Category: Family and Friends

When in life

I was really excited this morning. I surfed the web for images and maps of campus. I gave Beth ten answers for every question she asked. Maybe one in ten were pertinent to the question. I found a picture of a room from the dorm she’ll be staying in at UF. Countless pictures of my dorm came to mind. There was so much excitement and nostalgia floating around it’s hard to imagine a better high.

Some may think I’m an unhappy person but I hope Beth has even a fraction of my good fortune.

Cheryl and Beth backed out the driveway and quickly disappeared. Cheryl will be back tomorrow, Beth next week. But it’s not hard to imagine this morning was a glimpse of the future… a future that’s sprinting to the present, where weeks become semesters and semesters become a new life.

I hope we’ll be ready.

Beth left with a grin, maybe even as excited as me. I hope she returns with a bigger one, with memories of her own and an itch to create a lot more.

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Beth, pride, and The Gators

My daughter has been been accepted by the University of Florida.

I am bursting with pride. As Yoda might say, “A proud father I am.”

I admit it’s a touch misleading though. Beth is just finishing ninth grade. She is not graduating early and she is not enrolling with the freshman class at UF next fall. She will be dual-enrolled in college courses next year, but they won’t be at UF (130 miles away). However, she will be one of forty or so kids living on campus for a week this summer to explore scientific areas of study, meet the professors who teach them, and see the research they do when they’re not teaching.

I think the concept of the program is fantastic. I think a lot more kids should have the same opportunity, but I also understand the desire to bring in kids who really want to be there and will get the most out of the experience. I think there’s a way to balance larger enrollment with high enthusiasm, but this isn’t a post about the responsibilities of our public institutions of higher learning – or where we place those institutions on our list of state priorities.

Good thing too – my temper has been running thin lately.

Although I thought Beth’s essay was pretty good (I couldn’t resist a few suggestions to make it better), her grades are perfect, and her letters of recommendation were glowing, I always assumed she wouldn’t get in. I think she’s a capable, confident, smart, and strong young woman who can and will do many things. But Florida is large and forty is small.

Maybe it’s a relatively small thing, but I feel like we won the World Series. I feel like looking up those teachers who treated her no better than the students who bullied her and telling them, “Look at my daughter and see what she has done. Now know this: she has done it in spite of you.”

Where once there was gloom, she is a bright, shining star.

Adam’s got wheels

Adam has two speeds: sprinting as if for his life and “this is as good a place as any to lie down and die.”

I asked him yesterday on our evening skate: “Why do you have to go so fast Adam? You’re not afraid of me are you?” He didn’t answer. He didn’t have enough air in his lungs for speech.

I think it’s his way of competing and I hate to admit – winning. Is this what I get for not letting him win? I’ve always tried to be a good sport. Do I deserve this very public, very physical humiliation?

Picture me: six-one, a hair on the wrong side of 200#, sweating like an ice cold bottle of water on a hot summer afternoon (that’s sprung a leak). I’ve barely got the O2 reserves myself for language, Adam’s half a block ahead of me, and a neighbor is standing in his driveway taking in the scene.

The neighbor chuckles as I pass with a mocking grin. “He’s a quick little guy, isn’t he?”

I briefly consider a comment about his fitness level but restraint wins out. I’m having too much fun.

Instead I make my strides longer… wider… my center lower. Weight lingers a little longer on each leg, giving my push-off skate a little more bite.

Game on little guy!

Breaking!

Those of you who know about my skating probably thought this post was going to be different. In order to satisfy your blood-lust, I’ll tell you: the thumb still hurts.

There! Are you happy now?!?

No, the true purpose is to announce a friend’s new book, now available at Amazon. You already know from my hobbies that my judgement is gold, so go pick up a copy or three. AND, if you haven’t read his first book… well, do I even have to say it?

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Canadian Cold

I’ve never had any reason to dislike a Canadian before this weekend. Looking at the averages, they still come out ahead in the overall likability rankings, but Saturday night was still disappointing.

I’m telling my friends at work I’m coming down with a Canadian Cold. Knowing my travel habits (I have none), this invites a simple request: “explain yourself kind sir.”

As you may know, we spent the weekend at the modern melting pot known as Disney World. We were camping at Fort Wilderness – something like a Fisher-Price “My First Camping Trip.” We capped off the experience with a horse drawn wagon ride with thirty of our closest friends.

The wagon was packed like it was the last of only two rides for the day. (Funny thing, that.) Late arrivals were divided up based on available space, so Adam and Beth were sitting next to a young Canadian girl, whose mother was on the other side of the wagon.

This young Canadian girl, from the lands between Toronto and Ottawa, was picking on Adam!

I know! Our sweet, innocent Adam!

O.K., he wasn’t quite so innocent, but the young lass was clearly in the wrong. Way, WAY in the wrong. Canada Girl was running a fever and expelling germ ridden sputum like a rotating sprinkler head. It was so wrong. It was so disgusting.

