Jelly Shoes and Thriller

Childhood is a string of magical moments and wonderful disasters...

Photo Credit: the lil bee

Where Children Live, by Naomi Shihab Nye

Homes where children live exude a pleasant rumpledness,
like a bed made by a child, or a yard littered with balloons.

To be a child again one would need to shed details
till the heart found itself dressed in the coat with a hood.
Now the heart has taken on gloves and mufflers,
the heart never goes outside to find something to "do".
And the house takes on a new face, dignified.
No lost shoes blooming under bushes.
No chipped trucks in the drive.
Grown-ups like swings, leafy plants, slow-motion back and forth.
While the yard of a child is strewn with the corpses
of bottle-rockers and whistles,
anything whizzing and spectacular, brilliantly short-lived.

Trees in children's yards speak in clearer tongues.
Ants have more hope. Squirrels dance as well as hide.
The fence has a reason to be there, so children can go in and out.
Even when the children are at school, the yards glow
With the leftovers of their affection,
The roots of the tiniest grasses curl toward one another
Like secret smiles.

Photo Credit: Mark Lund

Here's a list of some of my favourite childhood memories. Maybe you share some of the same ones. I'd love to hear some of your favs, so don't be shy to comment below this post. I would love to hear from more of my readers. So please, get commenting!

1. My jelly shoes- I wore those to death

2. My mom's jewelry which I was always snooping in

3. My Cabbage Patch Big Wheels

4. The amazing smell of my brother's eraser collection

5. Suntanning, swimming and eating ham and cheese sandwiches at Millcreek Pool

6. Playing on my secret step at the side of our house with all of my potions and rocks

7. Watching Dirty Dancing 500 times

8. Sleepovers on my double pull-out day bed

9. Horrible, itchy, red eyes from the kitties at all the farms I visited with my dad

10. Spending hours sitting in the front closet, teaching myself how to tie my own shoelaces

11. "Walk Like an Egyptian"

12. Playing lego with my bother listening to my mom's Sineado Conner, "Nothing Compares' on repeat

15. Being scared out of my wits at MJ's Thriller video- Yikes!

16. Endless imaginary play with my cousins

17. Shining plant leaves with mayo (my mother was the ultimate clean freak)

18. Playing 'doctor' with my neighbour Philip Warner (wonder what ever happened to him)

19. Dressing up and dancing in front of my three way mirror for hours

20. Literally stretching my eyes open with my fingers to desperately not fall asleep

21. Building killer forts

22. Make-out session with Ken and Barbie in Barbie's Dream House

23. Making mud-pies with the neighbour kids- I loved anything to do with MUD

24. Crawling into my mom's bed and eating Cheezies with her late a night

25. Loving ketchup and Kraft Parmesan cheese on my spaghetti

Dirty Dancing- I wanted to be Baby so bad

26. Wondering who I'd marry and how many kids I'd have

27. Constantly staining my rug with 'potions' and spending Saturday afternoons scrubbing them out

28. Knowing the Boogie Man was definitely under my bed and would eat me by morning

29. Thinking I'd marry my brother and being so happy with that

30. Favorite colour- pink or purple, pink or purple, pink or purple??? So hard!

31. Those wands and bracelets filled with water and sparkles- mmmmm

32. The pure excitement of receiving a loop bag at a birthday party- damn, those rocked

33. Slip and Slide on hot summer days

34. Hide and Seek in the basement

35. Grounders on the driveway

36. Painting rocks and then selling them door to door- I made good money!

37. Getting back rubs from mommy when I wasn't feeling well

38. My inhaler- I'll never forget that sound, thank God I got over that

39. The excitement of school pictures, the more jewelry the better

40. Book fairs

41. Sherwood Park- Medieval Days, The GRAVATRON

42. 'Aruba, Jamaica, ohhh I want to take it to Kokomo....'

