Translation for those of you who don't read seven year old handwriting: I had a good summer. I went to South Dakota. I split my chin again. I got five stitches. My mom broke her foot. I helped a lot. (doing chores) My dog, Sandy died.
There is only one statement in this entire essay that is a stretch of truth. The rest of it is completely true! Guess which one is a bit of a stretch..... Yup. The first line. "I had a good summer." Really? That was a good one? That was the worst summer this family has ever had!
I can only recall one other summer that sucked as bad as this one did. It was 1981 when I was 15; my older sister went away to boot camp and left me home to do all the chores and babysitting. Once I realized how much she did to help out the family and how lazy I was by comparison, my summer was doomed. I was no longer getting away with anything. Darn the luck! Plus, it was the 80s and my world revolved around my hair, which was never awesome enough to satisfy my egocentric adolescent attitude. In retrospect, that summer wasn't as bad as this one. The summer of 2013 wins the worst award.
I can't believe my daughter split her chin open again and had to get stitches again. Isn't that one of those once in a lifetime things? Twice is just not fair. When it happened, she was in South Dakota on her vacation with daddy. Just her and daddy, no mama there to comfort her and give her hugs. Her dad handled it just fine, in fact, he was great! But still... ouch!
The poor kid had to pitch in and do chores every day. She learned how to do dishes, load and run the dishwasher, and put them away. She took out the trash. She vacuumed and swept (although sweeping wasn't her best talent). She helped with laundry. She put groceries away after carrying them in from the car. And she even helped change the littler kids pajamas, shoes, and diapers. She helped the littler kids get into and out of the car and assisted with the seat belts, and she learned how to start the car to get the AC going too. She stepped up because she had to. I was broken all summer and couldn't do much except get in the way.
Our dog of 12 years died this summer too. It's been an adjustment for all of the kids to be without her; they've never known life without the dog.
Poor Gracie, she really did have a bad summer. We all did.
I remember the summer of 1981 vividly. Went to boot camp in South Carolina, survived Hurricane David. I don't remember you getting out of doing chores, seems we did our fair share. I'm pretty certain I wouldn't have let you get away with being lazy.
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