thanksgiving and more

We're off on a little family getaway to Seattle. Friends invited us to spend Thanksgiving with them. Lucky for us, we get to stay at another friend's apartment while she is out of town. What a luxury!

I haven't been posting much lately, but I did want to share a story from a week ago. Tim was out of town for "men's weekend" and I was driving Jonah to meet a friend and her son at the ZOO when a cop pulled me over for blocking an intersection on a red light. I thought I could clear it, but the light turned red before I made it and I ended up blocking one of the four lanes of the wide street. Fine, the cop was right. He gave me a ticket, my first traffic ticket, but that wasn't all. He started checking Jonah's carseat and reprimanded me for the harness being a little low. Then he checked the tightness of the straps and said they were too loose, that this time he was going to issue me a warning, but that I could get fined for it next time. On his computer, he printed out not only the traffic ticket, but also the warning. My offence? Endangering a child's life. The cop said he was a safety instructor and asked me to tighten the straps before I took off. I was so stressed out I couldn't do it, but he didn't offer to help. Instead he said that I can tighten the straps at home. That really got my goat. If he cares so much about my child's safety - enough to issue me a printed warning - why doesn't he do the least he can to ensure it... Then pulling out of the place where I was stopped was a challenge, with traffic wizzing by from around a corner. The cop didn't think twice about helping me pull out. I was so distressed by the situation that I couldn't stop crying afterwards. That definitely didn't add to my child's safety in the car. In short, the cop endangered my child's life much more by stopping me and not only putting these infractions on my record, but also making me feel like an irresponsible mother. Shame on him.