I tweeted and facebooked about my new blog, but it’s been brought to my attention that in the chaos of leaving I forgot to include a link here. How impressive of me. So for the few folks that may wander back this way, please come say hi to Mark, Scout, Archie and me over at ramblecrunch, where I’m writing about our journey through Europe and Turkey.

When we return, I’ll just continue writing on ramblecrunch about travel, food, homeschooling, minimalism…whatever.

My sincere thanks to you and anyone else who has ever visited Days with my Daughter.

Cheers,

Renee

http://ramblecrunch.com/

With 27 days to go, I think we’re in pretty good shape.

Back in February I couldn’t imagine how we were going to get rid of everything in time to leave at the end of April. Remember, we’re fully committed to storing practically nothing. A small box of documents, a little kitchenware. That’s it. Sure, I’d listed a few things on Craigslist, but overall there wasn’t a whole lot of movement. Whenever I walked through the house, all the detritus—the books, DVDs, travel mementos, artwork, tech gear, and so forth—would catch my eye, causing a pain to shoot through my neck. This sure didn’t look like the house of imminent travelers.

That was a month ago.

Today hangers skittle easily along the clothes rack, empty bookshelf cubbies outnumber full ones, and Scout is able to race her scooter around and around our empty living room. We can hardly remember—and certainly don’t miss—all the stuff that’s been sold.

It’s a good feeling.

No, wait. It’s a great feeling.

The hardest thing by far has been dealing with the heirloom-type stuff. The possessions that might have value…or, more likely, might not. For me this stuff is the worst, not because I’m attached to it (mostly I’m not), but because I never know what anything’s worth. Should I bother with eBay or just load it in the car and drive it all to Goodwill? Frankly I wish the Antiques Roadshow team could come over one afternoon and sort it all out for me.

You know the drill. That crappy old painting some woman picked up for ten bucks at Pasadena garage sale is really a long-lost Vermeer. Or that box of dusty glass slides some guy lugged home from the flea market belonged to Ansel Adams. Riches ensue.

Whenever these stories hit the news, my heart goes out to the unsuspecting schmuck who sold the stuff for nothing.

Like I’m about to do. Probably.

Take this for example.

In case you’re chuckling, cut it out. This was a toughie.

Seriously, what on earth do you charge for your mom’s treasured coffee set from the 60′s that may or may not be valuable? (If the answer is more than $50, please keep it to yourself.)

Points to consider:

1. My mother, who died when I was four, loved this coffee set. For decades it remained packed as she left it, each piece wrapped carefully in pages from a German newspaper. I only have a few photos of her, and this set is in most of them. Generally I’m not sentimental, but that’s tough.

2. It’s vintage and really pretty. Striking in fact, though you can’t tell from the photo. But a Louis XIV? OK, probably not. There are no identifying marks on it.

3. I have never used it once. And it’s not a style I am likely to use in the future.

4. I don’t like collectibles or sentimental stuff.

For a while, all this was enough to paralyze me. I couldn’t let it go. One move after another, the Box with My Mother’s Red Coffee Set came with us, though it was never unpacked. Until recently I’d been thinking maybe I could store just this one thing, but then three more points occurred to me.

5. My family and I long for travel. For freedom. For experiences. I don’t want to store things or continue to cart them around from place to place. I’m a nomad at heart. We all are.

6. Just because this belonged to my mother, doesn’t mean I have to value it the same way she did or hold on to it forever. Do I expect Scout to keep my things forever just because they were mine? Of course not.

7. My mother (apparently) was a traveler too. She pinched pennies and made other sacrifices so she could drag my Dad off to parts unknown. Surely she would understand better than anyone.

So I made the tough call and let it go. Several days ago a friendly hipster came by with his girlfriend to buy our cool Asian couch (“wicked” the girl called it), and when she admired the set on the table, he asked about the price. “Um, seventy-five?” I muttered hesitantly.

What a complete joke. I used to be in ad sales. Let’s try that again.

