FAMILY

Isabella Saucedo

8th Grade • Queen of the Universe School

You know, I was gonna write a whole emotional essay about my family’s past and my sister’s dad and my mom’s relationship with her parents and make it a super sappy essay about the meaning of family and how we should always stick together. But then I re-read it and realized that it was not me. I tried to be one of those books where at the end you’re like wow I just experienced that story like it was my own life. But now I want to be one of those books you can relate to and laugh at. So this is that. I think this is called free-writing. I used to do this a lot in like 5h grade and I think this is my favorite type of writing because you can just put down all of your thoughts without having to worry about grammar and stuff like that.

Anyway, back to the family. I have a family. I have a mom and a dad and a sister. I have a twin and a dog and cousins and grandparents. I have a lot of family if you couldn’t tell. My family is Mexican, and Mexicans have HUGE families. I went to my mom’s family reunion and there were dozens of second and third cousins. My dad’s side isn’t much better, I have family in Mexico that I haven’t even met besides the ones I have met. But with a big family comes a lot of stories. So why don’t I tell some stories?

So I think I was 5 or something like that and me and my sister were playing on my mom’s treadmill. So she's on the part where it moves and you walk, obviously and I'm standing on the arm

359

of the couch that’s next to it, so I can reach the top where the controls are. Bad idea I know, but my sister who was SUPPOSED to be watching us was doing something else. I think she was around our age, but anyway back to the story. So I’m by the machine’s controls and behind the treadmill, there's a wall, this is important. I look at the control and think you know what, let's see what this does if I put it alllllll the way up. Mind you this was the speed control. So my sister who's just sitting there goes FLYING into the wall behind her, and to make matters worse she couldn't move because the wall was making her stay in place, therefore giving her horrible rubber burn. Anyway, she's screaming, my sisters screaming, and I walk out of the room because that's none of my business. As I’m going up the stairs to exit the basement, my parents go running by and I remember thinking, huh they’re in a rush. And then I end up going to my room and playing with my Barbies.

So I don't remember what she looked like, the rest of my memory’s kinda fuzzy. But my older sister describes her as “twofaced” or “Freddy Cougar.” She said it looked like her face was peeling because of the rubber burns. My parents didn't want to take her to the ER because they were scared they would call CPS. Which isn't really my fault that I did this while my sister was peeing or something. I was 5. Anyway, she's fine, I think. She seems a little off in the head but maybe that's just me. It’s surprising her face didn't scar because I mean Freddy Cougar? That's pretty messed up.

So that wasn’t only the one time she almost died. You wanna know the second? You don't? Well too bad. So there I was, it was a sunny day in Philadelphia. I'm just joking. I don't even know where Philadelphia is. I was actually in the living room of my

360

house with my older sister and my grandma, I think. So my sister is in our room where we have this dresser and there's a TV on it and a bunch of other stuff that could be potentially dangerous. About a foot away on the opposite side was my bunk bed, the bottom bunk was bigger than the top, so instead of just being straight up and down it stuck out a little, this is important. So my sister decided that it was a great time to become a monkey and she started climbing the drawers one by one until, yeah you guessed it, it started to tip over. That when gravity took its course and the whole thing, tv and all, fell down. And then she DIED. No, I'm just joking(am I?), the dresser did fall, and it would have crushed her too if the bunk bed wasn't there. So my grandma and sister rush into the room and Jezzy's crying, but she's on the floor, and the dresser is blocked by the bunk bed. So that’s the second time she almost died, she also almost died in the womb because I took too long to come out, but that's not important. She was also sickness prone, so it's kind of a wonder how she's still alive. Beats me.

Let's talk about the time she almost killed my dog. So I’ve had a little white chihuahua named Lola my whole life, a matter of fact she's sitting right next to me as I type this. I got her when I was four, this story takes place a year or two later. So I’m sitting in the living room and all of a sudden Ati (my older sister whose real name is Cynthia, I don't know how I came up with that nickname) says “Where's Lola?” and then I realize that I actually hadn't seen her in like an hour so I’m like yeah, where is she? So fast forward to all of us tearing up the place looking for this stupid dog when I walk past the fridge. If you walked past quickly you wouldn't have noticed, but I was hungry so I was eyeing it when all of a sudden I saw that it was open a little. I go and open it and standing there is MY DOG. So I take her out

361

and put a cover around her and everyone comes to the kitchen and Jezzy starts LAUGHING like what?! So turns out she put her in the fridge because she thought my dog was a polar bear and she needed to be in the cold. Anyways my mom yelled at her and it was pretty funny.

Enough about Jezzy, let’s talk about how I lost my one true love. You might be wondering who that is. His name was Ducky Momo (pronounced moh-moh) and he was a duck who was also a sponge. I named him after the duck on Phineas and Ferb. I went through this duck phase that I don’t speak of. Let’s just say that I had a LOT of stuffed ducks. Anyway, so I took this dude around with me everywhere I went. Like the park, school, my dad’s house, EVERYWHERE. So one night I had a rare fever. I was like 3 at the time and my fever was 103 degrees, so my dad took me to the children’s hospital. This was during the Swine Flu pandemic of 2009, so we had to wait a while and wear a mask, quite ironic considering all the corona stuff happening. So we go and they give me antibiotics and we leave. But I fall asleep in the car as we drive back. My dad wakes me up to go inside when suddenly I can’t find Ducky Momo ANYWHERE. We searched that entire car and nothing. I started crying and my dad supposedly went back to the hospital to check, but I don’t believe him. That was the last time I ever saw him, I don’t even have any pictures of him. R.I.P. Ducky Momo.