It was SO not cool!

You may be asking me (futilely, from miles away in front of your computer screen) what about Canada Momma? I say to you, AMEN brothers and sisters! Who brings their kid on a packed wagon ride at Disney World when he or she is running a fever and sputum factory?

That’s SO not cool!

I understand crossing the continent for a moment with the mouse is pretty exciting, especially if it was planned months in advance. But it’s time to employ a little Vulcan logic here.

Say it together with me (imagine Spock dying in front of the captain, while good ‘ole James T is cursing Khan):

“The needs of the many out-weigh the needs of the few – or the one.”

Where are you Spock? You’re our only hope! Please don’t take it out on everyone else if I’ve misquoted you.

Given the nature of the typical Disney visitor, you could start a pandemic. Visitors come from around the world – and ultimately return to their homes across the globe. In fact, if I were a paranoid person,

Who are you kidding?

I thought I told you to stay in your box.

I might think this was a Canadian Terrorist plot to give the world a cold. Think about it, just passing the kid in a crowd would be like walking through those mist machines at Disney to keep people cool. Only in this case, it would be a cloud of germs, with the intent to keep people cold with feverish chills.

But what would Canada possibly stand to gain from the world catching a cold? How about WORLD DOMINATION of the O.T.C. cold medicine market? Do you have any idea how many cold medicines are made in Canada? Neither do I, so I let my Google do the looking. Have you ever heard of Buckley’s? Neither did I, but Wikipedia says it’s “…a cough syrup invented in 1919 in Sydney, Nova Scotia…. Noted for its strongly unpleasant taste….”

1919?!?

Strongly unpleasant taste?!?

Sounds like ‘ole Buckley could use all the help he can get, eh?

Worth it

Parenting is hard.

For some, this is obvious. For others suffering denial, this is a sign of a severe character flaw. For a blessed few who’s beatification awaits them at their death, who’s names will be remembered in song and psalm for all time, this is an inconceivable truth.

God did us this one favor – he made these people rare. This is not to say parenting is without its rewards. If it was, Homo sapiens sapiens would have died out long ago (no mater how much fun getting there was/is).

This little post is for all of you out there who live in the real world.

Fortunately, there are times that force the hard parts to the rest of life’s background noise, and this weekend was filled with those times.

We took the kids on their first camping trip this weekend. On Friday I worked half a day, Cheryl picked up the kids early from school, and we drove to Orlando for a weekend of camping, Disney style.

Admittedly, Disney, realism, and roughing-it don’t really belong in the same post. But this weekend did involve tents, sleeping outside, camp-side cooking, and relaxed standards of personal hygiene.

Being Disney, it also involved buses, pools, water-slides, campfires with Disney characters and shops stocked with grossly overpriced marshmallows.

We brought our own marshmallows.

While the kids enjoyed the Disney aspects of camping, they also enjoyed its traditional appeal: running around dark campsites with friends exhibiting all the signs of a marshmallow sugar high, setting foods dense in simple sugars on fire, and eating lots of grilled meat.

It warmed my heart just seeing them having fun, soaking up all the new experiences and never growing saturated.

One simple moment almost moved me to tears.

Adam and I were settling down for the night and I knew he was afraid of the dark, preferring to sleep with one or twelve of his stuffed, furry friends for safety. I asked him if he was o.k.

“Well, I wish Halo was here,” (his stuffed dog), “but I’m o.k. because you’re here with me.”

Friends

You may take them for granted. I try not to – I can’t afford it, having so few of my own. It makes my absence from this space and others like it self destructive.

This year I’ll try to keep my head out my but. I’ll try to think about other people more than myself. I’ll try to give more than I receive. I’ll try not to let politics and current events have the final veto on my mood.

Fate isn’t waiting patiently in line to help, but I’ll try not to use it as a crutch – or an excuse.

Speaking of friends, a BIG thanks goes out to a friend I won’t name… we’ll just call him Butch. Adam has a project for Cub Scouts: building a “pine wood racer.” You start with a block of pine, four wheels, and turn it into car that will roll down a slotted track. Done right, it will get to the bottom of the track before at least some of the others.

Well, you may not know this about me, but I’m not a master carpenter. I’m not the lumber whisperer. I’m competent (sort of) with a hammer, drill, and saw, but you’ll never look at my work with anything approaching awe. So a block of wood representing a car’s potential is pretty intimidating.

Enter Butch. He’s the man with the skillz! Thanks to my friend, both my kids have really cool cars.

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No complaints

Woo hoo! That’s a good one! Just because I’m not going to use this post to whine doesn’t mean I’ve got no complaints.

I promise you though – I won’t go there today. Today I want to cheer myself up as much as anything.

I do this with full knowledge of the consequences: this will be a boring post. Ask the news director at your local television station. Misery, desperation and destruction sells! You show me a local news program that leads with a story about a local kid’s puppy finding his way home to Kansas, after being dog-napped in Kalamazoo, and I’ll show you a local news director who doesn’t care about being employed.

