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Two Out of Three

Two out of three’s not bad, but it is when youhave three kids.

We got glowing reports on my Baby Girl from herkindergarten teacher and from my Little’s Guy 3^rd Gradeteacher.  However, the news about myTeenager was not so good.

In fact, it was downright bad.

My Teenager is as smart as a whip.  She’s always made great grades, but she wasfailing several of her classes.

Her bad marks were due mostly to her ownnegligence. She has been late to turn in homework assignments and projects.  Despite her prowess on tests, she is notmaking the grade.

She’s always done well in school.  She’s very smart and has relied on herintelligence and her ability to score well on tests to make good grades.

Now, it’s not enough. She’s going to have tofinish the summer strong just to avoid summer school.

We’ve stayed on her in the past.  Now, we’ve had to redouble our efforts.

No longer can we settle for, “Baby, did you doyour homework?” and a nod from her.  We’rehaving to check and verify.

We’ve obviously been had, but no more.

Of course, the nuclear option has come intoplay.  We pay a lot of money to send myTeenager to a private school.  Our family’slifestyle is much lower than our income because we chose to make thissacrifice.

We’ve threatened her with public school.  It would be hard to rip her away from theschool and its community that she’s been a member of for 10 years.

Unless you live in an affluent area, Tennesseepublic schools are not very good.  There isa high school two miles from our house, and it’s where she’d go If we took herout of her school.

God knows we don’t want to do that.  We had hoped sending her to this school wasan investment that would help her get a scholarship to a good college where shecould pursue a worthwhile career.

We’re not going to give up.  I anticipate my Teenager will do well on herACT, and her grades will improve during her last years of high school.

That or else.

Tough love is taking over.  It’s hard to seemingly be in her case all thetime, but nobody said parenting was easy.

The sad part about this whole revelation is thatit kept us from celebrating my two younger children’s accomplishments.  We only them a quick congratulations and hadto quickly shift our attention to our daughter’s failing marks.

Her kindergarten teacher said my Baby Girl was aleader.  Not only has she done well inher school work, quickly picking up reading and writing, but, despite her smallstatus, she’s gained the respect of many of her fellow students.

“The kids were talking too much,” the teacher toldus. “She told them to be quiet and they did.”

My Little Guy made straight A’s.  He’s also very popular with his fellowstudents and works and plays well with everybody.

My Teenager has become somewhat withdrawn.  She lets herself go to school often unkemptand downright sloppy despite my wife’s best efforts.

We were very proud of her when she made thevarsity cheerleading squad after five years of trying. She applied herself,worked hard and did well.

She didn’t wish to try out again.  I didn’t feel like we should make her dosomething she really didn’t want to do.

Don’t get me wrong.  She’s a good kid.  I know she’ll it right at some point.

When that day comes, I’ll be very happy.

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Everything Is Broken

“Broken cutters, broken saws
Broken buckles, broken laws
Broken bodies, broken bones
Broken voices on broken phones
Take a deep breath feel like you're chokin'
Everything is broken.”

Bob Dylan, off the album “Oh Mercy,”1989, Columbia Records

Dylan’s lyrics have captured a lot that’s beengoing on in my life in recent days. Seems like I’m always fixing something.

In the course of the past two months, considerthis:

-     I’ve spent nearly $4,000 on two majorrepairs of my SUV, and, oh, one of the windows in the back also needs to berepaired. It’s now being supported with duct tape:

-     The dealer told us our minivan neededabout $1,500 worth of maintenance;

-     I’ve had ongoing problems with mylaptop computer and I really need to drop some money to get it running moreefficiently;

-     We had to pay out $100 to have ourkitchen unclogged; and

-     We had to have a service call on ourcable TV.

I actually caught a break on that one.  The technician came by, took a quick look atthings, hooked up a wire and didn’t charge us for the call.  Believe me, it was a rare break in recentdays.

I’ve tried to remain positive and take it all instride.  However, it just gets to me somedays.

I ask myself, “So, what’s going to break today?”

