| my family |
| dot to dot |
|
| and counting . . . |
| reminisce of old times |
 |
 |
| childhood games |
| one of my favorite things to do as a child was to play library with my brothers and sisters. you might think that this was a cute and normal thing, but i haven't told you the wierd part yet. before i could play library, i wanted to organize and categorize all of our family's books. so i spent hours each day gathering all of the books in the house and putting them into different piles for different categories which i numbered. 1 was for books i could read. 2 was for books my sister, meredith, and my brother, joshua, could read. 3 was books for krystalle and 4 was for my youngest brother, jon. i was nine at that time, meredith was 7, joshua 6, krystalle 5, and jon 2. i then proceeded to use my newly acquired stamps to stamp each book to show what categories the books were. after all of that hard work, i finally set up our playtime. i set up our basement into a 'u' shape where i had some chairs, a desk for the books, and a table for my place as librarian. i told my siblings that it was time to play library and they had to come to check out books. if they picked a book that was not their category, i would make them send it back to the desk. after they chose their books, i would stamp their book and tell them when they needed to return it. then my brothers and sisters would sit down and read. i would sometimes get up from my table so i could read the books for jonathan. now sometimes when i tell this story to my friends, they ask me sarcastically if i made my siblings pay late charges too. i respond by saying they never owed late charges because i would always remind them when their books were due! another thing i did often was to pretend to run away. i would use my school backpack and put things in there like a pair of underwear, another outfit, a sweater (if it gets too cold), and some food. in the kitchen i would take some tupperware out and make myself some sandwiches, chips, carrot sticks, and other snacks to take with me when i run away. i then would put on my galoshes, raincoat, and umbrella because i would only leave if it was raining. i would hide my backpack in my bedroom closet and wait for the rain to start. once it did, i would head off and my trek would start in our driveway. i would twirl around with my umbrella open and i would sing out loud about how horrible my family and my life was. i would slowly make my way to the gutter and splash around in it thinking of where i would run off to and about how cold and wet i was. after a while, i would go to the backyard where my father kept an old datsun locked up that he was working on. i would think to myself that i would need to find shelter soon so i could warm up and sleep the night. at the datsun, i would pop open the back passenger's side window with my fingers. then, i would reach my arm in through the crack and i would reach over to the driver's side door to open the lock. this usually took a few attempts. after it happened though, i would sit in the car and think about where i would go next. this is when i would take out my sandwich and snacks to eat. i would only eat a little bit because i would think to myself that i would have to ration out my food until i was able to get more. after this goes on a couple of hours, i would start to get bored or the rain would stop. i then would lock the datsun, get out and go back to my room. |