Family Narrative Draft Analysis

Family Narrative Draft by Ethan Hess

I’m the youngest out of five children in my family. The oldest child in my family, is Aubrey. She’s 21 years old. The next oldest, is my brother, Michael. He’s 19. The next ones are Emma and Jessica, 17 and 16 years old. Then there’s me, Ethan. I’m 14. Even though we’re close in age, we all have separate lives. I’ve wanted to become closer to my older brother. Everyone in our family gets along well, because we like to talk, and hang out with each-other. For example, I hang out with my sisters, and my brother a lot. I mostly just hang out with my brother. Me, my sisters, and my mother, like to drive around, playing music, and yelling the music at the top of our lungs. We like to go outside, and play with our new baby bunnies. We play LOTS of video games, and watch YouTube videos together. We started playing Tennis later on too. Me and my brother Mike, play Tennis together too. It’s harder for my brother to hang out, because he has college. He’s learning

martial arts, and is thinking of going into computer engineering. It’s actually really cool.

A few weeks ago, my mother told me, that my brother was moving into my room, for a while. I asked: “Why?” and she told me: “Because Aunt Michelle is moving in, for a while.” I replied: “Oh, ok. that’s totally fine with me.” The reason why my brother moved into my room, is because we have 12 rooms. A laundry room, a kitchen, 6 bedrooms [2 of which, is our moms’ and dads’ room (which got flooded) and the other is our living room, which our parents have to live in for now), a basement/family room, and 3 bathrooms. The rest of this stuff is complicated, but you get the idea. My Aunt, and her 4 children were moving in. The thought of having myriads of people in my house, was daunting. There were already seven of us. That meant that there was going to be TWELVE of us. We’ve also been fixing our parents flooded room, while they have to live in the living room. This makes us all squished into this one house. Everything changed.

Before all this happened, my mom helped clean my room. My room isn’t big, but it’s moderate. It’s perfect for one person, such as myself. I have a bed that has built-in drawers, where I keep my clothes, it has a mini-pantry, and four shelves, and a nightstand. I have a large desk as well. There’s really not a lot of space in my room, but I figured that my brother could have his mattress in the middle of my room. My mother said that we’d have to be like this for a few weeks. I thought this was fine, because it would give me more time to get to know my brother better. It was a lot of fun to have my brother as a roommate for a while. Michael brought up his bed, xbox, and T.V. as he normally lives downstairs. We faced them the opposite of each-other, so that we couldn’t screen-jack, (even though, I still can, heh heh heh...). Our favorite game of all time so far, is Destiny. My room quickly became a man-cave/a retreat for the both of us. Being out of our room can be… claustrophobic at times. There are three girl cousins, and one boy cousin. Talia (12 yrs. old), Sophia (10 yrs. old), Naomi (8 yrs. old), and Luke (7 yrs. old). Those kids talk NON-STOP. There’s constant noise between them. They all talk over one-another, and pretty soon, my head has to tune out.

They remind me a bunch of ignorant classmates, that you hear at public schools.

I’m not trying to sound rude, really. I love them, but they can be very loud sometimes. It’s also more noise than I’m used too. Whenever it gets too loud, me and my brother, sneak back into our room, and play xbox. Often times, we won’t come out in the evening. Not even for food. My kitchen, is a smaller kitchen, so when my mom makes food, it gets crazy. It’s like a feeding frenzy! Mike and I, go out when it’s quiet to get food, or snacks. The first week was the worst, because my mom didn’t realize how much food the cousins, and our sisters ate! There was barely any food!!! Thankfully, my brother can drive a car, and we go out to get something. Sometimes, whilst getting a game. But that rarely happens anymore. Now my mother has plenty of food at home now. However, we still don’t come out of our room at the evenings, because of the cousins. When they go to bed, I feel like we have our house back

again.

The cousins have been here for six weeks now. We’re getting into a routine. It’s not as “chaotic” anymore. My brother still lives in my room with me, and we’ve become great friends! Even though the cousins are pervading my house, it’s still a challenge. I’m grateful that I’ve been able to build an even stronger relationship with my brother, and my cousins.