Justis turned fifteen today. FIFTEEN! These birthdays just keep sneaking up on me. Fifteen? I can hardly believe it.

I thought we’d celebrate by viewing some old photos of Justis. I’m going to try to make sure I don’t use the same photos I used last year.

Here’s Justis as a baby. He was just one month old in the photo.

Here’s Justis giving us his best Dopey the dwarf impersonation. This is something he learned from his father. He’s about one and a half in this photo.

In 1998, Lee and I renewed our vows. Keaton and Justis were a part of that ceremony. And following the ceremony we headed off for a vacation to Disney World. Here are Justis, Lee and Keaton waiting in line for a show at Animal Kingdom.

I couldn’t decide between my two favorite pictures from Disney World in 1998, so here’s another one of Justis and Keaton sporting their new hats.

And, lastly, here he is yesterday as he opened his presents with his friends looking on.

Keeping up with my slacker mom duties, I waited until the last minute to plan a party for Justis. I’ve just been so busy with work and school [mostly school] I kept procrastinating. And then I realized his birthday was in just a few days. So he invited three friends to come over and spend the night.

They played Xbox and computer games. They also played hackysack outside and a little game of shoot the cans and bottles with the paintball gun. We grilled hot dogs and had some potato chips. For desert we had birthday cake, of course. Still in slacker mom mode, there were no candles for the cake. I swear we have a bunch of candles somewhere in this house, but I couldn’t find them anywhere.

So instead Justis pretended to blow out his fifteen imaginary candles. I think he blew them all out so his birthday wish should come true.

Happy Birthday Justis!

Spencer has a soccer game every weekend, but I never get to go because it’s opposite Skyler’s dance class. But this weekend his game was an hour earlier so I got to take him.

I got the privilege of dragging my tired butt out of bed just before 8am to watch him play. If you know me at all you know getting up before 8am, especially on a weekend day, is pure torture for me. But that’s how much I love that kid.

Apparently a lot of parents don’t look at their schedule because only four kids showed up this morning, including Spencer. At this age they play 4 on 4 so we had just enough players. But that meant our kids had to play the whole 45 minute game. And guess who has the worst mom in the world? The kind of mom that forgets to bring a water bottle to a soccer game? If you guess Spencer you’d be correct.

By halftime Spencer needed a break. But they only gave them a couple of minutes before they were back on the field. Spencer decided that wasn’t enough time and refused to go play. So then our team played 3 against 4. I talked to him about it and convinced him to go back in the game where he then scored numerous goals. They don’t keep score at this age, but our team far outscored the other team. Not that I’m competitive or anything though.

Spencer did a great job. He’s quite the little soccer star. Because of a rainout and one chill out [they postponed the game due to the wind chill so that's a chill out, right?], Spencer has a double header next weekend and then two weeks after that. So I might get to see him play two more times. My sleep deprived body can hardly wait.

I think I’ve mentioned before that Friday night is pizza night. This has been our routine for a long time; well over a year. Skyler, Spencer and Caleb often battle over who gets to hold the check until the pizza man gets here.

Tonight I walked in the door from work around quarter to six. I had just set my stuff down and walked upstairs when Skyler rushed up to me, “Mom, can I have the check?”

No, “Yeah, you’re home” or “I missed you” or even a “hello.” Just, “can I have the check?”

You see where I rate. Just below the pizza check.

I was shy when I was a child. On my report card, my third grade teacher wrote “Christine is like E.F. Hutton. When she talks everybody listens.” I hardly ever spoke so people assumed when I did I must have something important to say [which I'm sure must have left them disappointed most of the time ].

I’m still fairly shy, it’s just not as bad as it was when I was child. Now I pretend like I’m not nervous which sometimes comes across as arrogant. But really is just fear.

So what’s my point? My point is that not every shy kid is a psychopath. Most of us grow up to be successful people leading perfectly ordinary lives. We don’t all decide to shoot up our school and kill our classmates.

