eight year old woes or why parenting is hard

Last week at Parent Teacher Conferences we got a letter from Harry. It's so adorable I decided to post it here. I wanted to just scan it for the added handwriting effect, but it's written very lightly in pencil and I doubt it will come out.
Dear Mom and dad I wanna new bike. And you always tell me to go play outside. And my bike and kindove everything else is a handy down And I don't even know how old it is. And even kindove junky and old and rusty. And it is super super hard to pedal it. And it's seat is really relly hard.
Name: Harry.
Truth be told, his bike IS really old and junky and rusty and a hand me down. I'm not sure about the pedaling, but I do imagine the seat is really hard.

Life is hard when you're the fifth child.

Especially when, while your parents find your letter adorable to the max and they would love to rush to the store and buy a new bike based solely on the adorableness.... truthfully, they aren't exactly moved to get on the "new bike" bandwagon.

The reality is that you have trouble taking care of the current rusty junky bike......and your scooter, and your ripstick, and your toys, and your balls and your clothes and your shoes. Your definition of putting things away is dropping them in the yard, the house or your room and walking away.

Our definition is different.

So my darling boy, let's work on this together. You practice putting things away (our definition, not yours) and we will think about a new shiny bike.

Deal?

3 Comments

undefined:

Aww, maybe Santa will bring him a new shiny bike.

We were thinking about buying W a new bike for his last birthday, but about 2 months before my friend said she had a used one we could have for free. Score, I thought. But the real bonus of having a used/free bike is you don't mind it getting totally banged up all the time and rusty and I'm not annoyed that by next summer it's too small for him. But if we would have bought him a new bike, we would have been grumpy with all the natural kid things that are involved with a kid having a bike...

So yeah, um, buy him a new super big bike then Threaten his pants off, to not ruin it!

undefined:

To Cute,

It's funny how clothes, toys, coloring, etc. always ends up all over the floor. I agree, clean up, and we will consider it. :)

Lupe'

undefined:

ha ha ha, this totally made me laugh, poor boy. He's so cute. You could buy him a "new" bike at DI.....that what we always do. Our kids upon receiving things ALWAYS ask, "Is this from Walmart or DI?" ha ha. Or have him bring it over to Uncle E and he will give it a shiny new tune up! :)

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