43. Sleeping Beauty- anything wonderfully Disney, really

44. Side ponytails- I rocked em

Jelly shoes

45. The wave bang

46. Popeye's Candy Cigarettes- yum

47. Sour-balls, sour-soothers, Lick-a-Stick

48. Mario Cart

49. Tiffany- "I think We're Alone Now"

50. Sleeping in the backyard, under the stars on the trampoline

51. Madonna's "Like a Prayer" tape cassette

52. Two letters- KD

53. Shopping with my mom for my first training bra- ha

Adventures in Babysitting- "The Babysitting Blues"

54. The discovery of makeup- oh, wow, and thinking crimped hair looked really cool

55. Thinking sex was just 'rubbing together closely' and being totally horrified when I learned what it really was...I thought, that can't feel good!

56. The joy of Easter egg hunts- I still love beautiful painted eggs and chocolate bunnies

57. Finding dollar bills in the ditch when the tornado hit Edmonton- aka: Black Friday (also, peeing on my dad's lap when we could see the funnel cloud from his living room window)

58. Today's Special- shout it loud and clear!

59. Mom's Christmas baking- peanut butter balls- oh, yum

60. Sugar, spice and everything nice

61. Hotdogs and french fries on the beach

62. Spacepops- those white, red and blue popsicles that tasted like heaven

63. The Okanogan

64. Grimace- he was way cooler than Ronald, any day

65. 'Stupid Cupid stop picking on me' aka- The Mini Pops

66. Dentist rings- oh, me loved

67. Caterpillars

68. Jumbo freezies and one-cent candies

69. Neon zinc, neon anything really- I had neon pink spandex shorts, who didn't right

70. 'Footloose, footloose, kick off your Sunday shoes!'

71. Garage sales, aka- treasure hunting (my mom called me the 'bag lady') I even went through my neighbours' garbages one time. I thought I hit the jackpot when I came home with a glass jar of almost empty face-cream.

72. Being tucked in by mom- the most precious time ever

73. Eskimo and butterfly kisses- sacred little acts of love

74. When my brother told me that Wendi's cheeseburgers were made of crushed bees, because I asked him why there was a picture of a bee-hive on the kid's meal bag- haven't had Wendi's since

75. The triumphant feeling of passing a colour in swimming lessons

76. Thinking pubic hair was so weird

77. Eating Premium Plus crackers with cold butter- yum

78. Smartie commercials- 'When you eat your Smarties, do you eat the red ones last?'

79. Thinking if I ever ran away, I would just hit up sample Saturdays at Safeway so I'd never starve

80. Drumroll please... Mom singing, "You are my sunshine, my only sunshine, you make me happy when skies are grey..."

You truly have no idea how much your parents love you until you have kids of your own. Man, just for the first two years of their love and care, I owe them a lifetime of love and loyalty. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

And the list could go on, and on, and on....

Now, a song that perfectly expresses the strange and wonderful transition from girl to teenager is Feist's 1234. Read the lyrics and you'll go right back to that time and place...

"1234"

One, two, three, four
Tell me that you love me more
Sleepless long nights
That is what my youth was for

Old teenage hopes are alive at your door
Left you with nothing but they want some more

Oh, you're changing your heart
Oh, You know who you are

Sweetheart bitterheart now I can't tell you apart
Cosy and cold, put the horse before the cart

Those teenage hopes who have tears in their eyes
Too scared to own up to one little lie

Oh, you're changing your heart
Oh, you know who you are

One, two, three, four, five, six, nine, or ten
Money can't buy you back the love that you had then
One, two, three, four, five, six, nine, or ten
Money can't buy you back the love that you had then

Oh, you're changing your heart
Oh, you know who you are
Oh, you're changing your heart
Oh, you know who you are
Oh, who you are

For the teenage boys
They're breaking your heart
For the teenage boys
They're breaking your heart

I cherish my youth, but the wisdom I've collected over the years is precious. Like we all say, "If I only knew what I know now...sigh"

But you know what, no regrets right. Just hindsight and reflection. I can only hope I give my daughter enough confidence, faith, love, guidance and trust that she'll get through it with just a few tough lessons. Scrapes that heal and make her an even stronger, more dynamic young woman.

ps. If you are having trouble posting a comment on my blog, let me know on Facebook, and I'll try and figure out why. I think this is what's happening and its driving me nutty! xo