seriously. unbelievable. seriously.

Sam can say seriously now. Well, sort of, and it is so cute. I think he learned to say it because I've said it maybe 1000 times this week. Seriously. It is because this has been the most unbelievable week. I still kind of don't even believe it myself which is probably why I keep saying seriously. It was a rough week to be sure but then the weekend happened and well, now its just the craziest week of my life.

Doug got shot in the neck on Saturday. By a gang member. With a real gun. On Saturday morning, before noon. Seriously. He's totally fine. He even drove home. The bullet just grazed his neck. But still, my husband, got shot in the neck. seriously.

We were doing some community service. We got together with my sister and some friends and bought 20 bags of staple groceries for some families on the other side of town. We delivered the groceries and had a really great time meeting these families. We finished delivering a bit early so the coordinators of the whole service project said we could help out another team doing some clean up on the street. So there we were, my husband, my sister, a bunch of friends & Sammy, working away when some "gang bangers" did a drive by. Seriously. I was holding Sam, standing just a few feet away from Doug when he got hit. It was so crazy, we thought it was fireworks at first. Doug yelled some bad word not fit for family blogs, shook it off and started getting back to work. I looked over at him and his neck was bleeding. Next thing you know, the police are there. They took a look at Doug's neck, told us a little about who the trouble-makers were, started writing a report, and more shots go off just down the street. The police take off running, someone says, "that's it, its over, get the baby in the car, go home" and so we do. Just like that. Seriously.

The whole way home we kept saying stuff like Holy S*&T, you just got shot in the neck, and then for some reason we'd just start laughing. I laughed most of the day about it. It was just too crazy to be real. When we got home, Sam's diaper needed to be changed and Doug says, "can you do it? 'cause I just got shot. in the neck" which made me laugh even more.

The whole shooting has actually turned out to be a good thing. It was a great comic relief for a day, which even though totally innappropriate, was totally needed. I really needed something to snap my mind out of the worry fog that I was in. And Doug getting shot in the neck did the trick.

And more seriously, it has done wonders for changing my perspective and bringing me back to reality. Reality is most people aren't fortunate enough to live like I do. Reality for most of the world isn't just about getting together with friends and family dinners and vacations and going to the park. And even though I know better, I forget, and my world gets small again, and I'm out of touch with reality.

So, I'm thankful. Thankful for my dad, for my husband, and my son, who are all alive today and happy. And I'm thankful that I have this day to show them that I love them. I'm thankful to be in a position to help, to be an advocate for, and to love people, close to home and around the world that just live in a different reality than mine. A real tragedy would be to go through life out of touch with the bigger picture, the real picture.

The only real draw back to the shooting incident is now I have to deal with Doug's foolishness. He now refers to himself as street, gansta, thug-life and more innappropriate for family blogs type things. I'm afraid he's going to ask me to call him Big Poppa soon and that will just be crossing the line.
***just to clarify, I don't think violence is funny under normal cirucmstances, nor have I ever before laughed about someone getting shot. Just my husband.