A Favorite Childhood Memory

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.