Our Day in Hot Springs

We checked off one of the outings from our Summer Bucket List yesterday. I took the kids to Hot Springs, Arkansas. It wasn't as long of a drive as I remembered - only about 1 hour and 15 minutes. I can't believe we've never been to the Mid America Science Museum. The kids see it occasionally on a local PBS commercial and comment that they want to go each time.

This place was great! I was really impressed. It is located in a beautiful setting,

complete with a creek.

There was plenty to do and see before we even went inside.

The reason we chose this particular time to visit the museum: It's the Summer of Dinosaurs.

They had these stations set up all over the bottom floor. Kids could "become" the dinosaur in this video-game type learning experience. It seemed as daunting to me as any video game. But that's because I don't have the mind for video games; the boys seemed to do okay with it. It would be better for slightly older kids who can read all of the information/trivia/instructions on the screen. They could understand by the graphics, though, when they needed to find food or water for their dinosaur, etc.

You have a choice when you purchase tickets to add on the simulation rides (We passed on the motion-sickness experience.) or the Dinosaurs Alive! experience. (Speaking of tickets, there is a coupon online for $1 off, up to 4 people, I wish I would have seen.)

We walked through the moving, animatronic dinosaur world. Of course, Dash could name them all and tell me facts about them before I even read the screens. He SO wanted to touch the dinosaurs; it took everything within him to keep from crawling under that rope and joining them. We had to exit and walk back through a second time, as well.

Funny - it was so dark in there, I couldn't see her "scared" face when I was taking this picture.

If you have a child who loves dinosaurs, here is one of the museum activities that you can do at home: Design Your Own Dinosaur.

They really enjoyed the Night Crawler exhibit. They went through the dark tunnel several times, to help them feel the "life of a worm." There are video screens to see your kids on the inside.

There was another Underground Arkansas exhibit that the boys really liked. (Sissy was too scared to enter.) I wanted to go in, but I had my camera and purse, and they tell you it's not a good idea to enter with belongings. It is, according to the website, a "gigantic indoor cave filled with awesome twists, turns, tunnels, and slides...maneuver swinging bridges, climb rope ladders, and experience a realistic underground adventure."

The museum is home to the conical Tesla Coil exhibit. It is essentially "caged lightening." It's the most powerful on earth at 1.5 million volts. (It is a Guiness Book of World Records' winner.) We sat and watched the "show," which takes place several times throughout the day.

Of course, Tornado enjoyed the different activities that were dedicated to him.

pulling himself up

They had great fun letting the ball float into the air, over and over again.

This was my favorite activity. I could have played with these magnet shavings for an hour.

Tornado always loves contraptions like these, made of found objects. Sure enough, as soon as we got into the car, he was drawing his own "found objects" picture.

The next stop on our adventure was the Hot Springs Mountain Tower.

Tickets were $7 for adults, $4 for kids 5 and up. (There is a coupon on HotSprings.org, for this one, too. I apparently did not do my research ahead of time.) We rode the glass elevator up to the top.

The level below the top has an enclosed area to read about Arkansas and its famous residents. There is a gift shop on the bottom level.

Tornado, enjoying the view with his binoculars...

I love that they brought the binoculars on our "adventure," without me even giving them the idea.

A lady in the next bathroom stall at the tower got a chuckle at Sissy's excited voice as she had the binoculars around her neck.

She said, all in one breath, "Mommy, if I see an animal, I'm going to say, 'Mommy, I see an animal!' "

We actually took the steps...the entire way back down. I can feel it in my calves this morning.

I wanted to take them to feel the actual hot springs, so they would understand how the town got its name. I think there a few different spots for this. I like this place next to the historic Arlington Hotel. In my memory, the water was comparable to a hot tub. I told the kids we would be able to stick our feet in the water...wrong! It is SCALDING! They could barely stick the tip of their finger in it for half a second without yanking it back out.

They played around this little area for awhile before heading back to the car.

There are trails starting around here that lead all the way up the Mountain Tower.

At the museum gift shop, Sissy picked out "pretty rocks" as her souvenir.

The boys picked, of course...dinosaur poop.

If you've gone on a fun "field trip" lately, consider linking up at Live the Adventure!

stART: Little Oink

This week we read Little Oink.

