Beth

Life is a classroom.

Beth, with her faux medical bag in hand, explains “this will just take a minute daddy.” She opens her bag and produces a stethoscope. She puts the ear pieces up to her ears, pulls up my shirt and reassures me, in her best bed-side manner: “this won’t hurt daddy, this won’t hurt, this will just take a minute daddy. . . .There, you feel better now daddy?” Where…
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Family and Friends

When the alarm doesn’t sound.

About two years ago, my department gave everyone a personality test. This test gave everyone a score based on how strongly each of four defined personality types appeared in a person. One of these defined types, labeled “gold”, was for those who valued rules, structure, organization, well defined plans, thinking things out ahead of time, and being well prepared. Since taking this test…
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Beth

No laughing matter, really.

What do you get when you don’t take a crap for a week? I’m afraid that there is no punch line to this one. But it does describe Beth’s condition last week. She was full of crap. As of Friday, she had not moved her bowels since the Friday prior, and she was not happy. We went to see the good doctor, and he had us give her two (yes two) enemas per day for the duration of the…
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Beth

A Lesson in Physics

Beth, doing her best impersonation of Isaac Newton, reaffirmed a couple of principles this evening: mommy and daddy’s rules are for good reason, and gravity plays no favorites. Beth was in the family room when she decided Stuart Little was no longer worthy of her undivided attention. “Daddy, could you please give me my balloons?” I promise you I handed them to her innocently…
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Beth

Snapshot of an evening

DADDY: “Beth, are you going to say goodbye to mommy, she’s going to exercise.” BETH: “Bye daddy.” DADDY: “Beth, I’m not going anywhere.” BETH: “I’m going to go exercise with mommy.” MOMMY: “I’m sorry Beth, you can’t go tonight. You can go this weekend. Can you say goodbye to mommy?” BETH: “Goodbye…
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Beth

A Little Helper.

There was a little girl in church today helping her mother usher. We’ll call her Beth. Now Beth was having a grand time helping hand out messengers to people as they entered the church. Her mother, we’ll call her Cheryl, was impressed that Beth was so good at this task. Beth stood at her post, with a stack of messengers in her hand, and dutifully handed one to each person as they…
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Family and Friends

The rest of the story. . .

When we last saw our hero, he had learned that his wife had been tranquilized following her shortness of breath induced panic attack. It was Tuesday evening. Also remember that Sunday night our hero endured another trip to the emergency room with his daughter. Diagnosis: UTI (yes, our hero too can use fancy medical acronyms). We now pick up our story where we left off. . . It was a cold, dark and…
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