1/12/2019

It’s a great morning. and it's going to be a great day! I wasn’t confident in my ability to get up this morning, as I was up pretty late last night, but with the "help" of Caleb’s alarm clock that went off at 4:59 (and took him a while to turn off) I was pretty wide awake when my fitbit silent alarm went off at 5:00.  I had left my silent alarm on, but had set my phone as a back up alarm that would give me an extra 30 minutes of sleep “just in case.”  But I was awake, so here I am :)

I'll start with a review of yesterday, it was a good day.  A little unusual at work, as I got caught up in concern for one of the 3rd graders.  It is the time of year when they are learning about biographies.  They are each to read a biography and then they dress up as that person and do a 5 minute, 1st person presentation about that person.  One of the boys (who has had a pretty rough life history and it shows in his behavior and interactions with others) announced that he loves the Nazi’s and his report was going to be on Hitler - because Hitler was awesome!  He has apparently been pretty fixated on Germans, Nazi’s, and Hitler.  THIS IS A CONCERN!  I don’t think any “good parent” wants their child to idolize Hitler or aspire to be like him.  I found out about it because poor Mrs Ormond was trying to figure out how to address it. How to write a letter to a parent saying, "you child's hero is the guy who murdered millions of innocent people."   How do you help the boy, etc…  I was trying to help.  It was interesting, but as I pondered the situation throughout the school day, after each subject I would wander back in and tell her, ok, don’t forget to include (or consider, or remove, or whatever) THIS.  (For example, the initial, knee jerk reaction is “this is not appropriate subject material for a 3rd grade biography presentation..”  but as I thought about it - we often have someone present on Anne Frank.  That’s the same subject matter (in general)  We have people do Nelson Mandela and talk about apartheid.  We have at least one Abraham Lincoln and we talk about slavery and the civil war.  We always have someone choose Martin Luther King.  The last couple of years we have had a Malala.  These historical figures all bring up difficult historical topics and events.  So it isn’t so much an issue that the TOPIC is not OK for kids to know about and discuss - it is the fact that we have a 9-10 year old boy who is idolizing a man who murdered millions of people because he thought he was better than them.  I ended up talking with the boy quite a bit, trying to figure out where his brain was coming from and what his fascination was.  I don’t know how much of what he said was accurate - because he has some mental delays and challenges too, and he is know to outright lie if it suits his purposes, but I was pretty direct with him about the horrible things Hitler did.  When I asked why he wanted to chose Hitler, he told me it was because Hitler had an awesome mustache.  So I suggested he present on Charlie Chaplin - he had the same mustache and made people laugh instead of killing them.    He was semi interested, but wanted to know if Chaplin was a German or a Nazi.  C- said that his Grandpa was a Nazi…  don’t know if this is true or not.  Maybe he is just trying to connect with family or heritage?   He told me he just really likes the word Nazi because it is fun to say.  We talked about how the word Nazi is NOT the same as German.  Nazi was the political party, just like we have republicans and democrats today, they had the “Nazi party” - it was just a name to say what their beliefs were, not what country they lived in.  We talked about Germans who knew that what Hitler was doing was wrong, and they found ways to fight against him (or resist by helping save Jews.)  By the end of the day, C was considering doing Oskar Schindler instead of Hitler…  (or someone else who resisted) I finished my day by giving my opinion to Mrs Ormond that she invite the parent to help "C" learn about the holocaust and Hitler, and have the mom help him identify someone who fought to do the RIGHT thing.  Still difficult subject matter, and heavy stuff for a 3rd grader, but it should be the parent navigating this topic - so that she can instill her values and her moral standards and perspective.
  
(wow, that went on longer than I anticipated…  sorry.  It was a pretty heavy topic and weighed pretty heavily on my mind all day.  You worry that this is “the kid” who is going to grow up to be the school shooter and people are going to look back and say “why didn’t you DO something about it?”  Well, I did all I could for that day, I think (I hope) I made a little headway in his thinking…  maybe??? and I will keep pondering it and keep trying to be an influence for good.  I’m hoping to compile a short list this weekend of possible people he could choose to learn about and represent...  Now it’s past time for me to be gone to bountiful baskets - I’m going to to be late.  I’ll finish my journaling and my MM later :)

I’m Back…  I’ve been to Bountiful baskets (a produce co-op I help run as a “site coordinator”)  I went straight from there to do my “Own It” workout.  Got home, ate breakfast & showered as quickly as I could - then went with a group of youth (plus adults Tim, DeDe & Christie) to the Provo Temple.  It was SO SO SO crowded!  Both parking lots were totally full, even the lot across the street to the West was completely full!  Once we had finally gotten upstairs, we found the chapel completely full, plus they were putting people in all the larger sealing rooms to wait.  It was going to be about 1.5 hour wait to get into a session - then you other 1.5 to complete the session.  Since we had the youth downstairs, one of whom had a meeting she needed to be home for by 1, plus DeDe and Christie both had afternoon things planned, we ended up going back downstairs and did initiatory instead.  I love being in the temple.  I love the peace it brings.

Now I am back home, have had my lunch, plan to finish my journaling, then get started on some housework.  I am a little tired and sort of wanting a nap. (in fact, I keep nodding off here while I'm attempting to proofread.  As I said earlier, I was up late, because I picked up Fred * Christie from the airport last night, (they just got home from a 10-day cruise) and it was after 11 when we got home.  It was just past midnight before I finally got to sleep.  I actually adjusted my wake up time by 40 minutes to give me a little extra time, but as I said, Caleb’s alarm woke me up pretty effectively, so I got up and got started on my MM.  I’ve had a good, positive, productive day - but I’m starting to feel that my eyes are tired. I think I’ll set a time limit for which I need to clean - to prepare the house for the Sabbath, then I’ll take a nap.

Last night,, Tim and I went out to the Olive Garden for a date night dinner.  I invited our friends Joey & DeDe Smith to come with us. (Double date)  I am grateful for good friends.  I got to know DeDe through our working together in primary - and got to know Joey through DeDe.  I have served in various presidencies in the church, and I have loved the people I have served with, but with most of them, I felt like we served together without really ever bonding as a close group of friends.  The two exceptions to that are the ladies I went to girls camp with my first year as Camp director, (Becky, Alisha, Heather, & I) and the ladies I served with in the primary presidency.  (I went through a lot of sisters in the various counselor positions, so I won't name them all, but I really built some amazing relationships with some incredible women.  All of these women are very dear to me - I still know I can call on any of them in a time of need, and if at all possible, they would do anything they could to help me out.  It is a great blessing in my life to have friends - and sisters - like that!