I'm as Big as your Boobs! - Childhood

     I'm told I was a precocious child and very inquisitive. Once I found my voice, I used it all the time. I was always busy and kept my Mom on her toes, lots of energy and a huge imagination. She thinks that I have always had a creative side and likes to remind me of the time that I made a full working garage, with a garage door and everything, out of paper to park my toy cars. She also saved a purse I made out of paper, along with a bunch of other creative projects. I do know that my friend Amy and I made ballet shoes complete with the "ribbons" that go up your legs, completely out of paper! I'm grateful that my talents have expanded over the years to things that are actually functional!
     My parents got a divorce when I was still quite young. One day, I asked my mom, "Why are you and Daddy apart?" She said, "Because we got a divorce. We got a divorce because we weren't happy living together." I then said, "I guess you gotta try it first, just like buying clothes. You try them on and if you don't like it, you have to return it."

     Me (age 5): "Mom, I think you are beautiful - I don't care if your hair is messy and you have a crooked tooth!" I'm sure I did a lot for my Mom's self esteem over the years.
     Me: "Sometimes ladies with big tummies don't have babies in there, they are just fat!" I guess I was observant as well.
     Me: "Mom, I'm as big as your boobs!" (Meaning as high up as) This is not that hard to do considering my mom is only 4' 10 1/2"!
     On meeting my new stepdad's mother, I said, "You won't be my Grandma because my good dad, I mean, my old dad, I mean, my mom's ex husband's mom, is my Grandma." I sure know how to get my point across, don't I?
     I know that my mom wrote down a lot of things that I said as a child, but these are the ones I can remember and I don't want to embarrass myself with writing down any more. I'm told that I was a very talkative kid and didn't have much of a filter. My mom says that I took pride in always telling her the truth, even when she didn't want to hear it all!
     When I was 7 I had to have a double hernia surgery. I don't know why because I don't recall being in any pain before it, but it must have been necessary. I do have quite a few memories of this but several are brought back by the pictures I have. I got to tour the hospital the day before to help me feel more comfortable. After my surgery, I had a teddy bear with a similar bandage on it given to me by the doctor. I couldn't go to school for awhile and all of the kids in my class made me "Get Well Soon" cards. My friend Jenny came over and we laid on the couch together playing games. The one I remember most was Wooly Willy:

     You would use the little red magnetic pencil to move the metal shavings around to make different faces. Times were simpler then.
     I also found out recently that I had measles as a child. I was really sick and slept a lot. I never knew this until I found it written in one of my old baby books.
     When my Mom married my stepdad, we moved in with him. I was there on the weekdays and on the weekends I went to my Dad's house. It was always a little disconcerting to wake up in the morning and not be sure which bed I was in. It was hard to make friends with the kids at my Dad's house because I was only there on the weekends and they were always together. I mostly never unpacked my clothes and things from my suitcase and so I basically lived out of it for the first 16+ years of my life. I find that when I go on vacation now, I always remove everything from my suitcase and place it in the dresser drawers. My kids sometimes laugh at me about it, but it's just a way to make the space I'm in feel more like home. My husband does it too!
     At my Mom's house there was an enormous willow tree in the backyard and a creek (we pronounced it - crick). Three of the willow branches grew out far enough to touch the water if we sat on them and jumped. Those branches, in our minds, became horses, dragons or unicorns in all of our adventures. There were tons of branches and leaves so it often made good hiding places and we could climb all the way to the top (so long as Mom didn't see us)!
     My house was being remodeled when we moved there. One whole wall had mirrors on it with a pattern running through them. Kind of like this:

     They took them off and it became a normal wall. On the other side, they put huge mirror panels floor to ceiling and they are there to this day, like this:

     The shag carpet was replaced by plush carpet and the stairs were turned around so that the old top of the stairs became a pantry for food in the kitchen. We even had the avocado (green) colored refrigerator and stove!

     It was a very typical rambler in a very typical neighborhood with very similar houses all around. I lived a block away from my school so I was a walker and, eventually, I became a bus patrol. So important! I always loved to go on field trips because it was my only chance to ride the busses and it was so fun. My Mom never did pack me a normal lunch in a normal brown bag, but gave me a brown grocery bag with a few sandwiches and full size bags of chips, lots of candy and several cans of pop wrapped in tin foil to keep it cold. She always wanted to make sure I had enough to share with my friends or anyone who forgot to bring their lunch. She was thoughtful that way and has never changed.