Childhood At Its Finest

Ok, so I have written several posts now about how awesome childhood was. Maybe it’s excessive. Or maybe it was a super fun time to reflect on, and I can find more material from my childhood than writing a blog titled “I Went To The Dentist Today and I Miraculously Have No Cavities But My Gums Are Throbbing And I Have To Pick Up Groceries: A Mini-series”. 

So instead, I’m going to jump into some more amazing things

that only childhood brings 

(and I HOPE TO GOD you read that the way Dr. Seuss intends for all accidental rhymes to be read).

Books

Kids books were straight up adventures from start to finish and I was hooked. I’m still, to this day, waiting for someone to blow my mind the way Amelia Bedelia did circa 1992. Am I the only one who remembers the racially-insensitive-but-it-was-a-different-time lore of Ricky Tikki Timbo NoSarRembo Charry Berry Rucci Pip Perry Pimbo? He fell down a well and his piss poor excuses for parents didn’t believe their accidental 2^nd child, Dave, when he told them. The 2^nd kid wasn’t called Dave but it was a name that equally conveyed “You’re not our favorite”. That book was a straight up Pandora’s Box of life lessons. 

**Every part of that story is based only on my memory. Some facts may be wrong- like for example the name of the actual book when I Googled it**

You know what fed our book bloodlust like no other? A scholastic book fair. What a wonderland. My mom always worked these because she was so high up in PTA she has a lifetime achievement lapel pin-swear to God. So she was the PTA Czar or whatever, and she was in charge of making sure I didn’t fool myself into thinking my family had recently won some kind of 5 figure scratch off and we could just buy all the books. What a time to be alive. Now all books are just ghosts of excitement. Even ones with twists and turns I feel like I just can’t emotionally commit to any character the way I committed to the Sweet Valley High Twins.

Dance Routines

If there was ever a time I didn’t pick up on social cues, it was during any of my at home dance performances. Bless my parents. They would always watch with fake excitement as I did some unidentifiable skill and waited for approval. How did they do it so dead pan? Or did they? I’m sure they laughed watching me do my choreographed interpretive exercise trampoline dance to Hansen’s MMMBOP with my friend Kelly. And I’m sure I was so convinced that I was amazing that I wouldn’t have even known the laughter was a more of an at-you than with-you kind. 

For all I knew they were laughing from sheer delight at having such a skilled and talented performer in the family. And to prove it, they video taped them all. Which I was sure was to mail in to some kind of trampoline-dance troupe, not to save and show me as I pee-cried on the floor laughing as an adult.

Optimism

Every moment is an opportunity when you’re 4. Literally, 30 seconds have gone by, as far as any 4 year old is concerned, now’s the time to ask if you can have bubble gum again. EVERYTHING COULD HAVE CHANGED IN THE LAST 30 SECONDS YOU DON’T KNOW!!!!

School is starting back. Do you know what that means? This is the time where each kid in class gets to bring in like 5 things that represent them. I was legitimately interested and fascinated by every single item that every single person brought in. It was like the day of 120 surprises, even though 12 of them were the troll dolls that sit on the top of the pencil with the eraser up their butts and at least 2 of them were seriously the gravel rocks from the bus driveway that hadn’t been paved and quite frankly at this point wasn’t going to get paved. Every item was a full blown journey into someone’s entire existence. If kids could freely use exclamation points when they felt like it they would break that key on the keyboard due to genuine overuse.

Now, a coworker has a baby and I wonder how many varieties of excitement phrases I can say at each indistinguishable picture. To be clear, I’ve transitioned from getting jacked about a tattered princess Diana limited edition but everyone legit had it Beanie Baby to having someone I personally know create life and I’m wondering what the social limit is on time-sharing this joy with them. Like 2 minutes? And then I swing back by 30 minutes later for a follow up comment to make them think I was thinking about it for the last 30 minutes?

Jumping

On/Off/Into/Over everything. We were human prepositional phrases. I actually would get blood blisters on my toes because I couldn’t stop running off the diving board and landing in the pool for 50 minutes every hour. Trampolines for DAYZ. Skip it?!?! I loved my skip it so much that when I accidentally slammed it into the garage door on a particularly risky skip and broke it my mom drove me straight to the store to get another. And we were not the family that does that. 

Jumping was the straight up easiest too. Now I do jump rope at the gym for 45 seconds and I start dry heaving. Which honestly there should be a trash can over there though you guys, there’s a billion trash cans in this gym, none in the jump rope area? You haven’t even slightly been on the wrong end of that plan yet?

All in all, being a kid was the straight up best. If I could use time travel for 1 thing it would be to travel back in time and get to be a kid again for like a week- as a vacation from being an adult. Or to go back and stop Hitler but OK that’s everyone’s answer I don’t even think that’s reasonable like it took ½ the world to stop him can I please just be 7 without judgement on this answer.