Blissful Innocence

We live in a crazy world. I look at LLC in her vibrant innocence and I want to protect that forever. I know I can't - that learning is part of living - and that she's got some way to go before her innocence fades. But still. I don't relish that day. Innocence is one of the best gifts of childhood, unappreciated until it has gone.

Along with the rest of the world I've been watching the fallout of the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear debacle in Japan. It's gripping, harrowing, upsetting. The coverage is incessant and I'm brought back to the days when I studied journalism and debated the balance between telling a truthful story and sensational journalism that grates on reader sensitivity. The press is certainly having a field day; lines of reason are blurring. People are fleeing Japan. Americans are buying iodide tablets in fear of nuclear fallout. And following the recent natural disasters near Brisbane and in Christchurch, the world asks "what next?"

What am I going to say when LLC asks me about such things one day? That the "show must go on." Parenting is hard, I think at times like this. How do you help your kids understand without scaring them? I think more about things like this now that I'm a parent.

And while I'm going on about this crazy world, I have to mention how disgusted I was to read the following story in my *shrinks in embarrassment* 'Closer' magazine: 'I inject my girl, 8, with DIY Botox & filler I buy online.' How unbelievably sick and messed up is that? And how scary is it that this woman actually thinks her behavior is normal and right? Not to mention the fact she is dementing her daughter's physical and mental health by this tripe. This particular girl is American but Botox laws (as opposed to guidelines) are quite lax on both sides of the pond and with all the nanny state laws we are subjected to these days, couldn't they do something about things like this instead?