Mid Summers Night Faerie Ball '08

Once a year, for one evening only, this Mid Summers Nights Eve on Paseo with a full moon shining down...parents sparkle their children and watch them twirl in the magical moonlight, to New Age sounds and twinkling lights.

This year the venue changed from Tom's old church lawn, to...a vacant parking lot in order to accommodate the growing crowds through the years.
The babies, children and animals were just as glorious as ever. Performance from "Once Upon a Stardance Swan" just as amazing thanks to Director and Advocate, Lori Keller.

You see, the wee ones from years past don't quit attending, they just grow up to be more grand a faerie, elf, imp, or magical creature of a warm summers night, than before.

Some of you have been with me long enough to remember when I first started this site. Back in the days of "Lords" and wounded children, wounding children. I don't forget, but I forgive. Mer is something else in his own right.
The wounds of hateful adults go deep in his soul, have carved away his innocence before my very eyes. I trust and make mistakes that cost my child. I do stupid things out of my own pain and loss.

On nights like last night I see Mer's innocence lost more than ever. He has given up and gone to the "Other" side. It hurts too much to be vulnerable in life, hurts too much to trust, to love, to hope, to dream. (either that or he just likes black)

Mer wants to be a baby again, and simultaneously a teenager, which represents freedom in his mind. His walls have become thick as English stone, while I grasp for solutions to make us a "Family" somehow.

My ideas are lost in the reality of this worlds anger and hatred.
Should I have hit Mer too teach him "right from wrong?"
Should I ground him for being a boy?
Should I quit trying completely?

I am told by women who have no children "I spoil my child"
I am told by women who have children "I a don't do enough"
What do I know about raising a boy who had a sister one day then did not?
He wants to play with the little girls, wants to dress up and pretend it's all OK.
It's not "All OK", and to feed a child a line of bullshit like that, is exceptionally unkind and unfair...they know the truth.

All I care about is if Mer is happy, which he is...and is not.

So as I watched those beautiful angels dance with abandon in the moonlight, I said a prayer in my heart they all went home to love and respect, that no one hurt them or stole their innocence, that all things magical and mysterious were good in their lives for as long as the world allowed...
and that someone always protected them.