Five Nights of Freddies and Other Topics to Avoid Right Before Drop-Off

This is me in the van. I spend a lot of my day in this seat.  Usually I like that.  

This is James in his favorite seat in the van.  He loves sitting in the middle row captain chair on the passenger side of the van.  That way he can see me easily and I can see him.  How cute is that!

These are the boys looking really tough and ready for a nerf gun battle.  They are actually in Ryan's car here, but I love this photo.  They often ride sitting close together if they are looking at a book or magazine together, playing with a toy together, or watching an episode of Star Wars together on an i-pad.  

This is Peter sitting in the front seat.  He's big enough to ride shot-gun now! Most of the time I like it very much.  It's nice to have a front row companion to visit with, and he's really good at handing things back to brothers, and grabbing things for me while I'm driving.  Sometimes when he plays with the radio, or the windows, or sunroof I don't love it. But I always love Peter!

This is me and Peter's friends last year.  I drove for a field trip.  I drive for lots of field trips.  I'm a mostly stay-at-home mom, with a mini-van.  But that doesn't mean I have to do it.  I used to think that was part of the job description.  It's not a necessity, but it can be one of the perks.  Sometimes it's wonderful, and sometimes it makes me super grateful for my boys.  They are really good kids, and lots of their classmates are less thoughtful, kind, smart, handsome, funny, and engaging.  But maybe I'm a little biased.  

This is me last winter after a really scary drive to school with the kids.  We pick up our niece/cousin Grace on the way to school each day, and we even started an hour later to give the plows time to do their job.  There were a few close calls.  If I remember it right there was almost a foot of new snow that fell that night.  Maybe more.  It was a really snowy winter last year! This was a morning when I wondered why I thought Greenwood was a good idea.  They could walk down the street three blocks to Polk school.  But the feeling of triumph when I made it there and the beauty of being out in the snowy morning led to this happy photo of me in North Ogden.  

Yesterday as we were driving to school, the boys were all talking about something called, "Five Nights of Freddies".  I assumed it was a Freddy Kruger movie marathon kind of thing going on for the Halloween season.  I told them they were not good movies, and that though I had never seen them, horror movies were just not a good thing to watch.  I told them there are good scary movies, that are suspenseful and intense, but horror movies are usually just yucky.  And they all agreed they wouldn't want to watch them, though Peter said he thought scary music was fun.  

Then I thought it would be a good idea to explain the word "gay" to them.  We were almost to school, but I had been worried about the fact that none of them knew the modern meaning of the word.  In fact, I had been up for an hour in the middle of the night, and that was one of the dozens of things I worried about until I finally got back to sleep.  Peter used the word at home, and I could tell he didn't know what it meant.  I was worried that maybe kids at school were talking a lot about homosexuality, or even calling him "gay" without him knowing what it meant.  

So I asked the boys, "Do you know what the word "gay" means?" Three "No's".  Have you heard people at school use the word.  William and James said casual "No's", but Peter said forcefully, "All the time!".  

"Well, it used to mean happy, but these days when people use the word they mean boys who like other boys or girls who like other girls.  Like men who marry other men, or women who marry other women."

Three horrified shouts of "What?!" 

William followed up with "Do they do that?"   

And now we are rounding the corner about to open the doors and push them out into the world with this new information that mom has just shoved in their faces.  Such bad timing.

Quickly I explain, "It's not very common, but sometimes, yes.  And although it's not what the gospel teaches we should do, it doesn't mean people who do this are bad, and we shouldn't make fun of them.  So using the word in a mean way, is not a good thing to do.  And we will talk more about this later.  And I love you and have a really good day! James, don't forget your backpack! Peter I'll see you for your field trip after lunch! William remember to give your teacher your homework!" 

And they're off.  And I get a diet coke, and find a quiet church parking lot in which to cry for a moment, and then call my husband and confess that I have told our sweet boys something hard to explain in less than two minutes.  

"They'll be fine.  We can explain more later.  You haven't ruined them. "

He's a good man.  And they are good boys.  And we have a good van.  

And he explained to me that "Five Nights of Freddies" is an app-- a game kind of thing.  And probably not as horrifying as the Freddy Kruger movies.  He is so wise.