It is dark. There is something not quite right with the world. You are not quite sure what it is, but you know it is out there. A respite! Is it gone?
No.
It has come again. Suddenly you know what it is. The phone is ringing. It was ringing a moment ago and now it’s back. You look at the clock and notice the time: midnight. You get up and answer, because you know if someone is calling now it…
Beth is holding three pencil erasers in the shape of teeth. She advises me (in her typically loud fashion, as if from half way across the house) she has three toothes. Recognizing the grammatical error, I explain to her she has three teeth, not three toothes. Beth, being a relatively stubborn child, insists she has three toothes. This goes on for about a minute or so before I convince her there is…
Tonight we reached another milestone.
We’ve crossed one more bridge for the first time.
We can look back, but we can’t go back.
We can only hope not to cross it again,
or at least not very often.
When her tower of legos unexpectedly tumbled, and consumed with the fire of extreme frustration, Beth exclaimed, “OH SHIT!!!”
She said it with emphasis.
She said it with gusto.
She…
“Hey Beth, do you want to go outside and feel how cold it is this morning”, daddy asked at 8 a.m. this morning. “Yeah!!”, Beth replied enthusiastically. “O.K., I’ll pick you up and carry you since you don’t have any shoes on.”
They go just out side the door and rush back inside without hesitation.
“Daddy, what temperature is it in here?”…
DUNEDIN – Using only the objects available to her: a toilet (the sink was too high to reach) and the brush beside it; Elizabeth Kauffman did her best to clean her parents bathroom early this evening. “I put the brush in the water and I put the water there and there and there and there and there” said Elizabeth, describing the scene to her father. Those on the scene describe the…
These last several years, I had the impression that my grandmother was not a happy person. Perhaps I am not the best person here today to make this assessment, but despite being separated by geography and circumstances, we did speak on the phone occasionally. When we did, she invariably mentioned that most of her loved ones and friends were long gone.
I was listening to National Public Radio the…
Every so often, the topic of having more children comes up. Sometimes it is a joking reference from an acquaintance. Sometimes it is a prodding from my in laws. Sometimes it is a serious conversation with Cheryl. Other times, it is just me. . .sitting and thinking. . .like right now. On most of these occasions, many of the same tired arguments are raised: “do we want Beth to be an only…
Beth started the day, like nearly every other weekday, at 6 am. Although this is not out of the ordinary, getting up any earlier than 8 am is inherently bad. I’m neither looking for, nor do I expect any sympathy from those of the medical persuasion, but I think we all can agree to this in principle.
From there, Beth went to school and suffered through a long day. When she arrived, she…
In the last week or so, Beth has been doing an excellent job of: as we say, “putting her pee-pee and poopy in the potty.” (This weekend was an exception, but I won’t get into that now.) She has even graduated to wearing underpants to school, and she wears the same pair all day. Today however, she had a bit of a set back, but its hard to blame her. As a general rule, Beth has been…
“Her bowels blew!” said Beth’s teacher, describing Beth’s explosive trip to the potty this afternoon.
The “big” potty at home took the brunt of another sudden burst this evening. When you get a good deal of the product on the under side of the toilet seat, you know your dealing with a powerful force not to be reckoned with lightly.
Pop Quiz: What do you get when…