A couple of weeks back, I set out to mow my grass forthe first time this year.  I wheeled themower out of the garage onto the patio.

After I checked the fuel and oil levels, a senseof dread came over me.  I was afraid mymower would be next among the list of things around our house that are broken.

You can imagine my sigh of relief when I pulledthe lanyard and my mower fired right up. I had meant to get the thing serviced, but spending all this money onrepairs has put my budget way off my projections.

I know I should be grateful.  Everybody in our house is fairly healthy andwe are paying the bills on time.

Needless to say, though, the money we’re puttingdown on all these repairs is bruising our vacation savings.  I’m wondering if we’re going to get to domuch at all this summer if this trend continues.

The repairs and maintenance on the cars isparticularly perplexing.  It reminds methat we both drive paid-for, but older cars.

My Teenager will be a driver by summer’s end, butI’m thinking I need to act now.  I’vewanted to purchase a smaller, more gas-efficient car anyway, but with gasprices nearing $4 a gallon, it may be time.

I don’t know where I’ll come up with the money,but I do know that God provides.  He hasnever let us down, and we’ve seen amazing things happen with our finances inyears past.

Perhaps another miracle is right around thecorner.  You never know.

God knows it would be nice.

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Quite A Girl

I’ve gone tothis party supply store for a number of years.

It’s onlyabout five minutes from my office, and always has a good selection in stock. I’vebeen frustrated with the lack of selection in stores closer to where we live soI’ve been a regular customer there for quite some time.

The parkinglot was full so I had a bit of a walk to the store. I remembered coming herefor the first time in 2004.

I had myoldest girl with me who was then preparing to celebrate her seventh birthday. Weleft with $130 worth of party favors and nick-knacks, far more than we neededfor her little party.

My wife wasfurious with us both. She went with us to the store when we took about half ofthe stuff back.

Since myoldest daughter and Little Guy’s birthdays are only 11 days apart, she usedthat opportunity to buy the accessories for his party. My then 8-year-oldtromped through the store alongside us ensuring we didn’t spend more on herbrother than we spent on her.

 On this day, I was buying birthday suppliesfor my Baby Girl. She was soon to be six years old, unbelievable.

If you’veread my blog for a while, you’ll know that I was serving in Iraq when she wasabout to arrive. I will never forget that four-day trek from Tikrit toNashville with stops along the way in Kuwait, Germany and Atlanta.

My Baby Girlenjoys it when I tell her the story about how I made the trip and some of thechallenges I faced at each stop. It seems like it was yesterday, but she’s nowalmost six years old.

As usual,the store was up to standard. It had everything I needed to stage the partyalong with a couple of extra things I knew she would like.

I guess I hadfooled myself into thinking our youngest child would grow up a little slowerthan the rest. Seeing her older brother and sister, she’s in such a hurry toemulate them in every way.

The partywent well. We had a lot of kids and everybody seemed to have had a good time.

My Baby Girlis quite popular at church and at her kindergarten. We had the biggest birthdayparty as far as numbers that we’ve ever had.

It wasanother party to file away in my memory. I’ll remember them all since each is alandmark in her life.

She’s quitea girl!

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A Big Surprise

It was easily one of the most embarrassing moments of mylife, if not the most embarrassing.

This episode started out innocently enough. I noticed on myphone that I had gotten a large message on from an old Army buddy of mine.

There were several attachments, but I didn’t have time toopen them since I was on a pressing deadline. I figured I would check it outlater.

Before I could open the attachments, I got a message from myfriend. She asked that I delete the last message she sent.

This intrigued me, but I wanted to stay true to her wishes.While I was curious, I deleted the files and went on with my day.

I met this dear friend while we were in Desert Storm so Ihad known her nearly 20 years. She’s a dear Christian lady so I couldn’timagine what she was sending that she didn’t intend me to see.

A few days later, I was going through some files on my phoneand noticed small images that had been downloaded. That struck me as odd sinceI never noticed I had anything downloaded there before.

