When my daughter was three or four I was teaching her how to count. I took out a puzzle and began to play-teach her to count. She had by that time pretty well mastered counting to ten. As I placed each piece of the puzzle down I asked her, "What is that?" She would say one, two, three and so on till we reached ten. When I put the eleventh piece down and ask her, "What is that?" She looked at me as though I was stupid and said, "It's a piece of the puzzle."
While we were stationed at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba we would spent time at the several beaches. The beaches were built with a rock breakwater to keep the waters calm and to discourage sharks and other large fish from entering. The breakwater had a four to five foot wide inlet so that the tides could get in and out. My wife and I were snorkeling in this area when we spotted a small, about twelve inch or so, octopus. We surfaced and decided to see if we could catch it.
We got a can that had a lit and off we went on our big game hunt. Our strategy was for me to nudge the octopus toward the can where my wife was holding it. She would then capture it and put the lid on. We got set. I started to nudge the animal with a stick. It started moving towards my wife as planned, however just before it was about to enter the can, it change its mind and went straight for my wife. It the first and only time I heard a scream underwater.
When we live in our first house our neighbors had a son the same age as our middle son, they were about four at the time. Let's call the neighbor kid Charlie. Charlie spent most of the day with his grandmother because mom and pop worked. His grandmother spent lots of time playing with him and as a result he could converse on an adult level of speech. For his age he was quite articulate. We though he was very high above average.
Our son didn't seem to appear overly bright. He was for all outward appearances just an average kid. So when his second grade teacher sent us a note asking to see us, our imagination went wild and our thought was, "What kind of trouble is he in?"
To our astonishing surprise, and I do mean astonishing surprise, she told us that our son had tested at an above average level and she wanted our permission to enroll him in a special advanced learners program. She further went on to say she was glad he was in her class. We were speechless, with our mouths agape.
As it turn out Charlie was average.
I don't remember how old our daughter was when she swallowed a small bell, At the time she was very small. Even though she was our second child we were still young and inexperienced parents. We were a bit frantic and scared, so we went to the local Navy Hospital ER. When we got to see a doctor my wife explained what happened and described the bell. The doctor picked my daughter up and placed his head near her stomach. He then gentle shook her and said, "Your right, I can hear it." He told us not to worry and that it should pass in a few days, which it did.
My daughter at the time was between one and two. She stood about eighteen inches and weighed about twenty pounds. Our little girl was on the floor playing with her toys but being very annoying. My wife said, "Beth stop that." Our daughter took a deep breath, looked sternly at my wife and said, "Shut up bitch."
As a youngster I was generally chosen first or second when choosing up sides for a game. While I was stationed at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba one of my associates got me interest in tennis. In the year that followed I study how to hit the ball. Everyone said the most important thing to do is to watch the ball all the way to the racket. In fact, all sport where you have to hit an object, like hitting a baseball with a bat, you must keep you eye on the ball all the way till you hit it.
When my son was old enough we signed him up for little league. During the first couple of years his coaches were average guys. They lacked the ability to teach the kids that had the most difficulty. So during those years I worked with my son on hitting and catching. I told him repeatedly that the most important thing to do was to "watch the ball all the way to the bat." He'd say, "Sure dad" or words to that effect.
After those initial years, my son got a coach that really knew how to train kids to play. After one of his training sessions my son ran over to us very excited. I asked him why he was so excited. He said, "The coach taught me to hit." I asked, "How's that?" My son replied, "You just got to watch the ball all the way to the bat."
For the first six months of my daughter life she cried continuously because of colic. Of course we took her to the doctor who told us that she is very healthy and that the colic should only last a few week. Yeah right! Everyone was telling us what we were doing wrong but after they took their turn to watching, which was done mostly out of sympathy for her and to give her time away from us, they'd rarely volunteered again. Just after she was born my mom came to help. She lasted two days then went home and in parting wished us good luck. To make her comfortable we would just go for a ride in the car, which also gave us a respite of sorts, or put her on our wringer-washer which shook a lot. This seem to help a little.
During this period we had moved into an apartment building. My wife is pretty sociable and became friends with the neighbors. One of her friends ask her if she would like her to babysit so that we could have an evening out. She accepted right away and told the neighbor what she was in for with our daughter. We found out later that she didn't believe her. The woman said that it would be okay. Although we felt a bit guilty because we knew what they were in for, we went anyway and had a good time. When we got home we collected our kids and thank them profusely; they looked worn out.
The next morning my wife and the neighbor got together for a cup of coffee and some talking. My wife was a bit surprise when the neighbor apologized. My wife was puzzled and ask about what. The woman went on to explain that the reason she and her husband had volunteered to babysit was to give our daughter a break from us. She went on to say that she thought that we were abusing her. She said that they looked her over from heat-to-toe but couldn't find anything wrong. While she was there she kept crying, and crying. She end by saying she felt very sorry for us, but don't ask her to babysit "our daughter" again.
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