Dog days of her summer
With pride, my 17-year-old daughter announced yesterday that she had topped the $1,000 mark in her savings account. She picked up a lot of dog doo to get there.
She was hired in May to do odd jobs at a local kennel. She loves animals and was excited about the job.
She soon came home with tales of the exotic breeds she encountered, and of blow drying poodles, feeding adorable puppies and gently shampooing a dog with tumors. One day she shampooed a three-legged dog. Another day she dyed a poodle pink. And another day she met a man who keeps raccoons.
It was an interesting, physically tiring job. She hated picking up dog doo, but she did what her boss told her to do.
When she considered looking for another job (because of the dog doo), her dad and I urged her to stick with the job she had. She had made a commitment to her employer, and if she stuck with the job all summer she might be able to save $1,000 to go toward college, we told her.
It was tough for her when she saw her friends get jobs in clothing stores, where they could dress up for work and be around other teens. She envied them their employee discounts on trendy clothes, but I told her the danger of working in a clothing store is that you tend to spend your paycheck there.
She stuck it out at the kennel through the dog days of her summer, and she's the richer for it.
Posted by: squeezed on 9/4/2008 at 10:17 AM | Comments (4) | Permalink
Ready for school
I came home after work last night and found my 15-year-old daughter sprawled on the coach, her eyes glazed from a daylong marathon of watching television.
"You look like you're ready to start school," I told her.
Most of the summer she was busy. She volunteered 85 hours working with children at a YMCA day camp. She traveled to New York City with a group of teens from our church and spent a week at a Latin American culture camp in the Twin Cities. She also spent time with friends -- going to the movies or just hanging out.
The last of her structured activities ended a couple of weeks ago. Since then, life has been dull for her.
School starts tomorrow for her and her older sister. She was eager to stop by school today to stock her locker with notebooks and pens and pencils. She and her locker partner planned to meet there and organize their locker space.
She would never admit it, but I sense she is eager to start school.
She's starting a new and much bigger school, and it's natural for her to be apprehensive. But I bet she'll like it and will do well.
It will be a lot more fun than lounging on the couch.
Posted by: squeezed on 9/3/2008 at 11:57 AM | Comments (0) | Permalink
Say something nice
If you want to get a parent's attention, give compliments about his or her kids.
At a recent high school grad party, my husband and I stopped by to chat with the graduate's dad. We told him how much we enjoy having his son at our house -- how he's polite and funny and a good friend to our daughter. We told him he raised a great son. The look of pleasure on that dad's face was priceless.
The next day, I ran into the mom of another recent graduate. I told her how fun it has been to see her daughter grow into such an amazing young woman (who soon will be heading off to an Ivy League college).
Then the mom got my attention. She had been a chaperone on a couple of group trips my older daughter had gone on. She told me that whenever my daughter sees her, no matter who my daughter is with, my daughter runs over and gives her a hello hug.
"It means the world to me," she said, adding that my daughter has a big heart.
My younger daughter recently received an open invitation from the mother of one of her friends. The mom said my daughter is welcome to stay over there as much as she wants this summer because she enjoys having her around.
Sometimes, we get so wrapped up in the day-to-day struggles with our children that we don't see them clearly. We worry about our kids fighting with each other or not doing their homework or household chores, while others may see them as polite, funny and caring.
Parenting can be tough sometimes. Do parents a favor and say something nice about their kids.
Posted by: squeezed on 7/8/2008 at 10:39 AM | Comments (3) | Permalink
Stuff we leave behind
As I get my dad's townhouse ready to sell, I've been dealing with a lot of stuff.
You can tell a lot about a person by the stuff they leave behind.
My dad used to spend winters in Arizona and summers at his townhouse in the Twin Cities. When his health took a dive four years ago, I sold his Arizona house and he lived year-round in Minnesota.
He downsized considerably then, so he didn't have a lot of extraneous stuff when he died. But he never downsized his collection of photos and slides.
I spent three six-hour stints recently going through 44 photo albums and more than 2,000 slides. My brother and sister had marked photos they wanted, and I separated those from the rest to make copies. I took out all the photos (many were in crummy old albums that were destroying the photos) and filed them by date. I packaged up the slides to deal with later.
There were photos of my dad as a teenager dressed in a zoot suit in the 1930s, one of him smoking a cigar in France after he survived the D-Day invasion and one of Bing Crosby performing for the troops somewhere in Europe during World War II.
But mostly there were pictures of family gatherings -- at holidays, picnics and skating parties -- and numerous photos of my relatives gathered around my grandparents' dining room table.
His family was what mattered most to my dad, and I have a mountain of photos and slides to prove it.
Posted by: squeezed on 7/7/2008 at 1:21 PM | Comments (2) | Permalink
Done with math
Forgive me if I brag a little.
My daughter got a "D" in her Algebra II class and I couldn't be happier. That's because she passed the class.
She's a bright girl with many talents. Math isn't one of them.
Her struggles with math started to show up in middle school. She spent one summer getting extensive tutoring to strengthen her math skills. It wasn't much fun for her, but I rewarded her with fancy drinks at Starbucks before or after tutoring sessions.
She managed to make it through Algebra I in ninth grade with the help of a terrific teacher, but when she hit Geometry in 10th grade, we once again turned to outside tutoring for help and she passed the class with a "C."
Algebra II started off pretty rocky for her last fall so I found a private math tutor for her. Her tutor was a local college student who is passionate about math. About three times a week she and Amy would meet at a local coffee shop and study math together.
When it comes time for my daughter to apply to colleges later this year, her transcript will show she has completed the three math classes recommended for college admission. Some college admissions folks might question her low grades in math, but hopefully they'll overlook them because of the many "A's" and "B's" she has earned in other classes.
Up through the last day of school, she was trying her hardest. She couldn't finish her math final in the allotted hour and a half, so she got the teacher's permission to come in later in the day and spend another two hours on it.
I'm very proud of her for all her hard work. In my eyes, she deserves an "A-plus" for determination.
Posted by: squeezed on 6/6/2008 at 3:37 PM | Comments (4) | Permalink