Wow. I got off track there. End of summer anxiety is slowly starting to creep up on me but I will stay strong...as long as I can!
In June it became painfully clear that ALL three of our children had outgrown their bikes, so much so that we often found ourselves humming that circus theme song, "Entrance of the Gladiators" as we watched them attempt to peddle around outside. With this discovery came the equally painful realization that with early and late fall birthdays, the summer would be a distant memory if we waited to get them new bikes as birthday gifts. What to do? Well... if you're a grad student living off student loans, what you do is go ahead and buy the bikes and then make your kids pay for them by selling their old toys, clothes, and old bikes at a garage sale. Then you make them your personal servants for the rest of the summer and pay them about 25 cents per chore, to be deducted from their bike debt. In our household, it's also not out of the question to rob your children of their tooth fairy money... if that money is used to pay for a bike, of course.
And so it began, the summer of teaching your nine and seven year olds how to wash, dry, and fold laundry. The summer of having them water the lawn, scoop dog doo, and scrub toilets. The summer of no longer having to sweep or mop a kitchen floor because we have two perfectly able bodied kids to do that, right? Ah...it's been nice! I'm sad to report that Zoey has now paid for her bike and Livy is nearly there. We'll be back to the chore of being responsible parents in no time. It was fun while it lasted.
Here the girls are on their new bikes, and Drew on his old bike (which he is far too tall for, but someone has a birthday coming up - thankfully we had one summer baby).
