There's a scar on my arm…

I sat at the kitchen table. My seven-month-old sister sat on my lap. My mother was in her bedroom with the door closed.

As I poured hot coffee into a foam cup my sister swung her little arms and knocked over the coffee. I quickly lifted her high in the air so she wouldn’t get burnt. But when I brought her back down to my lap, I screamed! The skin on my arm had shriveled up. [more]

I'm sorry to start the week with a sobering post, but this topic has been on my mind for a few days now. Last week a five-year old boy drowned at a local, private, neighborhood pool. It wasn't our pool, thankfully, but a pool very nearby. The day after this happened I took T. to a birthday party and two of the moms there had been at the pool the afternoon of the drowning. They were ashen-faced still, and sad--marked in that way you are when you have to see something as terrible as a small body taken out of a swimming pool on a sunny summer afternoon. [more]

This past weekend, I picked up a new winter sport – snowboarding. After watching little kids on boards zoom past us with precise control, we decided to hit the bunny hill. But on our second run the fun came to a halt. My friend took a back dive and banged her head so hard she blacked out. [more]