It's another one of Amy Krouse Rosenthal's clever, ironic tales, like the one we did for stART a couple of months ago: Little Pea. (Little Pea was always upset that his parents made him eat all of his candy before he got his broccoli for dessert.)

Well, the only thing Little Oink does not like is: Mess up time. "Because that's what you have to do when you're a pig. Make a mess, mess, MESS!" He says, "All my friends get to clean their rooms. Why can't I?" His parents tell him if he wants to grow up to be a respectable pig, he must first learn how to make a proper mess. He is only allowed to go out and play after he puts on dirty clothes and makes plenty of messes. He even thinks to himself, "When I grow up I'm going to let my kids clean up their rooms as much as they want."

At the end of the book, Little Oink is rewarded for his good behavior. He runs out to play. He sweeps, scours, and scrubs his tree house. The kids loved this twist as much as they loved Little Pea.

There is a 3rd book like these by Rosenthal and illustrated by Jen Corace. It is called Little Hoot. Little Hoot, of course, wants to go to bed at a reasonable hour, like all of his friends. But instead, his parents make him stay up late, like a good little owl.

After we read the book, I printed off pig outlines I found from googling..."pig outlines." I told the (freshly bathed with wet hair) kids to cut them out. When I left the room to get the paint, I heard Sissy wail, "Mine broke!" I printed another one and cut it out for her.

They glued their pigs onto pieces of construction paper. I told them that instead of using paint brushes, we were going to use pencil tips. I instructed them to stick the tips of their sharpened colored pencils into paint and then "dot" their pigs. I told them to try to keep the pencil straight up and down while they made their dots so that it wouldn't smear or make long dots.


They were working so quietly on their projects, I whispered to Ryan, "What's that sound?" It was a HUGE change from the whole very loud evening. Tornado heard me and said, "That's just the washing machine." I laughed and said I didn't know he could hear me, "It's the sound of silence. It's nice."

their "little oinks"

I had envisioned tidy dots filling the entire pig so that when you look at it, it's almost entirely colored in. They said they were finished, though, after this amount of dots. Regardless, the pigs are very cute, the kids worked hard, and they got to use a different kind of tool for painting.

When I picked out the book and said we were going to do it for our stART project, Tornado's idea was to paint "laundry," just like Daddy Oink happened to be doing on one of the pages.


So after he finished his pig, he asked if he could now paint laundry. He drew the outlines of a pile of laundry with a Sharpie, then painted. I thought it turned out really cool. I guess I'll let Tornado pick out the idea for the project next time.


Sissy and Dash wanted to paint something, too. Sissy painted a flower garden, complete with "butterflies and fish." Dash started painting laundry, too, and then he went abstract.

For more story + art project ideas, visit A Mommy's Adventure.

AND

(My Muffin Tin Monday giveaway is open until Friday night.)

Mommy's Piggy Tales: 3rd Grade

I've talked about how I was born into a very small town (actual population around 100). In 3rd grade, my brother and I really moved up big time by changing to a school with a town population of about 1,000. We didn't have to change houses. We had moved to a bigger house on 10 acres soon before my first sister was born. The house just happened to be right in between the two towns. We were technically in the old school district, but this new school district gave us permission to attend. (Funny enough, people from our old school waited until my brother was in high school to question it. Matt was (is!) an amazing athlete - conference MVP, etc. in basketball - and there was a big district game between our two schools. There was talk that there was going to be a protest, and we went to the game wondering what was going to happen. But I guess it blew over; the game went on as normal.)

Of course, I was nervous to start a new school, as most people would be. Despite this and my shyness, I made friends quickly; some of them remain my friends to this day. (And also, once again, loved my teacher, Mrs. Wolff!) Mom had taken us to the school prior to the first day to see whose class we would be in. I was happy to see that Matt R. was going to be in my class. We were already sort of friends because he and his older brother, Sean, played on a ball team with my brother.

Matt R. hung out in my room sometimes, to listen to "records." We sat side by side and held the book together, listening to a story. I had the Fox and the Hound record, which was my favorite movie and story back then.

