Sleepless nights.

Getting back from vacation seems to have really messed up my sleeping for some reason. I got no sleep last night. I was falling asleep in the shower, with my eyes rolling back into my head. I'm on the social life commission at church and we're throwing our summer parish picnic on Sunday. The reason I am on the social life commission is so I get brownie points for being an active parishioner and can, thus, pay the active parishioner rate for my daughter's school. As it turns out, I enjoy the other women on the committee and we end up having a pretty good time. (To date, we have managed to destroy all incriminating video tape so no one else knows just how good a time.) However, the members of our parish tend to be really uninvolved with church life and a lot of times we feel like we're wasting our time trying to organize events over the year because the turnout is usually low. Add to that the fact that our priest seems to only care about increasing the number of contributions rather than increasing the number of saved souls. Not surprisingly, his attitude is turning a lot of people off and away. What I find interesting about this is that people then blame the church for not fulfilling their spirtual needs. I always find it amusing when people transfer the human failings of clergy to the church. I don't feel particularly chummy with the pastor, but the assistant pastors are good guys and, generally speaking, I find the parish a comfortable place to be. I just tune-out the pastor since I know he's not going to inspire me in any way and get on with it. The church has not failed to be the church. The pastor has failed to be a competent leader. I think people forget the roles that free will and personal responsibility play in their lives and they think someone's got to hold their hand every step of the way. I just think that's lazy.

Speaking of school, tomorrow is the first day of school for my daughter. She's starting first grade and says she's nervous. I don't know why, though. She went to fulltime kindergarten last year and is going to be right across the hall from the room she was in last year. She'll be with the same kids and knows the teachers. But, she says she's nervous regardless. I remember my first day of first grade. I was sooo excited. I had to walk to the bus stop and got to carry a book bag. I couldn't wait to start because I really wanted to learn how to read and write. I talked to my mother about it once, how excited I was to start school, and my mom says she remembers because it made her so sad that I was ready to leave and go out into the world and do something on my own. She did walk me to the bus stop that first day so I knew where I was supposed to go. I'm not sad about my daughter being in school. It seems in so many ways to me she's been spending every day of her life breaking away from me in some way that school is nothing new. She wants to do everything on her own now, too, except wiping her butt after she takes a dump. I don't know what that's about. For some reason, she thinks this is not a task she can quite handle to her satisfaction. I think it has something to do with a severe aversion to skid marks. Anyway, skid marks aside, she wants to do all the things that qualify as being a big kid in her mind. She likes to walk to her friend's house by herself, even though someone stands on the corner and watches her the entire time. Sigh, kids.