Friday, May 17, 2002
Back in time
I guess it's a sign of the times: Accompanying the children on my daughter's fourth-grade field trip yesterday -- in addition to teachers, aides, and me and the other class moms -- was a nurse whose job it was to administer the midday meds. It makes sense, I guess; a need for medication does not go away when the school building does, and if the teachers aren't allowed to administer at school they shouldn't have to do it in the field. But it seemed odd all the same to have a traveling pharmacy aboard the bus. The woman was not the normal school nurse (who presumably had to stay behind to do med duty for the non-field-trip-going masses), and so she went around introducing herself to each class so the kids who needed to find her at noon would know who to look for.
The trip was to a historical park, where we toured houses from the 1870s and learned from costumed presenters what life was like way back when. One of the stops was an apothecary's shop, and while the woman behind the
Thursday, May 16, 2002
Putting on the dog
We have begun to look for dogs, albeit in a laid-back sort of way. It mostly involves my son and I stopping by the local animal shelter on our ambling walks and seeing if there's anybody new who's meant for us. He and I both have our favorites among the dogs who very clearly are not right for our family: There's a golden labrador retreiver that I could easily give my heart to, but already there in the cage I see that he can jump higher than our fence would hold. And there's a black lab that is as delighted to see my son as he is to see her, jumping and barking and carrying on (both the dog and my son, as it happens), but I can tell that that dog is the canine equivalent of my boy, and we've already got one of him. A clear case of doggie ADHD there. I had to laugh reading the shelter's description of her on its Web site, which reads in part: "I'm a very friendly young lady with lots of energy. I really need a home with someone who has lots of energy too. I need some obedience training
Wednesday, May 15, 2002
Tree hugger
My son's been showing a lot of interest in taking walks lately, and I've been pleased because walking is something I could really use to do. Finding time to exercise -- and finding exercise I can stand -- is becoming more of an issue as my cholesterol goes up and my waistline expands and swimsuit season draws inexorably near. How nice to find a way to get some movement in my life and also spend time with my boy. You gotta love multitasking.
Problem is, my idea of walking is a nice brisk stroll that gets the heart pumping, burns calories and, you know, is over in a reasonable period of time. And my son's idea of walking is ambling along, taking in the scenery, interacting with the environment, and staying outdoors as long as possible. While I'm trying to keep the cardiovascular pace, he's stopping to pick dandelions. Read car license plates. Talk to statues in our Civic Center sculpture garden. Sit on the sidewalk and rest. Pet dogs. Pick up rocks. Pull leaves off trees. Hug trees.
Tuesday, May 14, 2002
Good wife material
They say that people with fetal alcohol impairments will always need an "external brain" to help with reasoning and organizational matters their "internal brains" want no part of. That seems true of my boy now, and in the future will likely mean that he'll never be truly independent -- he'll need his dad and I to keep charge of him, or a good group home, or in maybe the best-case scenario a really bossy wife.
I got a glance at what that last option might look like this past Saturday, when I acted as his aide in his end-of-second-grade religious education class.
I didn't recognize the girl, and I was touched when she came over to my son and asked if he wanted to be her partner as they walked to the music room. I was amused to hear her barking at him in about the same tone of voice I use to keep him from wandering off, and relieved to see that he listened to her no better than he listened to me. She was a little fed up by the time they got to their destination, and I made him come
Monday, May 13, 2002
Justice for telemarketers
Well, here's a study that's sure to inspire sympathy among us all ... NOT. Telemarketers, those scourges who call us during dinner and insist that we listen to sales pitches for things we neither need nor want nor really even asked to hear about, are losing their voices. Vocal distress -- ranging from dry throat to hoarseness to utter voicelessness -- is a regular occupational hazard, scientists at the University of Nebraska discovered, and may in fact be causing the poor dears to talk softly and call less. And although I do always try to think of those determined souls yapping away on the other end of the line as hardworking individuals trying to support their families and not as pushy pests trying to ruin my day, may I just take a moment to say ... hooray! There's justice after all.
The one word of warning in this study, however, is that the thing that most likely causes the vocal damage is not merely the frequency of speaking -- or even some sort of cosmic payback -- but the way
The essays in this “Boiling Point” collection by Terri Mauro were written for this site between 2000-2002. For entries from 2002 until right this very moment, visit the blog Parenting Isn’t Pretty.