I cleared my throat and pulled myself together, announcing, “Look, for $525 you can have the couch and the coffee set. But you have to take them now.” The couch had been for sale for several weeks with no serious inquiries. It was a specialty piece, lovely but not for everyone. What if it didn’t sell? It needed to go.

Done deal. While Scout’s dad helped the hipster shove the couch into the back of his truck, I packed up the set for the girlfriend. She promised to love it, telling me, “I value everything I collect. I am a purveyor.”

Wait. What was this?

Whether she was actually a “purveyor” and intended to resell my set for a handsome profit, or whether she was just a nice vintage-coffee-set-loving gal who played loose with vocabulary, it didn’t really matter. The set probably wasn’t too valuable. (But for God’s sake, if I’m wrong please don’t tell me about it.) And now it had a new home.

I finished packing it up, walked her to the door, waved goodbye and was free.

At least until that red coffee set shows up on the local news.

Local Girl Makes Rare Find on Craigslist; $45,000 Expected at Auction.

What should I do about Scout’s books?

I just found out that shipping them to Amsterdam will cost much more than I was expecting. MUCH more. $150 more. That’s more than I was expecting. I had been planning on mailing an extra box of them, craftily saving on airline baggage fees, but after getting off the phone with USPS, I realize my plan is backfiring.

KLM allows each of us to check one bag for free. One. A second bag costs an additional €50, and a third one costs €15,000 on top of that.

OK, €150. But still.

Each of us will have a bag of clothes and a bicycle, so that takes care of #1 and #2 right off the bat. I was hoping to avoid bag #3 entirely. Now I’m squirming.

General reading isn’t the problem; we already have Kindles. The books in question are homeschool books and a few reference-type books, none of which are available in Kindle formats. It’s cumbersome paper bricks or nothing.

We’re definitely bringing our excellent language-arts curriculum, a couple of math books (though granted, her main course is online), some books of poetry, a few histories, a couple of Spanish books, my German books, a handful of writing books, a little Calvin and Hobbes and, well, others. You know, your basic homeschool stuff.

But in addition to that, we’ve got more books of poetry, more Spanish books, more German books, some philosophy books, some art books, etc. This is the group that’s causing the problem. They’re useful at times, but we don’t refer to them daily.

Is bringing a sizable portion of our homeschool library really worth the investment?

Perhaps cost isn’t the real issue here, though that’s certainly what started me thinking. It’s also a question of simplicity. Certainly the book specimens I mentioned are a rich part of Scout’s education, but the kid will be learning plenty regardless. Does it matter if we bring them all? How much stuff do we really want to lug around? And how many other obligations do I want intruding on Scout’s travel experience?

I won’t deny that I’m hoping we can stay gone indefinitely. During our journey I’ll be keeping my eyes open for that holiest of grails, that rarest of unicorns…the 100% remote-income stream. In my ideal world, we’d remain nomads for years.

So where does a roadschooling parent draw the line? I’ve got to decide quickly, because if I ship, I need to get the box in the mail ASAP. And if I don’t ship, I’ve got to be prepared, in principle anyway, to say goodbye to some of our favorite schoolbooks for a very long time.

Thoughts?

Only six weeks until we board our flight for Amsterdam, and there’s still a lot to do.

Looking around me, I’m still seeing a disturbing amount of stuff. Books, furniture, souvenirs from past travels, debris from past hobbies, art supplies, notebooks, camping gear, clothes. God, it’s endless. We’ve unloaded some, but much more remains. In three weeks we’re having an estate sale, so hopefully that will clear things out; in the meantime, it’s all making me tense.

I promise you this. I will never, ever buy furniture — or anything — new again. What a total waste of money for people like us, people who are prone to frequent moving and traveling. Nomads in denial, we went through an overly-optimistic nesty stage when we bought our cool downtown condo four years ago, and now I’m stuck trying to unload cool Asian furniture for next to nothing. It’s absolutely idiotic.

Yet we own far fewer things than our friends and acquaintances. How is that even possible? Believe me, the consumer lifestyle is so over for us. Once we’ve wound down this household, we’re keeping things light, no matter what. Forever. Everyone agrees, even Scout.

