Monday, May 05, 2008

Testing

Nathan and Luke have their standardized testing today, Tuesday, and Wednesday. I always get all nervous about it, but they are very blase about the whole thing. No test anxiety here, LOL.

After testing was over today, the kids were playing a ball game, and groups of moms and other kids were just standing around talking. A baby bird, I don't know exactly what happened, but somehow came out of the nest and was flying really low by the sidewalk where some little kids were playing. The bird was kind of fluttering and skipping around, obviously not too strong, and then one of the kids STARTED STEPPING ON IT AND SQUASHED IT! I was horrified and started yelling at him--"WHAT ARE YOU DOING STOP THIS INSTANT NO NO NO!"-- since I seemed to be the only mom that had seen what had happened, although a lot of the older kids had seen. I was so shocked! A whole bunch of kids gathered around the poor bird, who fortunately died a quick death, and I got the mom's attention and told her what had happened. Of course, she was absolutely horrified and mortified, and she marched her son right out of there. This family goes to the church we used to go to, and I know they are not advocating random acts of senseless violence against baby animals at their house, LOL, so I know she was as shocked as I was, and I'm sure she and her husband will train their son (who is only 3, but is very big for his age) appropriately, but it was still so horrible!

My boys were just blown away and couldn't believe anyone wouldn't just love and protect a baby. I told them that to a 3-year-old, maybe he just thought it looked like a big bug or something, and we smoosh those. We left the church and went out to eat at Moe's with Daddy, but it still bothered especially Luke. He asked the other boys to stop talking about the baby bird, and even after we got home, he came to me and told me how he just couldn't stop thinking about it. He is definitely my most sensitive child. He was also the most deeply affected by Jonathan's broken arm. Sensitive, detailed--maybe he'll be a doctor! LOL At church, our pastor has just started going through the book of Luke, and as an intro to the first in the series, he talked about the characteristics of Luke as we get them from the Bible. Bob and I looked at each other and both thought, "We named Luke well", because he exhibits many of the characteristics Mike mentioned.

Anyhow, quite the ending for that first testing day. Hopefully tomorrow will be less traumatic.

3 comments:

Johanna said...

How awful. I know the boy was just three but even Caden at 2 would know better than to kill a baby bird.

Bob and Claire said...

Oh, I know! Mine too! That's why they were so astounded, and I think it affected Luke so much. He just couldn't understand how anyone could not know to not kill baby birds!

ElizabethB said...

Mary is so sensitive, she felt bad for the tick that bit her and was sorry Dad killed it--and this after it took 20 - 30 minutes to pull it out, causing much grief and whimpering.

She said she was sorry he couldn't go back to his tick family and friends.

Neither Jeff nor I felt the tick's pain, nor the Grandmas when told the story. In fact, there is no one we have told the story to who felt the slightest bit of pain for the tick.

I'm just glad it didn't happen when Jeff was TDY, tick removal is clearly a man's job.

As Mary reminded me, God must have made the tick for some reason. I agreed, but I certainly can't come up with a good reason down here--maybe we'll find out in heaven one day.