Fluff and tragedy

This was a big day in a lot of good and really bad ways.

1) Miss E started Lego robotics summer camp today. Her biggest concern about this camp whether or not there would be any other girls in the camp. She loves legos, she loves computers but she's kind of at an age where she doesn't want to do something with just a group of boys. So, figuring that we live in a very affluent, educated neighborhood, I told her sure. I'm sure there will be other girls in the class. Well. When I dropped her off today there were NO OTHER GIRLS. She took a deep breath, kind of looked at me and I whispered "It's going to be OK, be brave and try it out" and she sat down at a table to work on her kit of Lego's. I left feeling a bit worried.

2) Then I dropped Mr. T off at his first day of a camp called Safety Town. It's all about police and firefighters and traffic safety and bike safety and he's on the purple team with the cutest 16 year old girl as his team leader. He's in love.

3) I went home and fumed a bit on Facebook (productive, right?) about how no one signs their girls up for things like Lego Robotics - which really, if you have a girl and she likes Lego's please sign her up for classes like that!

4) Then Peter called. With terrible news that I will get to at the end of the post because it makes everything else seem to frivolous.

5) When I picked up Miss E she was happily working with another girl (yay!) and they had made 2 lego ducks, hooked them up to a computer and a motor and had them spinning around. Miss E thought it was the awesomest thing EVER. (Mama breathes a sign of relief)

6) The kids and I went to Miss E's appointment with a plastic surgeon to follow up on her scar and have it checked out. Apparently, it will heal pretty well and she won't have to have any follow-up work done. Also the plastic surgeon (who was wonderfully great with the kids) was wearing patent leather stilettos. It was cute and weird.

7) So here's the bad news. And it's one of those things that's so bad it's hard to write about so I'm keeping this brief for now. Peter called from work this morning and told me that one of the firefighters from his department died yesterday. A young 30 year old, vital firefighter died tragically in a rock climbing accident. This is one of the things that really sets the fire service apart from other occupations. A death like this is felt around the department like the death of a family member, whether or not they were on the same shift or at the same station, because they are a family. It is incredibly sad and incredibly tragic and incredibly hard for everyone to deal with. There are questions and unknowns and black bands around badges and the readying of Class A uniforms. It makes my heart feel heavy for the department, his crew, his friends, his family, and his climbing partner who was witness to a traumatic and sudden death.