OK, well, grumble, grumble. We bought the stuff in the first place, so this is our punishment. Everything will work out, like it always does before we travel.

Our paperwork is coming along. Canadian passports, international drivers licenses, and camping cards are in the works.

Good news. The dog passed his $325 rabies test.

Yes, you read that right. $325.

This wasn’t your run-of-the-mill rabies test, mind you, but a special one that will eventually qualify him for entry to Ireland, which we may or may not even visit. Pets need to be tested six months before entry, so we did it just in case Ireland makes the itinerary. (As one of the few non-Schengen options near Western Europe, that’s a possibility.) Our regular vet did the blood draw, but for the analysis, the blood had to be couriered to a special lab in the U.S., one of only a few labs in the country designated to perform the tests for Ireland. Jesus.

I was pretty pissed when I found out the cost (after the fact), because when I had inquired about pricing over the phone, the vet’s assistant told me the test would be about $30. OK, technically that was correct, but she neglected to mention the lab’s mandatory $300 courier charge. Look, the dog needed the test, so I would have gotten it anyway, but being surprised like that rankled. Who in their right mind forgets to mention a $300 courier charge?

OK, enough venting. Back to work.

Five weeks since my last post, yet my blog-traffic graph is surging (relatively speaking) upward. Higher highs and higher lows. If I owned this stock, I’d be rich. What the heck?

I checked it this morning, the first time in ages, anticipating a flat line. How peculiar. Apparently shutting up increases my popularity.

Anyway, I don’t have time to write, so I’m just going to talk. Much has been happening, but the juiciest stuff was confidential, which put a damper on blogging. Here’s what’s been going on in a nutshell.

We are now Canadian citizens.

(That’s not the confidential part.)

We left the States for Canada seven years ago, and have spent most of that time living in downtown Vancouver. Come to think of it, I’ve been heading North ever since my childhood in northern California. Well, at first I went south, to UCLA for university, but since then it’s been due north. Portland, Seattle, and ultimately Vancouver. Along the way I picked up a husband from New Orleans and a dog from Maine.

We love Canada and have had good times here in Vancouver, but the thing is, my husband and I are travelers at heart, nomads who get predictably restless after a few years in any one place, no matter how fresh the air or lovely the view. And our child has inherited our wanderlust. She loves new foods, new places, and chats enthusiastically with new people, young or old.

Travel is vital for educated kids, and thankfully we’ve been able to show Scout not only parts of the US and Canada, but also central America and Thailand. But that’s not enough, not by a long shot.

For the past few years we’ve been sidelined, both by the citizenship process and also the pernicious cost of home-ownership (well, condo-ownership) here in Vancouver. For three out of the past four years, every extra dollar went to the mortgage or, before we started homeschooling, private-school expenses. And besides, you can’t just gallivant all over the place during  the citizenship application process. You must always be available to Immigration Canada, because if you miss a date, deadline, or interview, you’re cooked and have to start over.

So we’ve been in limbo.

Last year, hopeful that we’d soon be citizens and could once again travel, we unloaded our condo, rented a mossy old house on the west side, and waited. Waited for applications to be processed, checks to be made, tests to be scheduled, and finally, as of last Wednesday, our citizenship ceremony.

So far it doesn’t feel quite real, though I suspect that will change when we receive our new Canadian passports, which should arrive in a couple of weeks.

When those passports arrive, we will leave our new home for a while. Scout, who turns ten tomorrow, is growing up fast, and we need to show her the world now, before time runs out and our little girl is grown.

Which brings me to my next point…

We are leaving to travel the world.

I’ve alluded to it in past posts, but Scout’s dad wanted to give notice at work before I officially started blabbing. Well, the deed is done, so here I go.

We are re-designing our lives to allow for more flexibility, more travel, more discovery. Home ownership? No more. Permanent jobs? Forget ‘em.

