Same Story, Different Perspective

I have always enjoyed hearing stories from more than one perspective, particularly if one or more of the stories come from our own children. Tessa, for instance, has a phenominal memory. When she talks about things that happened when she was a small child, it is fascinating for me to remember the same incident and compare her perceptions to mine. Time after time I have discovered that her reasons for doing a particular thing or acting in a specific way had very good reasoning behind them, although she did not have the communication skills at that age to explain herself.

Along those same lines, I would like to share one of our daughter's story of selling our house last week. My tendency is to get caught up in the emotions of a situation like that and not pay as close attention to our children as I should. Stated as simply and matter-of-fact as it is in this writing, I find myself feeling ashamed for having made such a huge deal of it and continually putting the kids off while I tried to deal with the challenges. Hindsight is indeed 20-20.

Here is the story, as written by Anna, age 14. I have left the essay exactly as she wrote it, as the mistakes tend to give it more of a sense of childlike wonder and innocence.

Selling Our House

Selling our house in Owens Cross Roads was hard on my mom. She spendid a lot of time on phones and we the kids had to be patient because we wanted to talk to her right away. Then one day she and grandma needed to go to New Hope which is past Owens Cross roads. So-next day she took some kids with her so she could drop them to our old neighborhood to visit the horses, Johnsons, and the place. While we vsiited the Johnsons grandma and She-She went to New Hope. When they came back She-She and Mrs. Comton waited for the termite guy. While we all waited we played with Mrs. Comton's pets and went through our house that they are trying to buy. The house looked OK execpt they chanced some things inside the house. We waited to long and got tired so we went back home. The next day She-She went back to Owens Cross Rds and the termite guy was there so he looked around the house under the house and they or he signed or did something with the paper sometimes at 11:something. Which in fact that paper needs to return to somewhere at 12:00. If not it is still our house. But She-She returned it in time and WALA we sold our house. It is the Comton's house. She-She went out to eat with couple of people to celebrate. I am happy that it went well.