People act surprised that hindsight is 20/20. After attacks like this we always go back and examine the signs we missed. We analyze what could have been done. Even what should have been done. But putting blame on the parents, or on the doctors who said he was only a danger to himself or the school administrators or the local police who didn’t lock down the school is doing nobody any good. The person to blame is the shooter. Everybody else just did the best they could with the information they had at the time.

Back when the towers fell on 9/11, I heard stories that people in the second tower began to evacuate after the first tower was hit. But then security told them everything was fine and they should go back to their offices. Some people still evacuated, but others went back to work. It wasn’t forseeable that it was a terrorist attack and they’d be next. You better believe today if an airplane flies in to a building next door I’m getting the heck out. But I’m not sure what I would have done prior to 9/11.

It’s quite possible that in the next few years, if teachers come across assignments that are as disturbing as some of this kid’s writings were, they will push harder to get the kid in to treatment and have more converations with his parents. But there’s a fine line here. We don’t want our kids to be fearful of expressing themelves, but we also don’t want more of what we got on Monday. There’s a big difference between a creative kid who happens to write horror stories and a kid who writes horror stories because he’s mentally ill. Not all violent writing is a cry for help. If it is then why are there so many horror flicks in the movie theaters or on our cable channels? Why isn’t Stephen King safely locked in a padded room?

But then again, this kid had more going on then violent creative writing assignments. One of his professors said he was “mean” and had him removed from her class. He stalked a couple girls a couple years back. But in those cases he wasn’t violent. Just creepy. And the girls decided to give him the benefit of the doubt and not press charges. Somebody was concerned about him committing suicide. So the authorities sent him to a psychiatric hospital where a doctor determined he was a danger to himself, but not to others. Again, people did what they could with the information they had. Some people are mean, but don’t kill anybody. Some guys have trouble speaking to girls [especially very shy guys] and come off as weird and even creepy, but aren’t violent. Some people are depressed and consider suicide, but the thought of harming others never crosses their mind.

I’m worried that because of tragedies like this we will put more limits on our own kids. I don’t want to see our kids have to suffer because of the actions of a few mentally ill individuals. In the Newsweek article, The Games Boys Play, the author talks about some schools who don’t allow kids to run on the playground or play tag because “it brings out the aggression in kids.” But isn’t that the point? If they get their agression out on the playground then they won’t have the energy to pick on each other in the classroom. When I’m pissed off I like to jump on the treadmill or go for a walk. By the time my 45 minute work out is over I’ve usually calmed down.

At my house we don’t have any toys guns that look like real guns, but we do have squirt guns. My younger boys make a gun out of anything from their hand to a bent Power Ranger. Our older boys both have paint ball guns. And we even have an old BB gun [that doesn't work] from Lee’s childhood [we used to have two, but one --which also doesn't work-- was stolen the same time my car stereo was stolen]. We also have combat video and computer games, like Call of Duty. Both Lee and Justis like to watch all those horror films that come out.

Do I think any of this will make my kids a psychotic killer? I don’t think so. It’s just entertainment. Killers may pull ideas from these movies or video games, but it’s not the movies and video games that make them killers.

That being said I’m all for setting age appropriate limits. I don’t want my seven year olds watching gory movies or playing games like Grand Theft Auto. But I have no problem them pretending to be Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or having their Power Rangers fight a battle.

Some day our kids won’t have us hovering over them to make sure they are treating people with respect. We won’t be there to fight their battles for them. So instead of taking away their outlets such as playing and creative writing, wouldn’t it be better to teach them how to deal with their anger or sadness in healthy ways. I’m not saying you should buy them a gun and take them to a shooting range so they know how to fire a gun. But allow them to write or draw about what’s bothering them and seek help when you think it’s needed. If they don’t win the game, teach them to hold their head high and accept it. If they are upset that they are “it” teach them it’s part of the game and sometimes they are “it” and sometimes somebody else is “it.” Teach them how to share and how to resolve conflict with words instead of their fists.

Just removing toy guns and not allowing your kids to play a game like tag won’t solve the problem. We grew up playing cops and robbers and most of us turned out just fine. We’re in the middle of a war. Kids are going to see and hear about violence. Instead of forcing kids to just stand around the playground so they don’t get too agressive, why not teach them to handle it responsibly?