Rats

As further proof that I can't keep bad things from happening to my kids, Mark's backpack was stolen yesterday.

He left it somewhere, thinking it would be fine and it...wasn't.  Someone took it.

The backpack itself was nothing fancy and not a big deal.  What was inside it was a bigger deal.  Aaaaaall his schoolwork.  He has/had an enormous binder with assignments and papers from every class.  The kid who stole the backpack was probably hoping for electronics or cash or something inside and only got school work and probably just threw it away.

(We searched all the dumpsters outside the school.  No luck.)

I had the thought that this is a learning experience for Mark.  He will learn that he has to pay attention to where he leaves his stuff.  He has to be more careful.

I hate these kinds of learning experiences though.  I hate the learning experiences where our children learn the world is less safe than they thought.

Braeden and Emma and Mark started the world with wide-eyed wonder, ready to trust anything and everyone and every time something like this happens, they learn to trust less.  We all do.  It makes me sad.

Here's what doesn't make me sad.  Mark emailed his teachers last night to tell them what had happened because he's going to need some mercy extended as he tries to reconstruct all the notes and assignments he has lost.  Mrs. Braithwaite, his history of civilization teacher and now one of my favorite people in the world, answered him (Mark's email comes to me too, so that's how I know):

Mark, I am so so sorry!!!!!!!!!! Don’t worry about the assignments for my class! I know that you were caught up with everything so tomorrow we will just go copy someone else’s papers so you can have all the notes/assignments. It’s too bad there are stupid people in this world. But seriously don’t worry about anything for my class, we’ll get everything tomorrow!

It's hard to despair too much about the world when there are such kind and compassionate teachers.