Today.

Today was a sad day for our country. We lost young children who would have normally had their whole lives ahead of them to live, to laugh, to love, to cry. But all of that was robbed from them by a selfish 20 year old. 

This has seriously made me rethink how we want to school Layla. We've been up in the air about it the WHOLE time. Public school or homeschool? My brother recently started homeschooling and has nothing but great things to say about it. It works for him because he has a lot of social integration at the same time. Completely necessary if homeschool is the way we intend to go. I don't want my child to be put in harms way and, it's pretty obvious that public schools (and, let's be honest, lots of other public locations. Such as the movie theatre. W T F) are becoming less and less safe.

This has also put a lot of political focus on bringing God into schools as well as MULTIPLE discussions on Facebook about gun control. I sort of linger near the fence when it comes to Gun control. Should people who are obviously mentally ill have access to fire arms? Probably not. But why do you have to have a mental illness to take away that right? Is it unconstitutional to take away certain peoples rights to bear arms? Who am I to decide that? It's tough. When it comes to religion in public schools- I absolutely do not believe we should be teaching ANY religion in schools. That isn't to say that our children shouldn't be able to bring The Bible, the Qur'an, the Book of Mormon, heck- bring the Tao of Pooh for all I care. But please don't expect your childs teacher to preach the word of any god in schools. This may seem pretty counter to my beliefs (given that I've always considered myself more Christian than anything)....but in all honesty, there are tax payers paying for your children to go to school- some who don't believe in ANY God. Why should they be paying for your child to be taught a religion that they don't believe in? America is becoming a melting pot more and more and, as this continues, we must be willing to accept other religions- not necessarily believe in them, but accept them. Accept the differences that they have from our own and embrace the likenesses they may have. And really, what does bringing God into public schools have anything to do with the fact that this man was obviously mentally ill? The Word of God and/or any religion can be taught at home and, is often times more effective than teaching it in school. 

The fact of the matter is that these parents sent their children off to a school they thought was safe- and now, there are some of them who won't get to bring their babies home and kiss them goodnight tonight. Or cook them breakfast tomorrow morning. Or watch their faces light up on Christmas morning. The very thought of having all of that taken away from me feels like a knife sticking into my chest. Not a day goes by when I don't worry about Layla and she's right here with me in my belly! I am beyond thankful for her. I was almost in tears several times today while thinking to myself "what if that were Layla?" or "what if I were one of those parents?"...the thought literally makes me sick. I want my Layla bug to stay with me forever so I can enjoy everything about her. Imagine having your world snatched away. 

But, I don't want to focus on the negative of the day COMPLETELY. We got our first Christmas card in the mail today. I was really happy to get it :). I still haven't even sent ours out yet! Yeah, making all the gifts has really taken a lot of time away from me- but I'm determined to get them in the mail this weekend! I'm also going to start wrapping gifts and getting them under the tree. I've got myself a small checklist of things to do and things to buy still. I guess "small" isn't exactly the right word. More like GARGANTUAN. *sigh*. But, I love the work! :).

Well, I'm off to get started on more gifts!