Family Tradition

And no,
it's not a post about
Hank Williams Jr.
Leave him alone.
He's just carryin' on...oh wait,
I said it's NOT about him.....

You know how you remember
things from your childhood
in a sometimes skewed perspective?
Like someone who seemed amazingly tall
was just average height,
but you were three years old and less than three feet tall
so he seemed like a giant to you.
Or like the way you thought
Barry Manilow lived next door when it was only
the neighbors teenage son who had long-ish blond hair
that was stylish during those polyester shirt days.

Today I was thinking about a memory I have
of this third week in September. When I think
about the week of the county fair here in my little town,
I remember being sick and not getting to go.
In my head, this was something that happened
"every year."
I know it happened at least twice
because I remember it at two different houses
(we moved A LOT until I was in the fourth grade
and my parents have been in the same house
since then....they are there now....this very minute...).
Here's what I remember:
It's the week of the fair. I get sick. Like a
stomach bug or virus or something like that.
I don't get to go to the fair, but my older brother does.
They bring me back a treat.
Here's one problem with my memory:
where is my little brother?
He is only four years younger than me. He was around.
But I have no idea what he was doing.
I don't recall him being sick or going to the fair either one.
Maybe he was taking a nap.
Or writing country songs for babies in his crib.
Anyway, this is what I think of every year
when the fair comes around. So I was going to
think of this anyway....my kids didn't have to catch a
stomach bug in order to get me to recall this memory.
It makes an annual appearance.
But perhaps I have thought of it more
since I've been dealing with a stomach bug
in reality and not just in memory.

And here's how it's playing out this year with my kids:
Lovely K and Sweet T are healthy horses. They got
the bug first, were sick all day Thursday, and spent
today "recovering." Big E didn't come down with it
until last night after soccer practice.
Big E is the most like me (or how I was as a child)
in that he's already UNDER his ideal weight.
So he has no reserves.
I was always like that as a child.
(I got over it.)
So any sickness I danced around with
really took a chunk out of me.
Big E is the same way. He is a healthy horse too
(praise God that all my kids are very healthy!),
but he's just so thin. He has no reserves.
Nothing stored up for the future.
And heaven forbid the child want to eat anything
that might fatten him up.
A no carb diet would be pretty much
what he would choose anyway.
So he looks pitiful.
He slept all afternoon.
While the other two were bouncing up and down
hoping and praying that their father would think
they were recovered enough to go to the fair,
Big E was laying on the couch.
He didn't even seem to care about missing the fair.
He doesn't feel good.
He's zapped.
I don't know if he'll be up to speed
for his soccer game tomorrow.
If it's hot like it has been the last two Saturdays,
I don't know if I will let him play or not.
But they are threatening us with cooler weather.
I wish they'd threaten us with some rain.
And then follow through on their threat.

So, to sum things up....
twice I was sick as a child and missed the county fair.
My oldest son is missing the fair today for the same reason.
Why did it take me so long to say so little?