Do you remember what you were doing two decades ago? Well, almost two decades. I do! I remember exactly what I was doing 19 years ago.

19 years ago, I was huge as a house! No, really! I was so big, I could hardly move. 11 months after my first baby, I was delivering my second. Yeah, crazy, right?

It was a crazy time, it was exhausting, but it was also the most rewarding and joyous times. Ah, I miss having babies.

Now, she is a young lady and still screaming for attention even when she’s not trying. That’s just the kind of young woman she is. She’ll make your head turn even if you don’t mean to. And don’t let her flash a smile at you, you’ll be sunk for sure. And if you ever get a chance to talk to her, you might as well have heard the sirens sing. You won’t be going anywhere else.

Everyday since she was born, she’s made us proud. Even then, as a new born she garnered attention as people came to gaze at the biggest baby at the nursery that day. lol! I supposed we should have realized that omen was just a taste of what was to come. She commands just by BEING.

To my baby girl, HAPPY 19TH BIRTHDAY!

That I love you, is a given. That you are my daughter, is a blessing that I am thankful for everyday.

All parents think their children are exceptional. I certainly think mine are gifted! And I didn’t need a list to tell me they are, they just are. However, if you’re wondering and if you just want to be sure, here’s 20 signs for giftedness which were adapted from Austega:

1. Has early interest in words and reading
2. Has exceptionally large vocabulary for their age
3. Learns rapidly, easily and efficiently
4. Is curious about objects or situations, asks provocative questions; enjoys exploratory activities
5. Has an unusually strong memory, but is bored with memorization and recitation
6. Is flexible in thinking patterns; makes unusual associations between remote ideas
7. Is independent
8. Has a wide range of interests
9. Demonstrates unusual reasoning power
10. Likes structure, order and consistency
11. Show unusual degrees of originality, concentration and persistent hard work on projects that capture their interest and imagination
12. Is perceptually open to his or her environment
13. Has an advanced sense of humor
14. Is sensitive to the feelings of others
15. Shows more interest in creative effort and new activities than in routine and repetitive tasks
16. Shows an intense interest and aptitude in an artistic activity, such as drawing, singing, dancing, writing, or playing a musical instrument
17. Is intellectually playful, interested in fantasy, imagination
18. Acts as a leader among children of their own age
19. Tries to excel in almost everything she does
20. Senses when problems exist; always trying to adapt or improve things

Whether your child fits all those characteristics or none of them, I bet you still think your child is gifted don’t you? GOOD! Because they are!

Every child born is gifted. They are a gift in and of themselves and whether they accomplish great things or not is not really the point is it? The point is that they are yours to take care of and love no matter what.

“It won’t be one of mine”. That’s what one mother said about her child being bullied. That’s what we all say too, but even when we do everything right, what assurances do we have that the same thing won’t happen to our children? It’s a cruel world they are living in. The boundaries that hemmed us in when we were younger are now blurred and even more so when you throw in the anonymity afforded by technology. Some kids (and some adults too) are emboldened when they think they can hide behind aliases and anonymous personas on the internet or through texting.

Growing up and being a teen is hard enough without adding bullying into the mix. It seems that we hear more and more cases of young kids taking their own lives because of alleged bullying. Just today, I read about two cases. One is of a mom in Philadelphia who risks jail time to avoid subjecting her child to bullying. The other, more severe case is of a 12 year old Japanese girl who hanged herself because of bullying. After hearing of the later case, could you blame the Philadelphia mom?

It breaks my heart to hear of these cases. I feel bad for the young lives cut short. I feel bad for their parents left behind. But most of all I am terrified that it would happen to us. It’s easy to become complacent, to think that it would never happen to us. But as we all know, there are no guarantees in life, only hope. Hope that we have done enough to create a secure sense of self in our children, that we have done enough to make sure their exposure to the unpleasantness in life is at most minimal. We hope that we’ve loved them enough that they don’t need anyone elses. We hope that we’ve armed them enough to fight anything thrown at them. We hope that they are strong enough to withstand hopelessness. We hope…

But the most important thing that I hope we have imparted in our children is to not be afraid to be wrong and to not afraid to be loud. I know. Wrong and loud does not seem to be characteristics that we ought to be teaching our children. They seem more traits fit for the bullies we are fighting against. But I do believe that the people involved in just the two cases I mentioned above, the people who had knowledge of the bullying, were afraid to be wrong and were afraid to be loud and stand out. They didn’t want to be the first one to step out of line to say, ‘stop!’. They didn’t want to be labeled as loud for speaking out.

In the Japanese case, “After an initial denial, Niisato Higashi Elementary School admitted Monday she had been a frequent target of abuse by classmates.” They admitted after the fact and after a ‘survey’ has been conducted. If only just one teacher had ventured to be wrong and found a loud enough voice to say ‘Enough!’