I won’t be discussing puppies or their heroism, but I will be discussing kids – mine in fact. Both seem to be blossoming this year in school, and not just academically.

Beth took a test last spring to determine which materials the school would order for her this year. She’s in ninth grade, for those of you keeping score. It’s traditionally known as the first year of high school ’round these parts. It’s the freshman year, or the year of feeling REALLY young. You may recall she attends a small private school due the social problems she had in public school, attributed to high functioning Autism (or Aspergers). The classes are small, have mixed grades, and are self paced – thus the need for personalized materials. We learned how she did on the test in August.

Beth essentially tested out of high school before she started. As a result (in part), she got involved in some extra curricular activities to keep school interesting this year. She decided she’d like to work on the yearbook. The teacher who oversees the group said she’d be assigned tasks according to her strengths. If you know Beth you know she wasn’t satisfied with such an open ended statement. So she pressed. “Oh, we’ll probably have you doing a bit of everything.” She was recently asked to attend a sports event to take photographs. She thought it was the coolest thing since the penguin experience at Sea World.

She’s been volunteering at the YMCA one day a week and attending drama club another. (Like we need more drama in our lives.) This spring she’ll be taking the entrance exams necessary to take dual enrollment courses at a local college starting next year.

Discussions at home have been filled with university degree programs and the prerequisites she’ll start taking next year. It seems like just last year she was in middle school and now we’re talking about her starting college.

They grow up fast!

Meanwhile Adam’s been coming home with tests for me to sign, and I can’t recall the last one I saw with a wrong answer. He’s been an information sponge that never seems to fully saturate.

He joined Cub Scouts this year – something I’m not completely happy about. He desperately wanted to join and I wasn’t sure how to explain discrimination based on sexual preference to my precious, sweet little boy. I know it can’t last forever, but the loss of childhood innocence is a door you can’t close – and I don’t want to open it yet – not if I can help it. He’s smart enough to know not everyone is perfect, and the world as a whole is similarly flawed. But living out in it gives us a deeper knowledge I can’t bring myself to share. However, the emphasis on community service complements his kind soul, and he’s having a great time.

Maybe the best thing is they both still want to spend time with their dad. Adam still pines for “a catch,” the American ritual of father and son throwing a baseball across the back yard. When I think about it (and sometimes I think about things far too much), I’m awestruck that such a simple thing as a baseball passed back and forth can seem so important. It’s almost as if it’s a bonding ritual written into our DNA, designed to be hard wired into the areas of the brain where love, nurturing, and long term memories reside.

I remember dismissing such things as a parent in waiting.

Were we all such fools when we were young?

Beth still seeks my opinion on a wide range of issues and accomplishments. Apparently she still thinks I know things. Were we all such fools when we were young ;-) She is a teenager, isn’t she? Doesn’t she know parents stop knowing things when their kids reach thirteen?

If Cheryl didn’t intervene with trivial matters like, “Beth, you need to get some sleep tonight,” or “Beth, the house is on fire, you really should get out,” we’d talk for hours. The only thing larger than my self-doubt is her curiosity and confidence in my words. Recently she wanted to know if she should be afraid about overpopulation and diminishing world resources. That was an especially long conversation, meandering between light topics like the environment, climate change, and population dynamics across the social-economic spectrum.

Long story short: I’m happy to report the kids are more than fine. They’re pretty great.

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This one’s gonna be trouble

I know. It’s hard to believe for some of you, but Adam does get into trouble. This evening I had to take Adam’s TV privileges away. That’s what we parents like to say. I had to take the little devil’s TV. He had it coming and I had to deliver. Parents are like the post office that way. Neither tears nor sympathy nor full throttle tantrum shall keep us from our appointed role.

Saying I “had to do it,” is anesthesia for the conscience.

I take that back. Saying is not believing. You have to believe it. Your sanity depends on it.

Anyhoo, I took his TV away.

Adam apparently is an attorney in waiting. He’s following the letter of my ruling – if not the spirit.

He’s watching Netflix on his iPod.

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A warming world

We were leaving the YMCA last night and I asked Beth how her first day of volunteering went.

“Great!” she said.

“Why did you decide to volunteer here?” I asked, thinking of yesterday’s post.

“I wanted to give something back to the community and this was the first place I thought of since we come all the time.”

My heart swelled.

Later, she asked me an interesting question. “Why is it significant the Earth doesn’t cool very much at night?”

“Well, think about it,” I said. “Why do they call CO2 a greenhouse gas?”

“I get it. The Earth has energy in the form of heat all day, not just when the sun is up. It can’t cool after the sun goes down because the heat absorbed during the day can’t escape back into space at night either.”

Although the subject of the last conversation continues to depress me, overall, it was a good day to be a parent. I’ve been a good influence after all.

Now, if there was just some way we could get adults to catch up to the accumulated wisdom of a fourteen year old.