My favorite music records in elementary: Sesame Street Monsters! - I am thrilled I just found this; I've always wanted to remember which record it was because the songs (my favorite: 5 Monsters in my Family) are still stuck in my head, Annie, and E.T. (It had what I thought was the most beautiful song at the time - Somewhere in the Dark by Michael Jackson.) I would also listen to my parents' stereo in the living room with the gigantic earphones...loved Tanya Tucker, Crystal Gayle, Kenny Rogers, Lionel Richie (Hello, is it me you're looking for?), and Willie Nelson records. I remember feeling very emotional, listening to Tanya Tucker's Old Dan Tucker's Daughter.)

It was embarrassing, though, having Matt R. at my house sometimes. I still wet the bed occasionally at this age. The boys were all in our room, and there were no sheets on the bunk bed that Cary and I slept in. Either he or Sean said, "Where are your sheets? Do you pee the bed?"

There was another time the boys slept in a tent in our front yard. We were all playing out there during the day, and somehow the older boys started teasing Matt R. and I about "liking each other." (Both Matt and Sean asked me "to go with them" over the years, but I always said "no." I was way too embarrassed to say I liked a boy back then.) I adamantly protested that I did not. My brother grabbed my arms, and Sean grabbed his brother's arms from behind; they tried to push us together and make us kiss. I was screaming, "No! Stop, or I'll spit on you!" I'm sure my brother can't believe he did this; later, he was always an obvious force, standing between me and any guy.

I don't remember if this was the first day of school or another day, but I cried really hard because I didn't want to wear what my mom picked out for me. It was a red, tropical one-piece outfit with buttons on the shoulder. I guess I liked it okay, but she also wanted me to wear it with my white sandals with colored beads across the top. Looking back on it, I think it sounds fine, but at the time, I felt so embarrassed by it. I think my mom likes tropical-y clothes, in general, and now that I think about it, it totally makes sense. My mom is an outgoing, talkative, extroverted person...and she likes (and looks good in) brighter clothing. I have the opposite personality, and it is rare that I wear anything other than black, brown, gray, or navy. Interesting...

So, anyway, I cried and cried, protesting the combination of a colorful outfit with colorful sandals. Although we are a formidable stubborn match, my mother and me - she won. I also remember wearing that outfit other times with tennis shoes and socks, which was probably my idea. Looking back, the sandals made much more sense.

My school picture...see: another tropical shirt.

UPDATE/EDIT: My mom thinks I'm making fun of her style, and she even insists that I picked this shirt out. So - for the record, I clearly remember liking this shirt. I was not insulting my mother in any way. I am merely telling these stories to emphasize how silly it was that I felt so embarrassed about things all of the time.

The big trauma of my 3rd grade year was breaking my arm. This is the only bone I've ever broken. I was playing with Sarah and Cora on the monkey bars - the kind that just has a ladder on each side and parallel bars all the way across. I was trying to skip bars, and I fell and landed on my left arm. I said, "I think I broke my arm!" But I didn't mean it literally; I just meant that it hurt badly. The bell rang, and all of my friends ran to get in line, leaving me there in a heap. I ended up going to the principal's office, but she was adamant that it wasn't broken because I could move it. My mom took me to the doctor, though, and I got my cast. It wasn't the smooth kind of cast that people could write on, which I was bummed about. A nun (It was a Catholic hospital.) came in and gave me "Good Patient" and smiley-face stickers. When I went to get the cast off, the saw tickled my arm, and there was food underneath it, which was really gross.

The other big trauma of 3rd grade happened on the day of our big field trip to Silver Dollar City. My brother and I were walking to the bus stop. (At our house, we had this really long driveway.) I said I thought I was going to be sick...and then I proceeded to get sick. I went back home, and my mom ended up taking me to school, anyway; I didn't want to miss my field trip. I still felt sick, though. I was standing in the back of the line with my best friend, Sarah, as we were getting loaded into the bus. I told her I was really sick, and she told me to just run to the bathroom. I told her I didn't want to get in trouble for leaving the line...and then I puked right there in front of the building. Still, I didn't want to miss the trip. I ended up riding with a few of the mom chaperones in one of their cars. They thought this would help with the carsickness (the roads from my school to SDC couldn't have been any curvier). I sat in the front seat, between two of them.

I did have a great day at Silver Dollar City. Rode rides. Dipped candles. Then at lunch, I started feeling sick again, and I threw up for the 3rd time. Right on the wood-mulched eating area. These are the only times I've ever thrown up in front of people besides my family. I've never been drunk before - or ever actually "drank," for that matter - which greatly helped this statistic.

