What is there to say?

On Friday morning, I was at the doctor's office, taking Josie for her 3 year physical.  She was pronounced healthy and smart and wonderful and beautiful and surprisingly tall.  She got a Hep-A booster and a flu shot, which made her cry for all of 90 seconds, but that was enough to merit a trip to Starbucks for muffins and hot chocolate before taking her back to school.

After dropping her off, I headed off to run errands, mostly consisting of taking one of our cars to have its emissions tested, then to renew its registration, then to go grocery shopping, then home to put away the groceries before heading to Zeke's school to pick him up.  As I pulled away from Josie's school, I turned on the radio, heard the news about the school shooting in Connecticut, and promptly burst into tears.  I cried off and on at the emissions place, the DMV, the Safeway, and the playground.  I cried talking to Zeke's teacher and I cried making dinner.

I can't stand all the "hug your kids tighter today" and "something must be done about guns and mental health" and calls for action on assault weapons and fucking Mike Huckabee and people talking about how the problem is that the principal and teacher weren't armed and all of it.  I just can't.  I feel like every time something like this happens, there are expressions of horror and dismay and vows to do something about guns or whatever, and petitions are circulated and calls to congresspeople are made, then time passes and everyone goes back to their lives and nothing changes.

Then it happens again, and the cycle starts all over.

This.

I don't know what else to do but live.  So we spent the weekend going to the science museum and watching J play flag football and watching movies and playing with paper airplanes (Zeke's latest obsession) and going to the Blossoms of Light exhibit at the botanic gardens and reading Mo Willems books and buying Josie a new car seat because she outgrew her old one.  And on Monday I took everyone to school and J and I went to work and life goes on.

Because there's no alternative.