Friends

I saw in the paper today where educators around the country (but not in this area, I don’t believe) don’t want children to have best friends. It seems they feel it’s better for children to have a large group of friends and not have one “best friend”. Friends, I come from a family of educators (and The Wife got her degree in Early Childhood Education... or something like that) so I feel safe in telling you that educators don’t know as much as they think they know. Hey, it’s one thing to tell kids they need to be open to new friendships and try not to form cliques and don’t be mean to people and all that other crap, but to actively try to keep kids from having a best friend is going too far in my mind. Also, I couldn’t find where it was written that children couldn’t have a large group of friends AND a best friend. And “best friend” is somewhat of a relative term in my mind. I had best friends growing up who I haven’t seen since middle school. If not for Facebook, I wouldn’t even know if 99% of my friends from high school were still alive. That doesn’t mean I didn’t need those friends back then... it just means that over time we grew a part. It happens. It’s called life. I say let kids have best friends. Let them have as many (or as few) friends as they want. Tell them it’s ok not to be friends with everyone (because it is). Tell them it’s ok if people don’t want to be friends with them (it happens). Teach them the importance of having friends (people you can count on). And if these educators insist on saying having a “best friend” is bad for a child, I ask that they take a look in the Old Testament at the story of David and Jonathan. I would then ask if having Jonathan as a best friend was a good thing or a bad thing for David?

Mary Ruth came home the other day upset because a friend of hers didn’t want to play with her (and yelled at her... something like “Stop following me!”). It doesn’t take much for MR to have her feeling hurt, so this really hurt her. The Wife talked to her about it and that’s probably a good thing... because she’d probably get in trouble if she did what I was going to tell her to do.

My advice: “MR, the next time a friend yells that at you just say ‘WhattheHell’dyoujustsaytome?!’ real fast. If it happens again, punch them in the face and walk away”. (note: It's very importatnt to throw the first punch because it's usually the person throwing the second punch who gets in trouble).

Something tells me that’s not “appropriate” advice for a 4 year old... but I can’t think of anything better, so that’s what I’d tell her.

Saturday I was invited to the House of Clark to watch soccer. Really, the family was invited, but The Wife and the girls were out shopping. I told The Wife I was going to do some yard work before I went over there. I then mentioned the yard work I would LIKE to get done. I’m not sure if you were in the area this past Saturday, but the “heat index” was somewhere in the 200’s in my backyard around the time I was working (and trust me, it was NOT a dry heat). My goal was to dig up the bushes in the backyard, weed-eat & cut the front yard, and weed-eat & cut the backyard. I was able to dig up the bushes (5 total... each one surrounded by monkey grass... which should be outlawed). After digging up the bushes (and monkey grass) I noticed I was about 1... maybe 2 minutes away from a heat stroke. Even the dogs looked like they were about to tap out. So I decided to stop right there and call it a day. I went inside, took a cold shower (and was still hot when I got out), laid down for a minute or ten, then threw on some shorts and a t-shirt and went to watch some soccer. I got a call about halfway through the game (or match, as my friend Jamin would call it) from The Wife getting on me for not cutting the grass before going over to the House of Clark. It should be pointed out that I didn’t say anything about her going shopping while we had more dirty clothes than clean clothes in the house, more dirty dishes than clean dishes in the house, and dirt all over the floor from that freak of nature I call Donkey. I think I should get some credit for not saying any of that.

We at I’m just sayin... would like to congratulate Jeremy and Rebecca who are looking to enter the parenting world in January. I trust if they have a boy they will at least consider some of the names I’ve come up with. Or they could use my name. Whatever works. I wanted to break this story a while ago but didn’t because I like Jeremy too much to do that... and more importantly, I’m too scared of Rebecca to do it.

Goodbye and good luck to my friend Ross as he leaves to become the preacher of 2 churches (Hampton and Varnville).