It’s 9:52, Sunday night. Andrew and Jack are finally in bed after ten rounds of full throttle, candy powered wrestling. I enjoy watching their horseplay so much that I hate reminding them like the mommy broken record “boys, it’s a school night. Do you see what time it is? You’re going to regret this in the morning.” On nights like this I wish I homeschooled them so that making it to school on time weren’t such an issue. (Okay, for the record, this is the ONLY time I wish I homeschooled my kids. I fear I’d do a terrible job with them.)

I’m a little restless tonight. It’s been over a month since I posted and writing is like exercise. If you don’t do it everyday, it’s easy to get out of practice, to feel rusty, and want to do it less and less. After a million mile an hour weekend, it’s much easier to zone out on Facebook than put together coherent phrases for others to read. I recently got loaded up with a new job and new freelance projects. Andrew and Jack are both in baseball, church activities. James is still traveling all the time. My computer broke. We had to put our beloved family dog to sleep. Excuses! Excuses! What matters is that I’m back at the computer hacking away at motherhood clarity, whatever that is.

As many of you know, we live in Dublin, a town that goes completely nuts the entire month of March in celebration of St. Patrick’s Day. As a family, we love love love this time of year. I’m all about celebrating whatever local traditions our town offers. We put green bows on our porch, eat corned beef and cabbage and spend Super Saturday downtown at the parade and the arts and crafts fair.

Yesterday we donned our green and started the day volunteering at our church’s lemonade stand. Andrew wore 49 strands of green Mardi Gras beads he’d snagged at last weekend’s Tybee Island St. Pat’s parade. He looked like an Irish gang member. Jack wore his green soccer uniform. They took prime positions on Main Street to gather as much parade candy as possible. It was wonderful seeing the floats, but I wish there were more of them. Is it me, or are there wayyyyy more cars and golf carts than actual floats in parades these days?

Afterward we made our way to Stubbs Park. The kids challenged their equilibrium in about 10 different bouncy houses, while James and I visited with friends. If you’ve been watching the news, you’re probably wondering if we saw the shooting. No, thank God, we called it a day and went home about ten minutes before the event that ruined St. Pat’s for the entire town.

If you’re like me and try to avoid news media at all costs, I’ll fill you in. Two rival gangs planned to meet at the park among hundreds of families – husbands, wives and their precious children—and settle their gang differences right there, with no regard for anyone else. (like they ever have regard for others). A girls’ singing group from our church was performing on stage. Little ones were running around without a care in the world. In the blink of an eye a brawl ensued, shots were fired, the scene turned to pandemonium, a few people were trampled and police quickly evacuated everyone. There were no casualties, except the holiday spirit.

Whether Dublin will have a St. Patrick’s Day celebration again is up in the air. Maybe it’ll be scaled down. Maybe not at all. I don’t know. It makes me sad that innocent family fun, that so many people look forward to, can so quickly be derailed.

Before moving back to Dublin, we lived in Pleasant Hill, Ca. I hate to compare. I shouldn’t compare. But things like this NEVER happened there. There were towns around where shootings, gang violence and murders DID happen, but they had their boundaries. Richmond, Antioch, Pittsburg. Not Pleasant Hill. I wish Dublin were like that. But, hey. No place is safe. Even Amish communities.

When I think about violence like that happening in schools, I think “maybe homeschooling isn’t such a bad idea.” But, then, are we safe anywhere?

That’s all I have for now. I promise my next post will be more lively. I’ll look in the attic and find which box I stored my sense of humor in.

Until then, take it easy and let your kids know that you love them.