Get off your butt and supervise your kids.

Come on folks. I know concussions can be serious, but raising helpless children that can't handle life's smallest bumps and bruises is serious too. As much as current hysteria may dictate, you can't bubble wrap your kids and expect them to grow up to be well adjusted adults.

Apparently a CDC study shows concussions on playgrounds to be on the rise and the equipment being blamed is monkey bars, and swings. Don't do the norm of late and form groups demanding the removal of the equipment. Watch your kids. Maybe teach your kids to watch what they are doing around swings. Another idea, maybe the CDC should spend tax money on more important and less obvious ventures. Kids bumping their heads isn't exactly ground breaking research or news. Dealing with it isn't either.

Okay, maybe some design changes on the equipment wouldn't hurt, but it wont replace parenting. I don't have a problem with parents that choose not to let their toddlers run rampant in the neighborhood unsupervised. Quite the opposite. I know there are tons of "I did __ and I survived" memes online. Yes, I was one of those 4 year old kids playing outside unsupervised and I'm alive and well to tell about it at 40. I was also damn lucky. My playing radius at 4 included a busy apartment parking lot and a neighboring construction site.

Stop wasting tax money. Stop decrying playgrounds, watch your kids!

Contrary to popular opinion, some things are still dangerous, stupid, and unlawful.

A few days ago my wife noticed a car that reeked of pot when she walked by a man getting out of the car. There was also a woman and a small child in the vehicle. I'm guessing the man and the woman were the parents, but I do not know this for sure. All the windows in the car were rolled up, and the odor of the marijuana was noticeable because the man had opened the door to get out.

I didn't get up and say anything even though I should have and I don't feel very good about that decision to be honest. I have called 911 about the exact same thing before for a different occurrence and been made to feel like I was wasting their time. In the past confronting people that engage in this kind of behavior only results in profanity and exclamations of the supposed legality of marijuana use in my state. This isn't even the issue, but it is irritating nonetheless because it isn't true.

It isn't legal anywhere in the USA period. Federal law supersedes state and local law. A failure to enforce the law or choosing to ignore localities attempting to contradict it is not the same as it being legal. Various states have decided to exercise authority in the matter that they do not actually have. Changes in elected leaders or appointed personnel at the federal level could easily change federal response to the matter. Until marijuana is reclassified as something other than a schedule one substance it will continue to be unlawful to use or sell anywhere in the USA for any reason.

Anyway, back to the point. The problem was the fact that they were smoking a drug in a vehicle that they had been driving with a child in the car and all the windows rolled up. Ignore for a moment the quasi-legal status of marijuana use in Washington State, there are so many other things wrong with what they were doing without even getting to that piece of things that it is just crazy.

Smoking, of any type, in a car with children ought to be a crime. It is child abuse for the sake of convenience and is just wrong. Smoking a narcotic just makes the matter worse.

How about being under the influence while driving? That is illegal here. It's called DUI and the man driving deserved to be charged for it. It is bad enough that they were risking their lives and those of others on the road, but they were doing it with a child in their care.

In the past I have called authorities, I have confronted individuals, I have alerted business owners of it happening on their property. It usually didn't seem to result in anything good. I should have taken down the plate number and called 911 anyway and when something like this happens again I will. 

People have such a dismissive attitude towards marijuana in Washington state that they ignore all the problems relating to it out of hand. If that had been beer or crack cocaine I'm willing to bet that a call too the police would have carried more weight than one for marijuana. 

Wisdom in curiosity

We didn't have much in the way of snow this winter, but 3 or 4 days before it did snow Owen told me it was going to. I discounted it because the sky was clear, it was to warm for it to stick, and I had heard no mention of it on the weather report. Also, if I'm to be honest, he is only 4 and I assumed he just wanted it to snow. Owen was right though, we got some snow. Owen had probably caught a bit of a report I missed or heard something from his friends or teachers. At any rate he knew something I didn't and I discounted it because he is a kid.

When I was a child we were learning about resting heart rates from our PE teacher in elementary school. I don't remember what grade I was in or what my heart rate was before and after activity, I just remember it was the highest in the class. I told my father about it and instead of checking or showing concern he expressed frustration with my PE teacher and told me that my PE teacher wasn't a doctor and wasn't qualified to be teaching us about such things.

Now that I am an adult I know that you don't need to be a doctor or have a medical degree to understand such a basic indicator of our overall health. I suffer from tachycardia and from other heart related issues that are being treated properly, but the tachycardia that my father didn't want to hear about from a child or a teacher could have been addressed years ago.

Regardless of the topic, be it weather, health or anything in between we should at the very least try to listen to and understand our children without discounting what they say based solely on their age. Sometimes children are asking questions that need to be asked that adults don't consider. Children have a unique perspective that can be very useful in addressing a wide variety of issues.