I want to introduce you to somebody special who has served in such a meaningful way to the Lines of Love Foundation. (If you are on Facebook, you can find our group here; our website will be up next weekend.)

Lenore is a rising senior in Howard County and is responsible for the daily upkeep of the Lines of Love Facebook group page. She has worked hard at organizing our last two events, and she continues to be one of the Foundation’s most committed team members. I know Lenore’s going to be with the Lines team for many years to come, and I appreciate all of her selfless work that she’s already put into the Foundation. Thanks, Lenore, for making such a difference.

Kelsey, another rising senior, took this picture of Lenore today as we were working on the last issue of the school newspaper. Kelsey, our newsroom’s Managing Editor, was quite the profile pic photographer today. Here’s the pic she took of me:

It was a great day at school, especially in my classroom. Annie (yet another rising senior) has been working hard at getting our “spirit lights” back up around the room. I’ll see what kind of pictures I can take tomorrow (will require a change in lenses, though, which I don’t know if I’m ready to do yet!). It’s just a great place to be these days. I love teaching in that room!

Side note here. Did you hear that Harford County Public Schools are changing their lunch procedures for their students? They are moving to the debit card system, which my kids have right now in Baltimore County. What makes me upset, though, is that parents will now be able to track online exactly what their children buy each day. The county is praising this as a sure-fire way to make sure our children are making healthy choices, and it helps the school system track what they are selling on a daily basis.

I say it’s a sure-fire way to take away yet another freedom our children have. At this rate, they’ll have cameras strapped to their foreheads and microchips embedded into their ears, and we, as parents, will be critical of every step they take (every move they make, every breath they take…).

“What are you doing going down that hallway? That’s not the way to science! I know what you are going to do. You’re going to meet that boy again, aren’t you? You get your butt turned around RIGHT NOW or there’s no dessert for a MONTH!”

You think I’m exaggerating? Try this one:

“I looked at what you bought today at school. Two ice creams, a bag of chips, and a chocolate milk. What are you trying to do? Kill yourself with all that junk? Is this how my money is being thrown away? That’s it. Since you decided to pork it up at school on all that junk food, you’ll be eating nothing but bananas and my homemade stuffed green peppers for a WEEK!”

Now, what you can’t get from the printout is that Sandy’s mom likes to make two PBJs and not one, and so Sandy shared her sandwich with your daughter, which she ate with the chips and milk. The two ice creams? Jen’s hamster died this morning, and your daughter decided to buy her an ice cream to cheer her up.

Stuffed green peppers for a week. Ugh.

We’re stripping our kids’ freedom slowly but steadily. I know it’s just a lunch, and I know the counter argument has everything to do with eating healthy. But my goodness, what opportunities do our kids have left to be kids? We hover over them too much already out of necessity to protect them, and we must draw the line and reconsider the Big Brother approach when it comes to the non-essentials.

Let them be. Let them eat cake and ice cream when they can. Let them enjoy the here and now, and breathe a little without the world waiting to pounce on them. If we don’t give them that chance now, we’re going to regret the rebellions and the confusion that will come as they get older.