In Memory of Miss Teresa

When you send your child to daycare at six weeks old, more horrible thoughts go through your head than good. Until at a year and a half your son comes home bilingual, shouting out his ABC's, colors, shapes and numbers to at least eleven-"teen".

On Saturday August 16th, my son's daycare provider, teacher, friend, and trusted "second mom" away from mom was killed by a drunk driver in Mexico.

We left to go on vacation the same weekend, Friday July 24th. When we left the daycare that day she gave him a big hug and said "Go with me Jaxon, I will miss you too bad. You can fit in my suitcase, we will have a great time." his response was "OK". She hugged him (and he hugged her back) for what seemed like forever. I told her "have a safe trip and have a good time!" not realizing how ironic that statement would become.

When we returned from Vacation on August 1st, he returned to daycare that Monday anticipating seeing Miss Teresa to present her with the shells he had collected just for her. Only to find out he had 3 more weeks to wait. Her vacation was a little longer than ours....

Everyday for the past 2 weeks when we get out of the car in the morning, his first question is "Is Miss Teresa's vacation over?" I always assure him that "not today, but she will be back soon". When we drive up at the daycare in the morning...I have no idea what I am going to say. He is two and a half years old. He doesn't understand forever, eternal, everlasting.


At Jaxon's graduation ceremony from the 2 year old to the 3 year old class, Miss Teresa wrote Jaxon a letter. Telling him how she would always consider him one of her own and that she hoped everything he'd learned from her, would stay with him forever. She was sad to see him go, but excited for him at the same time. Knowing he was growing, learning and happy. She always spelled his name J-a-x-(heart)-n.





I am at a loss of words to this young woman's family and friends. I am at a loss of words to my two year old son who will not understand why Miss Teresa never came back from vacation and why he can't present her with the shells he found on the beach just for her. Daycare workers are a dime a dozen. Believe me, with two children that have been in daycare from birth until 5 years old, I've seen it all! This young woman was truly something special that God blessed my son with for a year and a half. She taught him things that he will carry with him for a lifetime. I am truly blessed to have had my son touched by her love and compassion. I will make sure that he knows who she was and what an impact she had on all of our lives.



God speed Teresa Aguilar-Vazquez. You will truly be missed.

The I.Q. Test

After recently attending a concert in Louisville, KY, Roger and I stopped at a Cracker Barrel for lunch on the way home. I think we might have actually been inside the Nashville city limits, but we weren't "downtown" so to speak. The emotional inauguration of our 44th president had taken place the previous day which, like it or not, was an historical event. Caleb Followill of Kings of Leon couldn't even pass up the opportunity to express his support and emotion from the events of that day. Which if you know Caleb, he rarely says anything on stage, other than "God Bless you all, we are Kings of Leon". While waiting on our food, there were a couple of "rednecks" (sorry for the stereotype) sitting across the room from us making Obama jokes with the waitress. They weren't just jokes, they were very racially motivated and offensive. Does this moron actually realize that the man he's so blatantly disrespecting is now HIS Commander and Chief. Does the waitress who's laughing at these jokes understand that this man is her PRESIDENT! As I am quickly reaching my breaking point, on the verge of walking over and asking them to please shut-up, Roger actually said something profound. "Leave it alone, they don't know any better". Wow! That is probably true. What is worse is that they probably have procreated at this point and made more "future" idiots that will turn into non productive citizens draining our society of it's air quality. I know...I know...I'm Anglican. I'm suppose to accept the unaccepted. Embrace any living thing as sacred and help fellow mankind. But where does it end.

This is where the I.Q test comes in. Before you are given the okay to breed, you should be administered some form of I.Q test. It could even be multiple choice as to not make it too "tricky". It would contain questions like...

When going out into public you should be wearing
A. Pants
B. Shoes
C. A shirt
D. All of the above

When (not if) you go to work your children under the age of 13 should be left:
A. with a responsible adult
B. with the older children in the house
C. in the car
D. alone

2+2=

A. 20
B. 5
C. 14
D. None of the above

Please circle a profound statement:

A. "Don't try and get above your raisin's"
B. "I ain't livin' no where I can't shoot my gun!"
C. "Going to college is a waste of time, I can go out a get a job makin' $12 and hour right now"
D. "Great works are performed, not by strength, but by perseverance"


I could go on and on with this, but I think you get the gist of what I'm saying. Unfortunately this would be very unconstitutional, disregarding everything that our founding fathers dreamed of. I cringe at the thought of what George, Thomas, John, James, Alexander, John or Ben would say if they overheard this conversation in the Cracker Barrel. All we can do as Americans is stand behind our President and attempt to reach the offspring of the "low IQers" in hopes of inspiring them to go beyond their "raisins'"

The Importance of Individuality

For Christmas this year my 7 year old daughter asked for two very...different things. A leather biker jacket with lots of zippers, and hot pink "seeing" glasses. I knew what she was referring to with the biker jacket because over the summer we had taken the kids to Gatlinburg and had those "old time" pictures made. Well, she didn't want her picture in a saloon girl dress, she wanted her picture on a Harley. Black leather hat, jacket, gloves, the works. After they took the picture she clearly stated that she wanted one of those jackets for Christmas. It was really hard to find one in her size, but I eventually did (thank god for eBay) and put it up for Christmas.
The glasses were a different story. I had no idea where this was coming from or really what she was talking about. So we were in the mall one afternoon looking for earrings and she comes running over to me.."These are the glasses I'm talking about Mom!" They were hot pink with little diamonds around the rims. Not sunglasses, regular glasses without a prescription. I said "why?" she just looked at me and said "because I like them". Okay, enough said.
Christmas morning she opened the leather jacket, then the glasses and was of course very excited. She wore them...together, for the remainder of the day. We had to go out on an errand the following day and she put the leather jacket on then the pink glasses. Her oldest sibling whom at the time was 12, says "Oh My Gosh, your not going to wear that out are you?" She said "well, yeah". She turned to me and said "Mom, does this look dumb?" Of course I wanted to say, well....it's not the greatest choice you've ever made in an outfit. But I didn't. I thought, you know what, at least she is not afraid to show her personality. She has a very fun personality and it's awesome that she wants to show it off. So my response was "I think you look fabulous. I promise that you will be the only one at the store with pink glasses and a leather coat on. And if I had to make a bet, when everyone sees you in that outfit, they are going to want to know where you got that stuff so they can try to look half as cool as you do right now." So, she stuck her tongue out at her older sister and got into the car.
So here's to you baby...Your one of a kind!!!