Category: Beth

The good stuff

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I want to say publicly that I am proud of my daughter. A short time ago she got her first report card of the ‘big kid era.’ I was her first report card on the A – F grading scale, and therefore her first opportunity to make the honor roll – which she made.

Then last week I picked her up from Tae Kwon Do and caught the tail end of her lesson. She had been one of three yellow-belts picked to demonstrate her “form” to the rest of the class. Not only did she do it correctly (with a big improvement over the last time I watched), but the other kids did not. She was able to go through her form without error, and without the other kids’ mistakes distracting her.

Author’s note: a “form” is similar to a dance routine. When practiced in a group, it’s like watching a dance line. However, when one person makes a mistake – the mistake is often contagious. Kids see what others are doing, and if they’re not confident in themselves they’ll follow their neighbor… even if their neighbor is wrong. Think about your child and about your childhood. It may be that the only thing worse than making a mistake is being the only one making the mistake. On second thought, forget about your childhood. I think it may be true for everyone. Feeling stupid is one thing… but feeling uniquely stupid is a whole new level of humiliation.

I knew if I worked hard enough I could end on a negative note.

Shaken, not stirred

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I am disappointed in Beth’s school. A week ago we were filling out a permission slip for Beth to go on a field trip. A trip to Ruth Eckerd Hall is routine around these parts, so I thought nothing of it. However, when I signed the slip waiving any potential claims of liability against the school I had no idea Beth was going to be exposed to the Damn Yankees. No, I’m not talking about the theatrical production… I’m speaking in a literal sense. You see the kids were given a goody bag… in the shape and form of an Adidas branded, New York Stinking Yankees warm up bag. Adding insult to injury, the bag was filled with Yankee doo-dads and whatnots. Naturally, I was appalled.

Do you have any idea what kind of harm can come to a child’s impressionable mind, painting the Yankee’s in a favorable light… at this age? Think of us poor, unsuspecting parents… as far as we know our children are out having a harmless education experience… right up until they come back Yankee fans. As far as I’m concerned, such an egregious act of treachery is tantamount to contributing to the delinquency of a minor.

I was almost upset enough to write a letter to the school board, but cooler heads prevailed. Instead, my wife and I had a sit down with Beth to explain the Yankees to her, to let her know that it’s O.K. sometimes to just say “no.”

The daughter of all deathwatches

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I was sitting with Beth at the allergist’s office, helping her with her “gifted” homework. In the span of a 20-minute shot watch we discussed mid-term elections, the separation of powers, the merits of a bi-camel legislature, term limits, and the unique nature of prime numbers.

Throughout this light conversation I stole a few glances at the folks sharing the waiting room with us… and they were unsettled. What? Doesn’t everyone discuss the nature of representative government and math theory with their nine-year-old daughters?

The right tool for the job

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The raison d’etre for childhood is learning. Much of that learning is done by trial and error. Sometimes it feels like the raison d’etre for parents is to point out the error in childhood trials. Take yesterday evening (please?). Twenty minutes before bedtime our kids voiced unanimous desire for an apple. They spent the better part of that twenty minutes sitting in the hallway with their apples, quietly collaborating on a block tower of epic proportions. After their twenty minutes were up I took our son in for his final diaper change. When I returned I saw Beth in the kitchen from the rear, working on something intently on the counter. Based on extensive medical drama experience, this looked much like a surgeon working on his or her patient in the O.R.

On final approach I asked her what she was doing, but it was a rhetorical question. I could plainly see what she was doing… she was snipping at her apple with a pair of kitchen scissors. This paved the way for the non-rhetorical portion of my questioning… “Why are you cutting your apple with a pair of scissors Beth?”

“I’m trying to get the seeds out without cutting the rest of the apple.”

I must admit that on some levels I was impressed. I had no idea my kitchen scissors were such a precision instrument. I’d be hard pressed to do a better job without a drill and some kind of penetrating imaging equipment.

Tween time

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I am stuck in that moment between getting home late and the time when you feel like going to bed.

We decided to go to a Devil Rays away game this evening, and we’re just getting back. They were at Tropicana Field, where they occasionally play home games, so we didn’t have to travel too far. Tonight’s benefactor of the ice cold Rays’ bats were the Indians from Cleveland; and there were a lot of Indians from Cleveland there this evening. It was so bad there was this old Midwestern fella who pointed to the Rays’ base runner on first and arrogantly proclaimed, “I’ll bet that guy hasn’t stolen a base in HIS short career.” He was, no doubt, playfully taunting the Rays’ fans about all the youth being served on the field. It was almost too bad that the guy he was pointing out was Carl Crawford.