The next story is about the time I got hurt. So I was in the basement with my older sister and grandma. I don’t know why all these stories happen in the basement, they just do. So there’s this big mirror that my mom has in her gym. Why do people feel the need to look at themselves while working out? Who knows. Anyway, I’m not sure what happened, but I was playing

362

under the mirror and I thought that it would be a swell idea to move it. So my grandma was doing laundry and all I remember was looking at the mirror as it fell on me. I remember getting a big cut on my leg, but I don’t remember it hurting. They say you never remember physical pain, so that might explain it. Actually I remember crying only because I thought that’s what I was supposed to do when I got hurt. So my sister slaps a big blue bandaid on my cut and I was good to go.

Speaking of my sister, her name is Cynthia. She was named after my mom and currently, she’s 21. She’s moving out soon, but this won’t be the first time. I’ll tell you about the move to college. So my sister went to a school in the middle of nowhere. It’s called Illinois State University. So it’s about a 3-hour drive from where we live, so it was a mission to go there in the first place. So we finally get there and we drop off all her stuff and set up her dorm. Then we take a tour around the campus, like to the cafeteria, and let me tell you they had some GOOD pizza. We walked around for a while longer and then we hit the gift shop. They had some nice hoodies, I think I still have some. So then we said our good-byes and left. I fell asleep on our way back but apparently my sister was crying. I don’t know but when we moved I FINALLY got my own room. It was spectacular. Until she moved back in to go to a different college. Then I had to share my room again. But no worries! She’s moving out soon so I get my room back in a few months. Now that I got my sisters out of the way let’s talk about my dad, my father, mi padre. My dad is a very simple man, he likes sports, working, and shoes. This is good sometimes, but when it’s time for Christmas every single time I hear “I don’t want anything.” But one thing I know for certain is he loves our dog.

363

We got our dog, Lola, when I was 4, I’m 14 now so she’s about 10 years old. This makes her a grandma in dog years. When they got divorced she stayed with us, but when we moved we couldn’t take her with us. We were about to give her away, but my father (the saint that he is) took her in. Now he can’t get enough of her. If you’re confused about why she’s here my dad dropped her off so I could spend time with her.

But enough about my dog, we’re here to talk about my dad. My dad is very relaxed, I’ve only seen him mad a few times in my life. But another thing to know is that he’s a TOTAL momma’s boy. He named me after her, so that’s a huge sign. Not that I blame him, my grandma is the sweetest human you ever met. He’s funny too, dad jokes are one of his best features. He’s sacrificed so much for us to go to a good school. He is one of my heroes. But if he makes me take off his shoes one more time I don’t know what I’m gonna do.

And last (but certainly not least) let’s talk about my mom. My mom is probably the strongest person I know. Not because she raised a kid at 16 but because she works out for like 3 hours a day. Like she’s BUILT; she has a whole gym. My mom is also very straight to the point. She’s a realtor, but she flips houses too. I would say she’s pretty good at it, but I may be a little biased. She is very hardworking too. One time while she was cleaning, a glass broke and she had this deep cut on her leg. I already wrote about this, but we had a fun trip to the emergency room. My sister had to drive since she couldn't, you know, move her leg. I sat with her while she got fixed up, she didn’t need stitches thankfully. But it was pretty cool to see the cut though. But when we tried to go back home, we ran out of gas. It was a pretty hectic morning so cut us some slack, but we had to walk to get gas

364

from down the street. We got a ride from a cop coming back, so that was an experience.

My mom is also quite the traveler. She’s been to more countries than I can count, like Dubai, Paris, Jamaica, Greece, and more. I can’t go with her sometimes because of school or it’s for business, but she took my family and some friends to Puerto Rico on vacation. It was amazing, I swam in the ocean for the first time and the food there is to die for. We stayed in a beautiful hotel that overlooked the ocean and I fell asleep to waves every night. We also took a trip to New York, and we stayed in Manhattan. Our hotel had a great view of Times Square and we stayed on the top floor! I am incredibly grateful for my beautiful mother (she may or may not have asked me to put that), and let’s just say she has a pretty great Mothers’ Day gift coming her way.

That’s it, folks, we have covered my whole family. Well, not ALL of them, we would be here for hours to cover all my tios, tias, and cousins. But I think that does the trick for my immediate family, I even included my dog. I know in the beginning I said I wasn’t going to make this sappy, but I couldn’t be more grateful for my family. Even if I’m this close to killing my sister. The stories I’ve told will be passed down for generations if my mom stops reminding me that I almost killed my sister. Or when I stop reminding my sister that she put our dog in the fridge. Ati sends her regards, she has homework to do. This will be a surprise to my parents since they don’t know I wrote this. And to my twin, let’s hope she doesn’t get mad about the treadmill incident. I’ll have more stories coming soon, so stick around for the Saucedo-Uribe-Guerrero family values.

365

366