Downtown in Hindsight and Evidence Defined

Although he really enjoyed riding the bus and trains, I think in hindsight, going downtown was kind of overwhelming for Caleb. Mostly because I don't think he had ever noticed homeless people before. There are plenty of panhandlers in our part of Miami - all over Miami really, so Caleb has seen people begging from cars stopped in intersections. What he hadn't seen was people sleeping on the back steps of buildings, on benches and at bus stops. At one place, the man he saw looked particularly disturbing and he pointed him out to Rob. Rob told him that the man had probably been using drugs and was in bad shape because of them. He told him he should never use drugs and that they were addictive like smoking, but worse. Well of course Caleb didn't understand at all! We tried to explain on his level, but it was kind of useless. I guess there are just things that you understand over time. For now I think it's enough for him to know that they are something to be avoided.

But there are other things you understand more quickly. Yesterday I was washing dishes and Caleb was drawing and he suddenly asked, "Mom, what is evidence?" Not a word I was prepared to define! I thought of an example instead: "Do you remember when we found the travel mug by the door? Who did we know had been there?" "Daddy" "Well the mug was evidence that Daddy had been there, you didn't have to see him to know he had been by the door earlier." At first he thought that meant that evidence meant a travel coffee mug! But he got it figured out...

A little later I told the kids to pick up a pile of scattered puzzle pieces and put them away. "But Mom!" Caleb objected, "If we do that, there won't be any evidence that we were playing here!"