It sucks when you can’t get a taunt right… on the player’s home field no less.

In the middle innings, Beth got into a grudge match with a couple of Indians sitting around us (we were surrounded).
Beth: “Why are you rooting for the Indians?”
Indian: “Because I was born in Ohio.”
Beth: “But where do you live now?”
Indian: “I live here.”
Beth: “Have you lived here a long time?”
Indian: “Longer than you have kid.”
Beth: “Then you should be rooting for the Rays.”
Indian: “We can’t help where we’re born kid.”
Beth: “My dad was born in Boston, and he roots for the Rays.”
Indian: “I think I might have left my lights on.”

Then there was the drunken Indian incident.
Beth: (Screaming at the top of her nine year old lungs) “GO RAYS GOOOOOOOOOO AHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
Drunken Indian: “Way to go kid, gimme five.”
Beth: “Why should I give you five? You’re an Indian’s fan.”
Drunken Indian number two: “HA HA HA! She showed you!”
Indian chorus: “HOO HOO HOO! You tell him!”
Dad: sits quietly in his seat, not sure whether to be proud or afraid for his daughter’s life.

Capping the evening off, Beth gets in the extended, post game bathroom line.
Woman leaving the bathroom, walking past, talking to someone else: “There was this little girl in there trying to talk one of us into letting her cut in line….”
Beth’s grandfather: “I wonder who they could have been talking about.”
Beth’s dad: “Yeah, I can’t imagine.”

There are times when I can see a lot of myself in my daughter, but not one of those times came up this evening.

A farewell to freedom

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July, we hardly knew thee. In less than one week’s time, Beth will join thousands of school age children in the annual event known as “the first day of school.” Like years past, it will be a time of sorrow in The Kauffman Household (version 2.2.1).

As many of you know, the school year starts really freaking early in parts of Florida. If you think we’ve got it bad, our neighboring county is starting school today! In the rush to get as much of the school year wedged in during Hurricane Season as possible, many school districts are starting up during the first week of August. (Full disclosure: I think the school systems are starting earlier to maximize the number of teaching days before the FCAT… but I’m going to REALLY try hard not to get started on the FCAT.)

Well friends, an unexpected bit of good news surfaced in the Florida Legislature this year, by way of House Bill 7087 (signed into law by the Governor earlier this year). Among other things, this bill limits school districts to starting the school year NO EARLIER THAN two weeks before Labor Day. What does this mean to us? Simply put, it means two weeks. Instead of starting August 8th, school would be starting August 21st – if the law took effect this year rather than 2007. (It’s almost three weeks if you have the misfortune to live in Hillsborough County.) It also puts more summer in summer vacation. This year about forty-three percent of summer vacation took place during spring. Inconceivable? Outrageous? Sacrilegious? All of the above? Sure, we’ve all got a soft spot in our hearts for Hurricane Days, but Hurricane Season doesn’t peak until late September anyway. There’s still plenty of opportunity built in there.

There are those of you who will say that it’s all a wash anyway… after all, won’t the school year just end later? Sure it will. But I ask you this: what of tradition? Sometimes there’s a reason why “we always did it that way.” I remember when summer vacation trudged right through the hottest month of summer… those brutally hot, middle days of August when you couldn’t walk in the street without shoes, unless you liked third degree burns. The only thing that made those days bearable was our freedom; that and the neighbor’s pool. Now imagine my daughter in the weeks to come: trudging through the peak of the heat, Florida summer in its prime, further weighed down by the yoke of academic responsibility.

It breaks my heart.

Here’s the “totally whack” conspiracy theory portion of this entry. Yes, I’m going to get started on the FCAT now. Assuming that school districts were starting earlier in the year in order to get in more instruction time prior to the FCAT, the Legislature could have mandated that the testing authority (CTB/McGraw-Hill**) give the test later in the year (to my knowledge, they haven’t). That would kinda force school districts to start up and run later (in the year) too, wouldn’t it? After all, it would be difficult at best to end school the first week of May, then call the students back a week later to take the FCAT (assuming they pushed the test date back). Now imagine that YOU are the Florida Legislature. Imagine that YOU really like the idea of privatizing education, and YOU were still stinging over the legal challenges to your partial privatization scheme – whereby schools deemed to be failing, as measured by FCAT results, got less funding and lost students to private schools. Setting up more schools to “fail” by limiting their time to teach the FCAT would prime the pump for a BIG FAT I TOLD YOU SO for your voters, wouldn’t it? In the immortal words of Bill and Ted: “Dude, that’s totally awesome!”

