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Archiver > OKGEN > 1998-12 > 0912519061


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Subject: [OKGEN-L] Kade and the Bugs
Date: Tue, 1 Dec 1998 08:31:01 EST


I have this sweet little 6 year old daughter named Kade and I haven't the
slightest idea where she came from !

You see, I am a single father. One would think Kade would reflect my ideas,
my training, be the person she is around the most. Not so.

How did this little girl get so prissy ? Why does she sit with her ankles
crossed just like a demur little lady ? Why is pink her favorite color ? Why
doesn't she like bugs ?

I am a bug fancier. I like bugs. I even buy bugs to turn loose in my garden.
Lady bugs and praying mantis are my best friends. After spiders. From birth
I have told Kade that spiders are our friends. They eat bad bugs, especially
cockroaches. I encourage wolf spiders to live in my kitchen. I have held
wolf spiders in my hand to show Kade how cute they are.

Kade is not impressed. In fact, she has actual hysterical fits when she sees
a spider. How could that be from a daughter of mine ? I just don't
understand it. Kade has convinced me that nature is stronger than nurture.

Kade also has a bad habit of leaving her toys outside at night. Along with
shoes, coats, and anything else she happened to be dragging around with her.
She loves roller skates and almost lives in them at times. Time after time I
have had her go back outside and bring in her skates. But I grew weary of
that after the 3000th time and decided to let her skates just lay outdoors
where she left them, to get wet, to rot, to get stolen, whatever. They were
her skates, if she loves them she will take care of them, if she loses them
she must not have valued them, etc, etc, you get the point.

After her skates had lain there for a few weeks she carried them indoors one
morning and sat on the living room floor to put them on. Abstractedly
watching cartoons on TV as she pulled on her skates she suddenly screamed
bloody murder and slung her skate across the room calling for Daddy as she
climbed the back of the sofa !!!

You should have seen the roly polys that were in those skates !!! Poor little
roly polys, they didn't mean any harm, just found a nice dark place to hide
during the day, but Kade just wouldn't understand the peaceful co-existance
between man and bug ! Nothing would do except I had to round up all the roly
polys from the living room floor and send them back outdoors. Have you ever
tried to catch hundreds of roly polys who are furiously trying to find
darkness in the middle of your living room ? Even with Kade's good position
from the back of the couch directing me to this spot and that spot, some of
them got away. "There's one Daddy, going under the fish tank!".

I don't think she wore those skates for months. To this day she will have me
check her skates for roly polys before she will even pick them up.

For such a petite, picky little girl, don't you know it was her worst
nightmare to put her foot into a skate full of bugs ??!! I can't help but to
stiffle a chuckle whenever I think of it !!! Mean old Daddy!

Jack Childers in OKC

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