For Halloween that year, I dressed up like an Indian. This was me.

The summer after 3rd grade I became obsessed with the Summer Olympics. (This was my fold-out poster book.) I adored Mary Lou Retton. I read everything I could about the entire men's and women's gymnastics teams. Julianne McNamara, Kathy Johnson, Bart Connor, Mitch Gaylord, etc.

This picture was actually taken when I was in the 2nd grade. (I'll move it to my 2nd grade post after everyone reads this; it seems more orderly that way.) However, you can see sort of what it was like in my sibling unit at this point. We were at my great aunt Mert and great uncle Donald's house. See the towel wrapped around my neck? That's when I had pneumonia (so there was probably some kind of medicine or menthol on me). Mert always took really good care of us when we were sick (always the towels around our neck, 7-Up with a straw, and sponge baths); this was our home away from home. See the decorated cactus? That was their "Christmas tree" we decorated every year. There was an article in the local paper once about their "upside-down Christmas tree."

Heading over to Mommy's Piggy Tales to read all of Group 3's fun 3rd grade stories!

Muffin Tin Monday: Giveaway

Since we will be out of town this weekend,

we won't have a chance to participate in Muffin Tin Monday.

I had so much fun buying stuff for the Muffin Tin Meal Swap, I ended up getting a few too many things. Instead of taking it back, I thought I would just have a giveaway.

So in celebration of our Muffin Tin Swap...I have Butterfly Party Straws from Pier 1, two packs (orange and yellow) of butterfly silicone baking cups (total of 16!), and a pack of polka-dotted baking cups.

All you have to do to enter is leave a comment, like Enter me.

You don't have to be a follower to enter, but if you are already a follower or want to become one, I will give you two extra entries. (Click on my Follow button on the bottom right.)

Just leave a separate comment, please.

I will draw a name at 9:00 p.m. on Friday, July 9, 2010. Probably mail it out the next day.

Thanks!

stART: Mary Cassatt, Artist

For this week's stART project, we learned about a new artist: Mary Cassatt.

We read these books:

Mary Cassatt by Blake A. Hoena

Mary Cassat was born in Pennsylvania. Her family moved to Europe for a few years to allow their children to be surrounded in art and culture. They returned to Pennsylvania, where Mary would later attend art school. Her father was against her attending art school, at first, but finally agreed. This would not be the first barrier that Mary encountered in the world of art.

It was hard for a woman to be accepted into this field, especially an American woman. She pushed forward, though. She found some success, with her work being shown for years at the prestigous Paris Salon. She gradually began receiving criticism again; she started using bolder colors, etc., going against what was in style or considered acceptable at the time. Soon she became friends with the artist, Edgar Degas. She was inspired and educated by him, finding her way into Impressionism.

Portraits of Women Artists for Children: Mary Cassatt by Robyn Montana Turner

We didn't actually read this second book; we just looked through the pictures of her work. I wasn't familiar with Cassatt's name, but I was familiar with a lot of her work such as these:

The Bath

Children Playing on the Beach

Generally, our library will have a more kid-friendly version on an artist (such as this one), but there weren't any when we were there. My kids really like the Getting to Know the World's Greatest Artist Series books. They are biographies of artists from history, told in a way that is interesting for kids. (They also have these for composers, presidents, and inventors/scientists.)

The kids LOVE the dvd versions, as well.(We watched this volume today after we read our book.) They will sit and watch one of these, just as well as they'll watch Curious George or whatever. I really like them, too. (I pick up more from these dvd's than I would in an adult documentary.) They're narrated animation, and they go through the whole life of the artist in a light-hearted, humorous way. At the end of the story, they stream images of the artist's paintings (plus the title and where the work is currently located) across the screen.

OUR ART PROJECT:

I got the idea for this project here. I gave the kids a piece of colored paper, colored chalk, and kid-safe pastels. (Cassatt generally used pastels.) I asked them to remember what kind of subjects Cassatt generally drew. They remembered: people, specifically the mother/child theme. She liked to draw women embracing motherhood, and she also liked capturing women as intelligent beings (such as a woman reading a book). She mostly just liked to portray everyday activities as being important.