I’m not quite that cynical. I don’t think our legislature is (quite) that nefarious. It was a fun mental exercise though.

** A private company contracted to administer the FCAT by the State of Florida Department of Education.

How do you spell relief?

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Our new to nine daughter was conversing with her mother when the topic turned to dinner. (This was last night, by the way.)

MOTHER: “Would you like something to eat for dinner Beth?”
BETH: “No thanks.”
MOTHER: “Are you sure? Not even a little something from the freezer?”
BETH: “No, no thanks. If I eat anything else I’ll feel bloated.”
FATHER (laughing): “Hold on Beth, do you even know what ‘bloated’ means?”
BETH (snooty): “DAUH!?! It’s when your belly gets so full it starts to stick out and you feel uncomfortable because your pants don’t fit anymore.”

See there… who says television can’t be educational – even retail advertising.

Family night

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I still have the capacity to be surprised. I tend to take a lot for granted, so my continuing capacity to be surprised… is… well… a surprise. This dual layer of surprise struck me last night, at the Dunedin Rec Family Night.

I was skeptical when Beth approached her camp leader to ask for an extra treat, for something that she could give to her brother. I didn’t say anything at the time (or since)… I thought I would give her the benefit of doubt and let it play out. I was delighted when Beth set it aside for her brother when we got home later that evening, and I was surprised when she made a point of giving it to him when he woke up this morning. I felt a certain amount of affirmation as a parent when I sensed that Beth found her own reward for a good deed… as a warm smile crept across her face at the sight of Adam thoroughly enjoying his gift.

Follow that?

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After yesterday afternoon’s pilot episode of “Beth gets shot” I was expecting to have an epic tale of medical adventure to tell. Alas dear reader, all went well. On the ride over I broke the news… she was starting allergy shots. As expected, it went over like a helium filled cement truck (it might be a little lighter on its feet but it still don’t fly). I nipped the near hysteria in the bud with a barrage of facts, logic and anecdotes.

“It’s the smallest needle I’ve ever seen.”

“They don’t have to find a vein or anything.”

“The back of your arm isn’t really sensitive, is it?”

“Smaller needle + shallow entry + relatively low sensitivity = less pain.”

“Far and away the best shot I’ve ever had.”

Beth didn’t ask any questions. We walked in, signed in, and waited. We were called back for our shots, Beth whimpered a little, and they stuck her. There was no hysterics. There were no restraints involved. We didn’t have to chase her down in the parking lot.

Piece of cake.

Squirm like your life depended on it

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Have you ever seen a scene in a movie like this? Bad guy number 1 is holding down a good guy from behind, while bad guy number two is slowly approaching with a glowing hot poker (or some other glowing hot instrument at the end of a long handle). If the good guy is not a “tough guy,” the scene usually involves some violent struggling (to get free) as B.G. 2 gets close.

A strikingly similar scene plays out every time my daughter needs a shot (or blood drawn). This is why I think allergy shots for Beth will be a spectacularly bad idea. How would you like to play the role of “bad guy number one” every week? A number of health care professionals (several of which specialized in children) have reassured us by saying: “lots of kids… (fill in the blank), but they come around.” The funny thing is: many of them only say it once. Why could that be?

I wonder what Beth would choose, if she were given the choice? Sure, her nose runs and itches a little… but I’ll bet she’d pick that (pun intended) over a weekly interrogation scene (without the questions) at the allergist’s office.

I’m debating what to tell my daughter when the inevitable question comes up: “is this going to hurt?” Being a needle wimp myself, as well as a father that likes to be honest whenever possible, I can’t just say “no.” Then again I’m not sure I can be completely honest…. “Well Beth, that depends on which nurse you get. If you get (censored) it feels kind of like she’s using a needle meant for a sperm whale; but even that wouldn’t be so bad if it didn’t feel like she was having a seizure right in the middle of giving you the injection. Otherwise, with everyone else it just feels like a little pinch.”

All of these questions and more will be answered this afternoon, one way or another. Goody for me.