Scout’s dad, a project manager, will pursue contract work from now on, so we can see more of the world on a regular basis. Eventually I plan to teach ESL, but for the next year I want to finish writing my book, step up my photography, finally get fluent in German, and see the world with my family. Scout is excited to see the sites of ancient Greece and Rome, to meet new kids, to improve her Spanish, and (like me), to eat at least one of everything.

Therefore at the end of April, we are hitting the road. We’re going to spend a year in Europe and Turkey, traveling around in an old RV. Our dog, Archie, will be coming with us, so the RV is the best way to handle that. Yes, you read that right. We’re bringing the dog. Archie’s my soul-mate dog, and he’s part of the family, so wherever we go, he goes. End of story.

After Europe, we’re hoping to split our time between Canada and South America. And Asia. And Europe. Well, you get the picture. We’ll see what we can cobble together in terms of flexible income. We’re going to do our best to keep moving, to keep seeing new places. I can’t tell you specifically what we’ll be doing, because I don’t really know. We’ll just make interesting choices and see where they lead.

In previous posts I’ve alluded to simplifying around here. Actually, for the past few months I’ve been selling everything.  Furniture. Toys. Books. The car. We’re not keeping much…just a few kitchen basics, a box of reference books, a box of Scout’s little things, and a box of documents. We’re sick of being tied down by the wretched stuff, moving it, housing it. Often I look around me and shudder, wondering why we ever bought it all in the first place, neurotically calculating how much money we’d have in the bank if we hadn’t.

From now on, we’re going to stay light, as true nomads do. We’re not rich, not by a long shot, so to live the perpetual/frequent-travel dream, we will need to keep things simple, own very little, be creative, and take risks.

Finally!

Maria-the-intercambio and Scout made this bowl of awesomeness today. It was unbelievably freaking good, way better than regular rice pudding, which can be pretty bland.

El arroz con leche es un delicioso postre que puedes preparar a tus hijos.
Por su textura suave, fácil de comer, se lo puedes ofrecer al niño cuando ya ha cumplido su primer año.

Here’s the recipe. Don’t be shy with the cinnamon stick and orange peel. That’s what gives it its Latin zip.

INGREDIENTES:

• 1 litro de leche
• 125 gr. de azúcar
• 150 gr. de arroz
• cáscara de media naranja y cáscara de medio limón
• canela en polvo
• 1/2 rama de canela

PREPARACIÓN:

1. Hervir la leche con la rama de canela y las cáscaras de naranja y limón.
2. Añadir el arroz y cocer a fuego lento durante 20 minutos, removiendo de vez en cuando.
3. Añadir el azúcar y seguir cociendo durante otros 15 minutos más, hasta obtener una textura cremosa.
4. Colocar en recipientes individuales y espolvorear con un poco de canela molida.

Or, if you don’t feel like digging out your Spanish dictionary:

• 1l of milk
• 125gr of sugar
• 150gr of rice
• peel from 1/2 orange
• peel from 1/2 lemon
• cinnamon powder (freshly grated is best)
• 1/2 cinnamon stick

Add the peels and cinnamon stick to the milk and bring to a boil. Once boiling, add the rice, cover and simmer for 20 minutes. Add the sugar and cook, stirring regularly, for 15 more minutes.

Serve cold or warm with cinnamon sprinkled on the top.

Alternatively, just take heaping spoonfuls directly from the pot while everything is still blistering hot.

Not that I’d know anything about that personally.

Recently I described my family’s desire to travel, our decision to purge most of our belongings, and my bizarre attachment to a Thai-language cookbook I will probably never learn to read.

Well, after a month, of selling, giving and recycling, we’re making good progress. Empty corners now peek out in the basement. Bare patches dot the bookshelves. Simply put, our house can now exhale, and we feel ourselves doing the same.

Fortunately, blogging about that damn Thai cookbook broke its hold on me. It’s still sitting in the cupboard, but it’s history. I’ve moved on.

I’ve sorted all our books, dividing them into those for sale and future library donations. We’re keeping several small boxes of homeschool books, but that’s it. A lot of the books from our little library are new, that’s pretty annoying. But as any homeschooling mum can verify, many book purchases just don’t work out.