I told the kids they had to use realistic colors for their pictures. (This is really hard for Tornado; he was constantly picking up blue to make lips or green to make skin. I reminded him that drawing pictures of people was important to Cassatt, and she wanted to portray them with honesty. I know normally you want to let your kids use their imagination and not stifle their creativity. I was trying to show through this project that artists learn from other artists, and they even learn from practicing copying others' work.

Sissy's Girl Picking Flowers for her Grandma

(We talked about how the paintings have names; they named their pictures, too.)

I tried to go step-by-step with the kids as they drew. I told them instead of using sticks as arms and legs, let's think about how they really look. And I'd draw an example of two parallel lines. I challenged them to not forget details about a person, including a neck and eyeballs. A few times, Sissy said, "I can't draw that!" I would draw an example on my paper, then she would try to replicate it. This was her best drawing she's ever done. She really got into adding the flowers.

Baby's Bath

That's a mother, holding her baby. (Yes, that's a little hiney you see.) She's getting ready to give him a bath (bathtub to the left...with a picture above on the wall). That's the sink, mirror, and rug to the right.

For the older boys, I talked about how an aspect of Impressionism was using broken brush strokes, instead of blending colors. (We let our eyes do the blending instead.) At first glance, the picture looks one color, but if you look closely you can see how it looks splotchy. They enjoyed finding examples of this in her paintings. Tornado tried doing this, especially while drawing his bathtub and the painting on the wall. Dash tried this by using two different colors for his clouds and water.

Wavy Water

Dash drew a boy in a boat, with a dolphin swimming next to him.

When working with chalk, I had to remind them to watch their arms resting on their paper. And if chalk dust built up, softly blow it away, instead of trying to wipe it off.

Here are a few of our other artist studies and projects:

Our Monet Project

Our Matisse Study

Our Warhol Week

To get more ideas for fun story + art projects,

visit the link-up at A Mommy's Adventure.

Second Grade

SECOND GRADE

(my birth, pre-school year/kindergarten, 1st grade)

Sorry; this one is a little long.

I turned 7 the summer before my 2nd grade year. My Uncle Bobo (in the picture above) was living in a travel trailer on our land. We loved this. He was one of our youngest uncles, and he paid a lot of attention to us. We got to spend a lot of time with him while he was staying with us, and he was one of our favorite relatives ever.

On the day of my 7th birthday, my Dad gathered the 3 of us older kids and told us to go outside and clean up the yard. This was one of our chores we had to do periodically. I immediately felt very grumbly in my heart, thinking it so unfair I had to clean the yard on my birthday - what kind of birthday was this?

As soon as I walked outside, I saw my new, blue bicycle, complete with a flowerdy basket. (My dad fooled me!) I really liked that bike and spent a lot of time on it. We lived on 10 acres in the woods, with a steep, gravelly driveway, but still I rode my bike. I rode it around the house on the grass. There was a stump at one end of my house, and I would start there, pretending I was in a bike club. I'd "talk" all of the characters in my head. I'd make up little goals and races for us. We also had 2 driveways, and there was a small stretch on the highway between these drives. I would go up there and ride as fast as I could to the other driveway before any cars came.

This is my second grade picture.

This would be the last time I had short hair until my senior year of college.

My teacher's name was Mrs. Sullivan, but I can't conjure up her exact face in my head. I did really love her, though. One of my favorite things about second grade was this end-of-the-year book sale my teacher set up in our room. My memory says that somehow we earned reading bucks all year, and she had accumulated a lot of books and posters, etc. She sat them all around the room - all along the chalkboard tray, etc. - and I remember being SO thrilled, walking around, spending my bucks. I feel the same way when I'm at a Scholastic Book Fair today.

Somebody else mentioned the book mobile in one of their stories.

Wasn't the book mobile awesome? Do they have those anymore?

I started taking piano lessons in first grade. My mom drove me 10-15 minutes to a neighboring town for my lessons each week. I have this one page from my old lessons notebook. Bone Sweet Bone sure brings back memories. (Bone, sweet bone; bone, sweet bone; that's my favorite song. Bone, sweet bone; bone, sweet bone; sing it loud and strong!")

