Raising Summer – We’re in trouble now!
Three weeks from today I will lose a daughter and gain a son-in-law.
How many of you have a child? Have you ever looked at a child and thought they are just like their Mom or Dad? That happened to me. It hit me like a lightning bolt. The child was my daughter Summer and from the minute she was born I could read her like a book. From the minute she started mentally processing life, I could tell what she was thinking because her brain is very similar to mine.
It’s pretty scary to look at your offspring and realize uh-oh, we’re in trouble now!
One the first precocious things she did was when she was three years old and we brought home a baby brother named Logan and about the second night we were home went in to pick up Logan from the crib and she was standing on his crib and shaking it and saying “wake-up baby, wake-up.” Figured out that night, Summer, needed to be put in a different bedroom.
When she was born and through her early years we were always told that she looked like her dad. Now, I’ll let you decide. In several ways she is like her dad, but I can still read her like a book.
Unlike me, Summer has always spoken her mind from a very young age.
She is a romantic! When she was 4 years old we came home after church and she sat in her room, crying. I asked her what the matter was and she told me that none of the boys at church wanted to take her to the temple to be married. She was 4 years old and we knew we’re in trouble now.
She is a girly girl but she is tough and can hold her own with her brothers. On several occasions her older brother would try to get her into trouble and she would turn the tables. He decided one day to hide from the babysitter in the dryer. Summer turned the dryer on with him in it.
She is smart. I will never forget making a taco salad one evening as she came up to me and asked me one of those child parent questions that you try to prepare yourself for the answer. She was four years old and rather than a question made a statement. She said, “I know who Santa Claus is.” I replied, “oh, and who is that?” She answered, “you and Dad.” In that precise moment I knew that my response would set the tone for her teenage years. If I lied I realized she would never believe me again. So, at age four my little girl now knew who Santa Claus is. Her older brother was seven at the time, so in one season two of my three children lost that sweet innocence.
As she entered her teen years, she was not a typical female teenager in not wanting anything to do with her Mother. That was probably due to the fact that I traveled for so many years and it was hard on her. When we moved to Florida she and I grew even closer. I was proud of her and the way she made friends and embraced a new culture.
She has set a tremendous example for her brother Logan. She completed high school in three years and set a goal to pay her own way to Europe. She forged a new eating code in our family and we have followed her lead to eat healthier meals. This has even affected my oldest eating habits who hasn’t lived at home in seven years.
As the days on the calendar are ticked off towards her wedding date, I am becoming more and more reminiscent. I am so thankful for this beautiful woman. Her life, her spirit and her friendship. I have had the opportunity to raise her but the realization for me has been that she raised me up. Isn’t that what life is about – relationships? Loving, supporting and cheering one another along our road in life?
On June 8th, I will gain a son. What’s great about this event is I didn’t have to go through labor to have him become a part of the family. As they become one, the future is bright and the prospect of little Summers is exciting then she will be able to utter, we’re in trouble now.