Enough Fluff?

I realize that so far this blog has not been packed with political punditry,
or pretty much anything other than sports and sparklies...
But today I would like to make my first foray into the slightly meaningful.

This is a picture of me giving a power point presentation to my cousin's third grade class.



This is the ensuing chaos...



This is an inner-city Baltimore, faith-based community school called New Song Academy. My cousin has been working there for two or three years now, and I am so impressed. She is part of the solution, taking this grass roots idea and making it work in the real world. Last week she asked if we wanted to come in and meet her kids and talk about things we like to do. Being the geek that I am, I made a slide presentation about our upcoming move to Yosemite. GEEK!

I haven't figured out what to think about this experience, other than these kids are great, and sweet, and attention starved. They all wanted to click the button to change to the next slide (hence the chaos). After that was done they wanted to lay in our laps and play with our hair and tell us about their families. On the purely selfish note (of a parent who has lost a child) it was immensely satisfying to have this many kids to hug. On the other hand, it is crazy. What do you say when a kid who is snuggling in your lap looks up at you and says "My daddy's in jail."? I guess you just keep rubbing their back and holding their hand.

All I can say is "Yay Miss Kathleen!"