I wrote in this letter to Aunt Patsy:

"You were right. I can never wait to take piano lessons and I really like to take piano lessons. We just got my piano the other day. My piano teachers name is Marilyn Posey shes real nice."

I'm pretty sure I was playing Country Gardens in this picture. It became the go-to entertainment when friends and family came over to visit. "Jenny, play Country Gardens."

I can still play it for you, if you want.

Apparently, I won a coloring contest.

I had one of my rare moments of glory in the 2nd grade. Basically, I beat the entire elementary school in a spelling bee. Including my brother who was two grades ahead of me.

We had spelling bees in my classroom for weeks leading up to the big event at night. The top winners from each class competed in front of parents and everyone in the cafeteria. The winners from each grade competed against each other. It seems bizarre to me now that they might pair up a 1st or 2nd grader against a 6th grader but not so bizarre, I guess, since I won. (I also got 3rd place overall in 1st grade...if it sounds like I'm bragging, please just let me; I haven't accomplished a lot since then.) I can't remember my winning word, but I do remember sometime during the evening spelling the words chocolate, mountain, and blood. We also had to use the words in a sentence. I remember pausing for a few seconds before I could think of, "There was blood on her arm." When they announced me as the winner, my teacher jumped up off the cafeteria table seat and came at me, hollering with her arms up in the air, and she gave me a big hug.

Now, before you get too impressed, I need to let you know...there were only 10-20 kids in each grade. (We only had 10, but the average was 15-20.) Our enrollment was so small that 1st/2nd were in a classroom together (to make the size of a normal class: 20-25), 3rd/4th, and 5th/6th. Thinking back to my school, it's really amazing to think there were only 4 classrooms going on down that hall.

The jr. high/high school was in a different building across the gravel parking lot. That's where the cafeteria and library were, also. I'm trying to remember how we made it to lunch in the rain. Once I was running with my classmates to the other building, and I fell flat on my face. My knee got a pretty bad gash from a rock and maybe even glass. I had a little scar on my knee most of life; it's almost faded now.

I was voted to be Miss Merry Christmas in my class. The girls step out of the classroom, and the boys vote. And the boys walk out, then the girls vote. We had to put our heads down on our desk and raise our hands to vote.

This reminds me of one of my favorite elementary games: Thumps-Up Seven-Up. Who remembers that? A few people go to the front of the class while everyone else puts their heads down on their desk, with one thumb up. The chosen people go around and each push down one thumb, then return to the front. If your thumb was chosen, you stood up when the teacher said it was time. You had to guess who picked your thumb. I loved games like this, but I found them pretty embarrassing, too. It was embarrassing to say someone's name, then be wrong. As if they might think, "Why would I have picked you?"

And that reminds me of my 5 year old son last weekend. He was playing a pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey type game at our Highlights Magazine Party. He put the tail far from where it was supposed to be, so he threw a fit and ran around the house to hide in embarrassment. I wouldn't have thrown the fit when I was little (He's a testosterone-filled version of me.), but I hate that he has inherited my awkward self-consciousness.

I actually won the vote for Miss Merry Christmas in 1st grade, too. But when my teacher told me, I started crying and said I didn't want to do it. I was way too embarrassed to think about linking arms with a BOY in front of so many people. I guess I was ready for the spotlight by 2nd grade. That's Allen Jennings and me. I wonder if my mom could have found any thicker knee socks.

Second Grade wasn't all fun, though. I missed a total of a month of school. I remember standing outside on the playground, thinking, "Wow, I suddenly don't feel very good all of the sudden." I apparently had the chicken pox. So did my brother and sisters. Obviously, that wasn't fun.

I also got pneumonia. Really bad. (I can tell I look a little sick in my Missy Merry Christmas picture; I was just recovering then.) I was sitting at one of my doctor's appointments, and my mom was crying. She was worried I was going to die. She still had this receipt dated January 1, 1983. It says "recheck pneumonia." The fee was $12. Dr. Shwartz was such a sweet, old man. I remember driving up to the black and white doctor's building, and the nice, small elevator man (who later got shot to death at his front door...so awful). I also have this memory of my brother lying on his stomach on the examining table, with his pants down. He was whining and crying; I don't know if he was getting a shot or receiving medicine rectally. I just remember feeling really sorry for him.

