[Story Time] Dairy Queen in Kindergarten

It's really rare that I'll have these moments of the same age. Like my last post, this one takes place during my kindergarten year too.

Josh and I ate at Culver's tonight for the third time in a row this week. This memory didn't come to my mind the first time, but tonight I realized how much we spent on ice cream for the past three days. Then I thought, "thank goodness we don't have kids (yet)" because it would be two to three times what we've been paying, which is $6+ every time. Then as I ate the last scoop of the 1 scoop turtle sundae tonight, my memory traveled back to that day my family and I went out for a walk around town and ended up at an ice cream shop.

I had to be between six or eight because we lived in the house where I attended grades K-2 of my first elementary school. My dad is a rare dad. He likes to read and write so we went to the public library often. The library is split into an adult and children section. While my dad went to the adult side, I followed my sisters to the children side. My oldest sister at that time was about fifteen and she somehow knew how to HTML code, and taught Pang Khang Photography and me. I was completely clueless at how a computer worked, but I swear, our first Yahoo search was JIMMY LIN! LOL!

Diagonal from the library at the other corner was an ice cream shop, Dairy Queen (DQ). If you've been to a DQ before, or just an ice cream shop, it's not cheap! It's even more expensive if you've got about six children that want to hold their own cones too. That day was an interesting day, now that I think about it more. My mom doesn't really come to the library with us, but she did that day (SPOILER ALERT: and maybe that's why we ate ice cream that day?). I remember we walked around and maybe all of us were like, "oooooiiie, ice cream." My mom doesn't know much English, but she knew we wanted some ( :'(((( why am was I such a needy child...and adult) so she told my dad to find out how much it cost. My dad came back with some prices on the lower end my mom gave him the money.

He must've not ordered enough and thought we knew we had to share. I think it was me who was unhappy about that (oh gahhhh, why must I be so rebellious, needy, demanding, and ungrateful?!!). He said that we should share because we can't finish one of them alone. Then my mom said it's just money and to get enough.

This memory breaks my heart because it wasn't that we couldn't finish the ice cream on our own, but because money doesn't grow on trees and I/we put my parents in a sticky situation. My parents weren't banking either. We had just arrived in the US for about two to three years and my mom was making minimum wage and those ice cream was maybe 2-3 hours worth of work. Now that I am older and coupon all the time, I would go back and tell my kid self to wait for a deal ... in 20 years :D

That memory is told in a few sentences, but as the person that lives it, there's a wave of memories rippling off of it. Now that I am at the age my mom was when she came to the US with six kids, I constantly picture her in my shoe and me in hers. Tonight as I ate my ice cream, I imagined what it was like for her to feed six kids. It's a lot of work, not just the moment, but everything that leads up to the moment. I wasn't sad my mom took care of us, but tears filled my eyes because of my mom's strength my entire life, and how much of a pain I was as a child to expect so much out of her and my dad. I know, I was just a kid, but I wish I was a better kid. I wish I understood how much my mom struggled and instead of asking more from her, I would've accepted what she gave.

Thank you for taking time to read this entry and I hope it helps you view life differently.