Some come from small publishers, meaning they weren’t available locally to examine and had to be ordered sight unseen. Then by the time you realize they won’t work, it’s too late to return them. Then there are the ones that you like and buy but the kid doesn’t. I’m grateful to have a sophisticated reader on my hands. Let me tell you, it makes homeschooling pretty simple. But it also means that Scout,  opinionated and discerning about reading material, won’t read what doesn’t inspire. Anyway, most titles in these categories need to go.

Several months ago we bought our first Kindle, so in the future, we will buy mainly eBooks. At first this seemed sacrilegious, but now that I’ve spent some time with it and seen how easy it is, I’m a believer.

I’ve begun photographing our things and posting them on Craigslist. Quite a few items have already found new homes. For example:

• my sewing machine (I dabbled in sewing when Scout was a toddler, actually producing several cute-ish summer dresses, including a green one with little ladybugs, which she still wears as a shirt. But sewing just wasn’t my thing and never will be. Seriously. The relentless clattering gives me a migraine. And don’t even get me started on the homicide-inducing aggravation of dealing with thread.)

• a clothes-drying rack (I bought this to save money on machine drying. All it did was block my path to the dryer, so I jammed it in a closet and forgot about it.)

• a sticky-rice steamer and basket (?)

• our ice-cream maker (Nice while it lasted,)

• an unused fish tank

• a fancy dog-coat Archie had the nerve to grow out of

• non-essential furniture

• stacks of those practically new books (Ouch. Ouch. Ouch. But on the bright side, I received a cheery thank-you note from Amazon shareholders.)

Divesting has been a draining experience, because every time I sell something, I remember what I paid for it and get annoyed. Really annoyed. More annoyed than a normal, well-balanced person should get. I should just take the cash and forget about it, but no. I prefer to dwell. To ruminate. To attempt, by sheer force of will, to alter history.

When that doesn’t work, I tell myself this. Since it’s impossible to un-buy everything, all I can do is accept that we’ve squandered a fair amount of money over our lives, change course, and move on. What’s past is past. Our priorities are different now. End of story.

At that point if I’m still annoyed, which is likely, it’s time for a glass of red.

Within the next few months, everything will go, except for my All-Clad kitchenware, the rice cooker, some vintage travel posters (stone lithographs, actually) from the 1920s, a few clothes and our computer/photography gear. Only items we use daily are welcome to stay.

Next up on the chopping block are some sentimental-ish favourites. I’ve been stalling, but their days are numbered:

• a 2.5-foot-high, solid monkey-wood elephant (I love this thing.)

• the spirit house we brought back from Thailand (Sigh. Love this too.)

• various other travel acquisitions, such as an antique betel-nut container from Burma, celadon vases from Thailand, a milagro plaque from Mexico, etc. These things are nice enough I suppose, but when push comes to shove, are they really any different from the mundane stuff that ties us down? Nope. In future, we won’t buy remembrances like these when we travel. Photos, experiences, memories. That’s all we need.

• my mother’s red coffee set (German, I think, like her) from the 60s

That last one is a little tricky for me. My mother died when I was four, and that red set was about all she left behind. I don’t remember her, but the coffee set evokes both a time and place that are long gone. Once in a while the set turns up in an old snapshot. Just looking at those burnished red cups sometimes transports me back in time, just for a moment.

But the truth is cups and saucers aren’t a mother, and all the transporting in the world isn’t going to produce one. They are just more stuff, so they’ve got to go. Besides, my feisty German mother was a world traveler herself. I’m sure she’d understand.

Photos. I’ve never been one to hang photos on the wall, but we do have a few albums, mainly filled with Scout’s baby pictures, taken before we got a digital camera. Jesus, how many baby pictures of one kid do you need? I like the way it was a hundred years ago: You were lucky if you had four photos documenting your entire life. I’m pulling everything out of the albums, purging, scanning and shredding what’s left. Done.

