Hug time: parenting when the world is too much

Monday October 2nd. It was an early morning here. We’d all been sick for almost a week and we were finally starting to feel more alive. So surely sleeping past six was too much to ask. We were testing our freshly healed stomachs with black coffee, laughing at Wyatt as he played with his baby doll Carter. “Aw, are you showing him outside?” Papa asked. No, we realized, as Wyatt carefully wedged each of Carter’s little plastic feet under the edge of the mini blinds and left him there to hang upside down. We laughed and laughed.

Of course I had to take a picture. Of course I had to instagram it. “Are you posting that right now?” Evan asked. Of course I was. Because it was hilarious, and I’m addicted.

Within seconds of clicking that irresistable Instagram icon, I saw it: the words “Pray for Las Vegas” on an attractive graphic. It caught my eye immediately, but didn’t register at first. There’s been such a constant flow of tragedies and disasters recently it can be hard to keep up. Another account I follow had posted something similar, and I quickly realized this was a new one. I didn’t know what had happened in Las Vegas.

Maybe I could leave it alone. Maybe I could pretend I hadn’t seen it. Maybe I could find out what happened later, after the coffee kicks in. At least after the sun is up.