Childhood Memories Tag

Hayden of Story Girl is hosting a Childhood Memories Blog Party! There's also a giveaway, so I suggest you hop on over to her lovely blog and check it all out!

Personally, even though I'm 19, I don't consider myself a big, 'ole adult. I'm still a kid at heart, so does that make me unqualified to have childhood memories? Anywho... ;)

First: name 5 childhood memories that bring a smile to your face
(I actually have tons of "smiling" memories, but these are just the first five I could think of.)
 

1. Picking strawberries on my grandparents' garden; the strawberries are sooo good when they're freshly picked and warm from the sun!

2. Driving in a "bus" with my cousins all day to visit Sleeping Bear Dunes; can you imagine 15 people in one vehicle? It was awesome.

3. Building tepees and forts in the woods when we lived on 15 acres with paths through weeds and sumac trees; we also had a dry creek bed that we loved to explore en route to different forts, only the bed housed swarms of bees... not so fun.

4. Playing "Borrowers" by means of carting around borrowing bags and building intricate passages and houses (yes, yes, we were greatly influenced by watching the BBC 1992 Borrowers, which is one of the best miniseries ever).

5. Turning our entire bedroom into a castle for our dolls and hosting balls and banquets; we had The Queen and her sister, Aunt Wealthy; their daughters, Samantha, Kirsten, and Felicity (and yes, those were American Girl dolls); the grandchildren, Amy, Elizabeth, Anna (who was sometimes the servant), Hildegard (the spoiled brat), Madeline, Sarah, Baby Dear, Matt Matt (a.k.a. Stop Thief), Ruffles Potato Chips (don't laugh; that was her true, honest name), and others I can't recall, in addition to the three visiting princes, James, Henry, and Andrew played by our bald Bitty Babies. It had to be a big castle because we had so many dolls there all at once. Well.... it was three girls playing. :)

Now: answer the questions

1. Was there a particular game that you played with your siblings all the time? Hmm... I don't know if we had just one particular game; we played a vast number of things. How 'bout "pretend?" :) We played pretend castle, pretend wedding (Emily Carol, you should remember *that* one), pretend Indians, pretend dog pound, pretend Borrowers (see above), pretend Little Women (yes, we reenacted Little Women, and I got to play Jo), pretend American Revolution, pretend house, pretend explorers, pretend dances... you name it. If we could pretend it, we pretended it.

2. Did you have a special toy/item that you dragged around everywhere you went? Not that I recall. I kinda went in spurts. For a while it was my Bitty Baby named Tabitha Joy (and sometimes Henry; see above), then a bright pink cat with a secret pouch in her tummy, then my Kirsten Larson doll, then my stuffed dog named Smokey, and so on.

3. What was a movie/ TV show that you were obsessed with as a child? Epic favorite? Little Bear! But I also loved Blue's Clues (it was Blue and Steve back then), and then there was also Liberty's Kids which is a wonderful show all about the American Revolution, although we always muted the opening and closing songs.

4. Did you have an imaginary friend? I always had a sibling or a cousin about me, so there wasn't much call for imaginary friends. But I did have a few so-called friends who would visit me, sometimes my shadow on a sunny day, sometimes a fairy flying beside the road as we drove, and sometimes just that invisible evil twin.

5. What did you want to be when you grew up? A librarian. Big dreams, eh? But seriously, that was my goal. I wanted to have a library and write books to put in it.

6. Who was president when you were born? President Clinton.

7. Any song associated with you childhood? Any song?? It would be hard to name just one! My family sings all the time, then and now! But I'll see if I can pinpoint a few... Playmate, anything from The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, the Nuthouse song (believe me if you don't know this one, you're missing out), and Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.

8. Something that scared you as a child? I was never really scared of all the normal things, like bugs, small animals, the dark, heights, etc. It was the BIG stuff that scared me such as talking to someone I didn't know, but that hasn't changed much. I'm still not a big talker. OR, Or, or... the scene when Rabbit gets lost in the Hundred Acre Woods in TMAofWtheP (abbreviated). That scene always scared me silly. I was so proud of Tigger coming to save Rabbit in the end.

9. What’s the food that you like now but back then just wouldn’t eat? Anybody who knows me knows this answer: HAM. When I was a toddler, I loved it. When I was in my preteens, I hated it. And now, I'm just learning to like it again. Weird how your taste buds adapt, huh?

10. Was there any Christmas or birthday gift that you really, really wanted and went crazy about? My parents, in trying to get us to do our chores, once put a chart in place with stars where we could keep track of what we had done (dishes, bed made, etc.) and when we got a certain number of stars at the end of the month/chart, we were awarded a special gift. Of the three girls participating in this growing lesson, I finished all my stars first and I got this bea.u.ti.ful princess dress from American Girl. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, considering we hardly ever got something like that, but I loved that dress. I still have it, worn as it is. 

God bless!