We are planning to sell our Subaru Outback in the next couple months (a decision Scout was really excited about), so we will soon be carless. One wonders if she’s put it together yet that no car = more biking = sometimes riding uphill.

Best not to bring it up, I think.

Speaking of my little daughter, you might be wondering what she thinks of all this. Well, for the most part, she’s in the boat. She loves the travel concept (as long as she gets to stay in touch with her friends) and is as accepting as a 9-going-on-35 year old can be about letting go of her things.

She’s asked if she can keep the money we make on her stuff (you bet!), and she’s starting to purge her room. She accepts that as a family we’re not buying as many new things. (Not that we bought too much before, but we’re buying even less now.) She’s looking forward to adventure.

Well, that’s it I guess. Every time a Craigslist buyer walks away from this house with one of our things clutched happily in their arms, I feel that much better. While we’re still here, life will be so much easier with minimal belongings to clean, organize and care for.

Then, when we eventually hit the road, there won’t be much left to do but turn out the lights.

Right. It’s been a busy week.

I’m working on another post, but here’s something for you in the meantime.

Can you label all the parts of Canadian Mounty?

They won’t let you become a Canadian citizen unless you can.

(OK, I made up that last part.)

Recently I described (here, somewhere in the middle) how 2010 was Scout’s breakout year for writing. Not in terms of content, as she has always been a natural poet and story-teller. I’m talking about writing by hand in a comfortable, voluntary, neat, and effective way.

If your child has never had written output issues, this may not sound like a big deal. But if you’ve routinely had to watch your little one struggle with written output, you know what I mean. The cramped, smudgy letters; the wrinkled paper; the tears; the pleas for scribing; the superhuman effort for dismal results.

But right around her ninth birthday, Scout emerged from this interminable dark age of dysgraphia into a glorious new beginning. Journals suddenly overflowed with lovely, easy script. Paragraphs written by hand became neat and organized.

What spurred this renaissance? Well, a number of things came together (patience, lots of practice, small and realistic goals, maturing small-motor skills), but one of the most important factors was Scout’s own desire to improve. And fanning the flames of that desire were wonderful letters from her new penpal, Jen.

Jen is a dream come true. A home-schooler like Scout, she’s also a superhuman penpal ninja who whips out letters with a frequency that would put Stephen King to shame. And not only that, she is an fantastic writer. Her trademark envelopes bulge with juicy, interesting letters jam-packed with details. Often they contain not just a letter, but also extra postcards and other ephemera. It’s always a thrill when one of Jen’s distinctive letters appears in the daily mail pile.

How did we find Jen?

Earlier in the year I had contacted Amazing Kids!, a tiny Washington non-profit that, among other things, matches kids for traditional pen-and-paper penpals. I chose the group for a few reasons. They are one of the few to offer traditional-letter penpals rather than email exchanges, and I’d read good things about them in several reputable magazines. After reading about their safety measures on the website, I was confident I’d found the right organization.

Signing up was easy. I just went to their registration page, printed out the form and filled in our contact info. I checked some boxes about the type of penpal Scout wanted. Girl – check (actually they only match same-sex kids). Age 9 – check. Hobbies: reading, writing, cooking, traveling – check. Available immediately – check. Then I signed on the dotted line and mailed in the form along with my $10 donation.

Eventually Scout was matched with a girl from Turkey. Awesome, right? Well, I never heard from her teacher, so that one didn’t work out. In fact, that’s another reason I liked this program. The parents (or teachers) make contact first. Only if both parents feel comfortable do they exchange addresses and allow the kids to start writing.

Oh, there’s one last thing.

As I mentioned, this is a tiny, all-volunteer program, so do be patient with them. It took me three or four months to get the exchange going. First my consent form was lost, so I had to send another one. Then I didn’t hear from them for a long time while they tried to find a match. I checked back a couple times and eventually heard back from the president, who regretted the delay and hooked me up with Jen’s family. Just touch base every so often and don’t be in a big hurry. Eventually everything will all work out.