I had my first 3 experiences with death during these years.

One, my great-grandmother, the only great-grandparent I ever knew, died. My dad was standing by the kitchen table, and I was coming down the hallway. He paused and said, "Granny died." I felt pretty matter-of-fact about it; I don't think I cried. I loved her, but she was a very formal, rather hard woman. I liked sitting on the floor and looking at the old cat calendars she had in a stack. I know she loved me, too, because she never missed one of my birthdays without giving me a card with money. But instead of hugging me with a loving embrace or anything, she'd just sit in her chair (It was hard for her to get around.) and sternly say, "There's a card for you on the tv." In her will, she left me her hope chest because I was her first great-granddaughter. I also got one of her necklaces while the family was cleaning out her house. It's one of the necklaces I wear the most, to this very day. I wore it as a good-luck charm during my basketball games in elementary.

Also, our custodian, Kenneth, died at school. He had a heart attack while mowing the field. I bawled in my dark bedroom over this one. I thought I would never stop feeling sad about it.

My brother's best friend, Jamie, died, too. I really had a hard time processing this. We got a call one morning before school, and my mom had to break the news to my brother. He sat in the recliner with his arms hugging his knees and his head down, sobbing. I didn't cry, but I wanted to. Instead, I acted out. I was being cranky, and I'm sort of proud of my mom. Instead of getting on to me, she realized I just couldn't process my feelings. She said, "It's okay to be sad."

About 15 years later, I got an amazing surprise in the mail. Jamie's parents read in the newspaper that I was going on a mission trip to Jamaica, and it was in their hearts to send me an extremely generous check to help pay for it. That will always stick with me.

This was my last year at this school. I don't remember if I knew this on my way out because I don't really remember saying good-bye to everyone - Jason, Tracey, Kim, Kelly, Kristy, Allen, Rachel, Julie, and Amos. I cried several nights before I fell asleep. They were such a big part of my life, but I didn't keep in touch with any of them. I would see them from time to time around town or later at school events, and I wouldn't talk to them. This is one way I have always hated being shy. (I did talk to Jason in highschool a couple of times.) I am now friends on facebook with Tracey. She said one of her only memories is of the two of us getting in a fight over a stick. She pulled the stick away from me, and it really hurt my hands. But she got in trouble for it.

two of my favorite toys, my Speak 'N Spell and a Barbie doll

A few other random memories from those first few years. I never got in trouble, but if we broke a rule in Mr. Stintzi's class, we had to draw a circle on the chalkboard and stand there with our nose in it. He caught me leaning back with my chair, which was a big no-no. I was horrified that my teacher I adored made me do that.

I also remember one year my teacher had to be gone one day during the end-of-the-year scholastic tests, and we had a substitute. I felt really upset and emotional that my teacher was gone. I started crying, and when they asked me why I was crying, I just said I was "sick." I had to go lie on the bed in the hallway and make up my tests on another day. (We actually had a hospital bed in the hallway of our school, used for kids who weren't feeling well.)

I got my first lessons in "the birds and the bees" from my friend, Kim. She was always a little advanced. At the supper table one night, I held up my middle finger. I said, "Kim said this was dirty. I told her it wasn't." My mom just sort of told me not to do that; I don't think she gave me any explanation. I think explanations were hard for my parents. I also announced at the supper table one night that "Kim said babies come out of your ____ (insert somewhere they do not actually come out of), but I was sure that wasn't true because I knew they just got cut out of your stomach." (Any other explanation seemed an absolute impossibility.) My mom shushed me and told me we would talk about it later.

I was kind of a nerd (remember: I did workbooks for fun and sometimes crocheted at recess) now that I think about it. For one show and tell, I said I wanted to recite a poem I memorized. "All things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small, all things wise and wonderful, the Lord God made them all."

Kristy and me, 2nd grade

I remember "getting married" to Kristy on the playground. I also remember Kelly raising her shirt on the playground in front of the boys. I told the teacher.

One year, I organized the "Flower Club" at recess. Everyone was assigned a "flower" name. I made little name badges for everyone with pictures of flowers glued on circles of cardboard. I wrote the name of the flower under the picture. (That is so me.)

I've enjoyed reading the stories of everyone in my group.

It's fun to see how everyone's experiences were so different than my own.