If At First You Don't Succeed...

Dear Lorenzo,

It's Sunday, August 9, 2020 and I'm up cooking Butters an all natural, anti-itch meal that I found on Youtube, while simultaneously doing laundry and talking to you. 

Today started with my regular, Sunday morning dose of pre-teen melodrama mixed with a pinch of guilt and a heaping dose of long-suffering silence from Amira.

She's been sulking since we got home from the park last night. Why? Because she has swim class today and she doesn't want to go.

We do this dance every damn week. On Saturday nights she starts with the "my stomach hurts" or "my allergies are bothering me" or whatever dumb ass excuse she can come up with. By Sunday morning, resigned to her fate, she walks around the house casting sidelong glances in my direction, doing her damnedest to guilt trip me into rescheduling her class for another day.

And it usually works. Eventually, I get tired. Tired of listening to her whine. Tired of trying to figure out all of this parenting shit by myself. And so I do what I have so often done over the years in the pursuit of my of own personal goals. I give up. 

But Lorenzo, I'm tired of being a quitter. And I'm damn sure not going to raise my daughter to think that it's okay for her to ever give up on something that's truly important to her. So, she's going to swim class today. And she'll be going to swim class every, single Sunday from this day forward until the weather gets too cold for her to be in anybody's pool. 

And while she's working on her personal goal of becoming a great swimmer, I'll be working on my own goals as well. 

Cuz there's no room for quitters in the Brewington/Douglas residence. 

Not anymore. Not ever again.


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