The Amazing Kids! Pen-Pal Program is available to all children ages 5-17. The cost is $10 per child or student. Teachers and groups of 15 or more receive a 50% discount.

Recently I’ve learned some interesting factoids about diseases of the respiratory system.

Take this little gem, for example.

Clubbing is an enlargement of the tips of the fingers or toes causing a change in the angle where the nails emerge. It can be a symptom of some lung disorders including lung cancer, lung abscess, and bronchiectasis.

How does a physician spot clubbing? Well, there’s a nifty little test. He or she should have the patient place both forefinger nails together and then look between them. If a small diamond space is visible between them, then the nails are not clubbed.

See the little diamond? No clubbing here!

You might be wondering how I know this, along with a bunch of other random stuff about diagnosing respiratory problems.

Um, my kid taught me.

Scout has a job as a guinea pig volunteer patient for 1st- and 2nd-year undergraduate medical students learning their clinical skills. In the program, doctors teach small groups of pediatric students history-taking and physical-examination skills. To do this they need a real, live child.

Here is a really sweet resident practicing her chest-thumping skills on my daughter. The girl was afraid of hurting Scout, so she wasn’t hitting hard enough to get the correct hollow sound and had to keep redoing it. About half the students were afraid to hurt her, while the other half apparently figured she was expendable and thumped away with abandon.

Interestingly, Scout prefers the female instructors to the male ones. Apparently a lot of the men are what Scout calls “jokey winder-uppers,” while the ladies tend to be more serious and less edgy. Frankly, this jibes with most of my medical experiences, too. But several of the men have been warm and mellow too, so I shouldn’t generalize too much.

Scout earns $20 for two hours’ work. I used to pay $17 in hospital parking charges for this privilege, but now I’ve wised up and we walk or ride our bikes. Also, I used to stay in the classroom with her for the whole two hours, but now that we’re both veterans, I just turn her loose on the residents and make a beeline for the nearest Starbucks.

Scout takes her job seriously. Very seriously. She’s memorized all the little tests–like the diamond test for clubbed fingers–and likes to remind the doctors when they forget to mention one. (I’m sure they appreciate this kind of help.) In fact, I’ve noticed that she has begun saying “we” when referring to the doctors. As in, “We sent half the class to watch a film while the other half stayed to practice.” Or, “We showed them how to use their stethoscopes to listen for aspiration.”

I suppose that’s an improvement from the first few sessions, when she identified more with the students. Because it was the same subject matter (pediatric respiratory exams) over and over, each time with a different group of residents, Scout learned it cold and had an advantage over the others. This went to her head, and she started getting competitive with the students, jamming her hand in the air whenever the doctor posed a question.

I am pleased to see how seriously Scout takes her job. Two hours is actually quite a long time for a kid to sit quietly on a table and not play with the equipment. Everyone’s really nice to her, but there’s not much to do. Reading isn’t really an option. In the past she’s smuggled in toys for herself, as well as entire show-and-tell presentations for the residents, but when I realized what she was doing, I put a stop to it. Obviously I don’t want her to interfere with the teaching, so I’m more watchful now. Before we leave the house I give her a TSA-worthy pat-down and make her empty her pockets of all kid detritus except for one simple thing she can quietly fiddle with during the exams, like a kaleidoscope or Rubik’s Cube.

When I pick her up afterward, Scout usually gets great reviews from the students and teacher, which I appreciate. Well, there was this one time when I forgot to feed her beforehand, but we don’t need to talk about that. The important thing is she keeps getting asked back, so it must be going well.

Truthfully, I’d be pretty uncomfortable to have all those people looking at me for two hours. But Scout, who never met an audience she didn’t like, loves it. The kid is always thrilled when we get an email from Rosy, the lovely volunteer-patient coordinator who books the gigs.

I’m grateful to the UBC Faculty of Medicine for giving Scout this opportunity. There aren’t that many ways a nine year old can make her own money or enjoy the responsibility of her first job.

It has nothing whatsoever to do with my two hours of alone time at Starbucks. I swear.