In the Philadelphia case, there is still hope. The kids are still alive. There are still here so that administrators can still bicker whether enough documentation is available to warrant protecting these kids. If only one administrator in that school district would risk being wrong by going against protocol and instead listen to this individual case and be the one to be loud enough for them so they can attend a safer school.

When my daughters entered school, someone told us that we had better teach them to stand up for themselves. That we should teach them to take no crap. That we should teach them to hit back. It sounded right. We wouldn’t want our daughters to be anyone’s victims.

Except that I wasn’t too comfortable with teaching them to fight. Instead, we taught them to avoid being in situations where they would have to hit someone back. We told them that crap is crap and they don’t have room within themselves for crap so leave others to theirs.

We taught them to stand up for someone else who is being taken advantage of. We told them to sit with the person sitting alone. We told them to be the first to help someone up when they have fallen. We told them to be the first to offer a kind word when someone is sad and be the first to say hi when someone is new to the school.

Are our girls perfect because of what we’ve tried to tell them and teach them? Of course not. I’m sure they have had their mean moments. I am sure that they have inadvertently laughed when someone stumbled. They have probably said some unkind words about someone else. They may have even hit back when someone shoved them. That’s alright. None of us are perfect.

My hope is that when it counts, I hope that they will have the courage to be wrong. To go against their friends to stand up for someone else who can’t do it for themselves. I hope they find their voice and use it as loud as they can to speak for someone else who can’t. I hope…

Yesterday was a strange day. It all started when I went to pick up Jade from school. It is a normal part of my day to pick up the girls from school in the afternoons and for the most part, this routine is usually uneventful. Yesterday afternoon though was different and Jade even noticed it even before events unfolded.

I am working on a couple of projects simultaneously at work and I was so focused on what I was doing that I almost forgot to leave on time to do my pick up run. I was five minutes late leaving and by the time I got to Jade’s school, almost all the kids had been picked up already, except for a few. She asked if I can give her friend a ride home as she didn’t have one and she would have had to walk home. She doesn’t live far, so I said ok. After we dropped her off, I started driving towards Asi’s school to pick her up next. We were just driving into the high school when Jade suddenly remembered that Asi won’t be there because she is going to a club meeting after school. She had told me that the night before too, but I forgot. So we turned back around and started heading for home where I was hoping I’d get a few minutes to get a bite to eat before picking up the clone from elementary school.

On the drive back, a jerk started tailing me and making hand gestures. I guess I wasn’t going fast enough for him. So I slowed down even more so, to the posted speed limit. Jerk! Anyway, as we were turning into our street, we find out that the street has been closed for maintenance. We had to drive around to come in from the other end of the street. At this point, Jade said, “Mom, you should notice these signs because I think all these little obstacles are telling you not to go back to work.” We laugh if off, of course.

So after a few minutes to go for a bathroom break and drop off our stuff at home, it was already time to go and pick up the Clone from school. I figured we’d go pick her up and circle back to pick up Asi from the high school, drop them back off at the house then go back to work. I figured wrong.

By the time we arrive at the high school, there was a lone police car blocking the drive way and not letting any parent through. All the officer would say was that the school was on lockdown and they were not letting anybody in or out. So I drive about a block away and pull into a church parking lot to figure out what to do next. Before I could even put the car into park, about twenty police cars zoomed by with their sirens blaring heading for the school. This is when I started worrying. Before you knew it, the swat team pulled into the same parking lot I and other parents are in. They started suiting up in their assault gear. By this time, some of the parents were getting hysterical.

The worst thing about sitting and waiting and worrying, is not knowing what is really happening. The rumor mills start turning, and you don’t know what to believe. The initial news was that there is someone with a gun at school. Then the rumor escalated to that someone was shooting at the school. I knew Asi was supposed to be in front of the school waiting to be picked up. I just prayed that she is ok.

Luckily, the whole incident was a false alarm. Officials dub it a “misunderstanding”. The campus was opened back up a couple of hours later and we were able to pick up Asi. She was scared for a while, she said, but otherwise ok.

You can read more about this brouhaha here:
GUN SCARE AT RIVERSIDE HIGH

Oh wait, the day isn’t over yet. We got home just in time to see the incident on the local news (click on the link above for details). The school lockdown dominated the ‘breaking news’ reports until just before the eleven o’clock news. At 10 o’clock the school event was already old news as another breaking news, a toxic chemical fire a few miles away in Apex now had everyone’s attention. The fumes from the fire can be really hazardous so they have evacuated over 16,000 residents from the area. Local news has been covering this event all night and most of the morning today.

We are not affected by this incident as much as we are luckily upwind from the area. You can read more about this fire here:
THOUSANDS EVACUATED FROM APEX

So, do you believe in signs?