Category: Beth

It’s been my thing to take Beth to school on the first day of school. It’s been an obsession really. I figure if I’m going to make my kid go to school, the least I can do is take them on the first day, to ease some of the pain. Only today I may have been more pain than relief. Sure, we went out for breakfast at Starbucks. Sure, we went for a walk around the still closed mall. (You may think it droll, but there’s something about getting into a place that’s still closed that’s a little thrilling. In most other circumstances, that something is called burglary. But in this case, it’s not really closed, just all of the stores are. The mall entrances are open for the old folks to exercise. Introducing an antsy eight year old to the senior sanctum of a closed mall is a bit like sport too… boy am I mean.) However, when we finally got to school we had a lot to accomplish in a short time, and all that coffee was wreaking havoc on my normally steady nerves.

We were in the cafeteria, doing a bit of rushing to get her lunch account paid up, when my aspiring third grader admonished me: “be patient dad!”

Just who is the parent here?

Beth’s birthday was a success. I just wish she liked the $200 bike as much as the $20 lamp. I thought it was going to be a mistake to give her the biggest gift first, but it all worked out in the end. The bike came first, with a moderate amount of joy, and the lamp came last, accompanied by an explosion of eight year old birthday glee.

When you get right down to it, it’s pretty typical. One minute they’re a toddler, surrounded by Fisher-Price and the gang, gleaning hours of entertainment from the car seat strap; the next they’re shunning a perfectly good bike in favor of rhythmic (light) switching in the bedroom.

Have you ever had one of those mornings where you knew deep down that you still loved your child, but boarding school seemed like an attractive option?

If you have a child, chances are you are familiar with the fresh water phenomenon. As it happens, we have a child, two of them in fact. Since our oldest child has had the ability to communicate – whether it be by speech or wild gestures with her extremities – she has wanted fresh water at her bedside at night. Yes, I fondly remember the day Beth learned to use “dehydrated” in a sentence,.

It turns out that Beth rarely actually drinks her water; but none the less, she seems to have a sixth sense as to whether it is “fresh” or not. Now that she is tall enough to service some of her own needs at the tap, we’ve encouraged her independence.

Oh, there’s no telling what mischief looms when a child first learns to play with the faucet.

The other night I was feeling weak in the will department, and I acquiesced to Beth’s watered down request. I was at the sink holding her bottle of stale water, and I unscrewed the top (similar to the top of a squeeze bottle – one that you drink from a nozzle at the top). As the top comes off water begins to pour out of the bottle. This may sound unsurprising, until you realize that I was holding the bottle upright. That’s right friends, it seems that Beth is not satisfied with the bottle being filled to the top. She’s been filling the bottle, screwing on the cap, and then holding the open nozzle under the running water to fill that extra bit of capacity under the cap.

That’s one determined little kid.

Have you ever wanted to let out a cathartic scream, but didn’t? Futility over comes you instead, and you do nothing – hopelessly wallowing in the absurdity of the moment.

A phrase comes to mind, “if it’s not one thing it’s,”

One minute Cheryl is guilting me into riding my bike to work. She’s browbeating her parents into accepting my exercising needs. The next moment she’s asking me to drive to work so Beth will have enough time to finish her homework. Between my chronically sore ankle (IT’S BACK!), my wife being sent all over creation to cover for other supervisors in her department, and all of these crap homework assignments,

In theory, I could do something about my ankle. I could take a turn on the wheel of medical fortune and see where it stops. I could do something about Beth’s homework situation. I could raise a stink with the school. I could find someone with a single syllable name that specializes in “talking to people.” I could help Cheryl with her work issues. I could run for public office, cash in on my charm, work my way up the rungs of political power, and parlay that power into a cushy job for my wife. Or, I could ice down my ankle, drive to work tomorrow, and try to help Beth get that assignment done tomorrow.

And what about that assignment? It’s the “winter journal.” Second graders in Florida are asked to write about their favorite aspects of snow, their favorite winter activities, Am I the only one that finds this funny? Your average Florida second grader knows about as much about snow as I know about biochemistry. Winter activities in Florida? How are they different from summer activities in Florida? This isn’t a journal so much as a creative writing exercise. Or better yet, it’s an exercise in embellishing the truth, making things up, LYING.

O.k., so it’s not that bad. I’m allowed to vent, aren’t’ I?

Twice this week I’ve packed up my bike, expecting to ride to work, only to dress for work from my packed bags at home and hop in the car. It’s not the 2004 elections, but it’s still disappointing. Woe is me.

“Mom, why is Ms (censored) giving me so much to do? I work in the morning, I work at night, I never get to watch TV. I feel like a homework slave.” Imagine it was your daughter, and she said this to you. Imagine you felt it wasn’t too far from the truth. How would you respond?

My daughter is in second grade, and she has spent more time on homework these last couple days than I spent my entire senior year of high school. Now before you say something snide about my senior year of high school, remember that I got into a decent college – even after my senior year. However, I will admit I was something less than your model high school student (unless your model was something of a slacker, who specialized in “fitting in” assignments somewhere other than home, preferably between classes).

There’s a line I draw, which represents a reasonable amount of homework for a second grader; and Beth crossed it two hours ago. In fact, I’m tempted to do some of it for her. The only thing stopping me is that Beth will learn the wrong lesson from this experience, not to mention her teacher will probably be able to tell the difference.

I’m sure there’s another side to this story; that the teacher would have something to say about all of this. Ah, hell. Let her get her own blog!

After doing a search through my blog (I’m always paranoid that I’ve said the exact same thing before), I came across a completely unrelated entry. During the course of my quick scan, I wandered across the phrase, “stripping away the extra layers of bullshit.” What a wonderful phrase, one that has a number of appropriate applications this evening. Let’s see, there’s a layer that represents coloring, a layer that represents printing your full name and date, another layer that represents nonsensical repetitive tasks, I could go on and on.

Do you think Beth is too young for colorful metaphors? Perhaps she’s smart enough to have already figured out the concept, without the added color.