A favorite childhood memory? So the other day at work, we were all asked to contribute to a memory book for one of our colleagues who is preparing to have her first child. They asked us share a favorite childhood memory. This is what I came up with...
Oh my, the stories I
could tell. I don’t know how I could
even begin to choose. I suppose I will start with a funny one. As a young child, maybe 3 or so, I spent a
week with my grandparents who lived several hours away in western Kansas. One night, we went out to dinner at a local
pizza hut. They got a pizza with lots of
toppings, probably a supreme, which I didn’t like. I’m told that I picked most of the toppings
off and at the end of the meal I surveyed the table, dramatically wiped my
hands cleaned and proclaimed loudly “look Grandpa, I maked a mess!” This ranks
as a favorite memory because it tickled my Grandpa enough that he told that
story over and over. As the oldest
grandchild, my statement was used to describe messes made by all the children
in the family since. You never know
which moments will become “legendary” among family, enjoy them all and tell stories
often.
Another favorite memory I have concerns my little
sister. My parents adopted her when I
was 5 years old. It was August and I
remember being really excited. My parents
left me with family friends while they went to pick her up. I have clear memories of sitting on the couch
at their house and getting to hold her the very first time. She was three months old. My Mom and Dad let
me pick out her name. This was partly to
ease the transition to “big sister” from “only child” however; I think it was
also to distract me from the fact that they gave away our two dogs, Peanut (a
Chihuahua) and Susie (a toy poodle). To be fair to my parents, the dogs were
both a little high strung to have around a new baby but that didn’t stop me from
teasing my sister that we traded in the dogs for her and I still wasn’t sure if
it was a good deal or not. I have learned blood doesn’t make a family, love
does.
The last favorite memory concerns a book. It was my favorite storybook as a child, one
that was read over and over. It was one
of those “Little Golden Books” called The
Monster at the End of this Book and it featured Grover from Sesame
Street. I remember my Mother reading the
book to me complete with dramatic voices as Grover pleaded and pleaded with the
reader to stop turning the pages because of the Monster waiting on the last
page. There were no profound truths or
lofty nuggets of wisdom to be found in this book. Unless you count the idea that maybe what you
are scared of sometimes is not really so scary after all. Oh, wait. I also remember reading this book to my
little sister, imitating the voices my mother used when she read it to me. Years later, I had the privilege of reading
the same story to both my niece and nephew.
I guess maybe trading the dogs in
for a kid sister didn’t turn out so bad.
