children. Let them get dirty. Let them sing their ABC's for the hundredth time. Let them do things that interest them and be supportive about it. Mike and I were discussing this the other day. We were wondering about the kinds of things Lilly will be interested in and his response was priceless... "If Lilly wants to play the trombone then I want to play the trombone too." Ummm yeah... It melted my heart too!

But on the other hand, there is such a thing as being overprotective. When Lilly was first born I had a lot of anxiety about different things, as any new mom does. Putting Lilly in the car those first few weeks was very scary for me. I dreaded her first fever or cold. Chocking became a concern when she started eating food. The first time she rolled over and slept on her tummy was the worst night of my life. I felt like I couldn't close my eyes for 1 second. But as these different things happened we got through them and realized that it was not the end of the world. My anxiety became less and less and my confidence as a mother grew. Now I don't think twice about Lilly sleeping on her tummy or eating a goldfish or going for a ride... And it's not because I don't care... It's because I REFUSE to live like that. Scary things happen every single day. But you know what!?... We are still going to leave the house, play outside, go to the pool, walk on the beach, swing at the park, go out to eat, go on walks, and take trips to target.

I researched some statistics recently that help put this in perspective:

62 people in the US get struck by lightning each year. That's a 1 in 5 million chance.

You are more likely to be struck by lightning two and a half times than to be kidnapped as a child.

1 in 18,585 people are killed in car accidents.

A person's chance of getting attacked by a shark in the United States is 1 in 11.5 million.

There will always be evil in this world. I hope that never holds Lilly back from doing what she wants to do. Because she can do anything her little heart desires. Even if that's playing the trombone.