I clicked open the first file and my mouth dropped open.There she was, all of her.

In the first few pictures, I didn’t see a face. However, Icould tell it was likely my friend.

Her face was shown in one of the pictures so my suspicionswere confirmed. I felt badly so I quickly deleted the photos.

I won’t comment on the content other than to say it wasspectacular. We had been friends so long, and been married so long I reallyhadn’t thought of her in that way for a long, long time.

I don’t feel qualified to judge her on her motives. Some couplesenjoy that, but I’ve seen too many of those types of private photos wind upsplashed in the media to even consider doing it myself whether it’s morallyright or wrong.

In Saudi Arabia, there were not many women around and shewas (and is) very attractive. However, I was an officer and she was an enlistedsoldier so that made a platonic friendship the furthest bounds our relationshipcould go in that environment.

I was engaged to the lady who’s now my wife at the time as well.However, I believe that had I not been engaged, I would have tried to pursue acloser relationship with her.

I’m assuming she was sending these pictures to her fiancé.I’m not sure how I got them and frankly wish I had never seen them. It kind ofrekindled a lot of the old, suppressed erotic feelings I had for her.

Perhaps these feelings hadn’t gone away at all. Always theseyears, I had largely attributed my crush to us being out in the middle of thedesert and very few other women to even look at, let alone talk to.

We still see each other from time to time, and I alwaysenjoy our visits, but it’s strictly as one friend to another. I’ve found thelove of my life, and doing my best to keep her.

It certainly has made it less easy for me to think of her asjust being a friend. I see these images every time I hear from her or eventhink of her.

I know we will get past this.  Our friendship has endured a lot over theyears:  our marriages, her divorce, hercoming to faith, job changes and other life-changing events.

I know it will be different next time I see her. I wonder ifshe will sense the change in me. What will I tell her?

For now, I’m just going to keep being her friend. It’s what I’vedone so well for so long.

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What's For Lunch?

It’s a controversial topic that comes to the surface now and then around our house.

My wife says I’m not teaching the kids responsibility by preparing their lunches for them. She is especially adamant about my 15-year-old Teenager.

She’s a sophomore in high school, and it’s about time she started taking responsibility for packing her lunch.  My wife said we are letting her get away with being lazy.

While that may be true, my point is this: if I don’t pack a lunch for her she’s liable to go to school without one. By packing her lunch, I ensure she has a lunch with her and that there’s something at least halfway nutritious in the bag.

My wife counters that she will learn to do this if she has to school a few days without lunch.  However, my Teenager is a growing girl and quite resourceful.  She will either borrow money from her friends or charge a lunch at school leaving us with a bill to pay at the end of the month.

So the debate goes on.

Our Little Guy eats what is in the cafeteria every day.  He abhors cold food and has learned to like most items on the menu.

My Baby Girl goes about half and half.  On days she does pack her lunch, or, as they call it at school, “take a home lunch,” she is very active in what goes in her lunch.

My Teenager, on the other hand, gives us no input. She rushes down the stairs, always the last one to be ready, and expects a lunch to be waiting for her.

I am always careful to put it in the car before she leaves. If I don’t, she is apt to dash out the door and have no lunch.

The good thing about this scrutiny on my wife’s part is that my Teenager is a lot less critical. In the past, she would come home and complain if there was something she didn’t like in her lunch.

Now, not so much.  She knows if she gripes, it will increase my wife’s insistence that she make her own lunch. She knows too that if my wife has her way, she’ll have to get up 10-15 minutes earlier in the mornings to do this.

I’m winning this argument for now.  I’ve got a routine down and it really doesn’t take me that much time.

Plus, she’s a sophomore now.  I know I won’t have the opportunity to do this much longer, and I get a lot of satisfaction knowing she’s off to school with an edible, somewhat nutritious lunch in her school bag.

I also tuck a note or card in there now and then.  I remind her how much I love her and think about her.

She’s my Teenager now, but she’ll always be Dad’s little girl in my heart.