Caleb and My News Addiction

I first want to congratulate my college student!! She called to let me know that her presentation on homeschooling went great and I am so proud of her!

I'm a big news watcher. In my house, in the morning, you can find me listening to MSNBC, CNN, or Fox News. I also have email alerts sent to me from www.foxnews.com. I've always be interested in the news and currents events.

My mother-in-law once told me that she could never watch the news around Matt, because everything freaked him out. Me on the other hand...I'd sit and watch the local and national news with my dad every night. I can remember being sad when I heard bad things on the news, but I don't ever remember feeling threatened or frightened that it could happen to me.

Now, I'm feeling my mother-in-law's pain. Caleb freaks out about everything and I mean everything he sees on TV. For example, last year around Caleb's birthday there was something on the news about a threat being called in about the subway system in NYC. Even the mayor said, "We don't believe this to be a credible threat, so don't cancel your plans." Well, we always go into the city for Caleb's birthday...guess who made us drive into the city?? Yep, he almost had us change plans.

Cameron on the other hand, watches the news with me and wants to have in-depth conversations about it. He's a pretty good thinker...and ends up saying the most thought provoking things.

So honestly, I try to curb my news obsession. These days I just read news headlines on the internet. But, last week I happened to turn it on the news and they were talking about how much $$$ we owe China. The title was "US: Owned by China?" I tried to turn it before Caleb caught wind of it...Too late. He said, "If China owns us, will they make us be their slaves?" And Matt says, (thinking he's making it better) "Oh, no...we have bigger guns!" Not a good thing to say to an already freaked out 12 year old!

And forget about the news on the economy and recession. He's a huge worry wart! Although, this has been a chance for Matt and I to teach on faith and how God supplies our need. It's truly awesome to be able to tell Caleb that most churches are reporting 15-20% decrease in giving and we're up 10%...in this area? In this economy?

Everyday in the news, money is thrown around like it's just peanuts. It's hard to wrap your mind around the huge numbers that our government seems to be giving away. And so Monday's math lesson happened to be about large numbers. (billion all the way to decillion.) To better help the boys grasp the meaning of billion, I told them that counting one number per second, it would take more than thirty years to count to one billion.

Now, in my mind I'm thinking about money and trying to teach them how much money a billion really is...then Caleb said, "So mom, you're about a billion seconds old?" Yes I am...nice, Caleb. I should have seen that coming.