This is the 2nd post in a 12 week series joining
Mommy’s Piggy Tales to record my youth!

Dancing in a box

My paternal grandma was downstairs doing something when she heard my grandpa call from upstairs, “Doris, you better get up here! These kids are stark n*ked up here!” When my grandma got upstairs she found my sister and I dancing n*ked inside of a wet cardboard box. Here’s what happened from my perspective. Our grandparents had just gotten us some bathtub crayons. We didn’t have any bathtub toys at our house because bath time was bath time, not play time, so other than the occasional Barbie…there were no toys in the bathtub. Bathtub crayons wouldn’t work at our house anyway since we had an old cast iron tub (no tile walls) with nothing to draw on, so we were really excited about playing with the bathtub crayons. I had asked my grandma if we could take a bath so that we could play with the crayons. She told us that it wasn’t bath time yet and we weren’t allowed to go inside the tub alone, so we’d have to wait. I was a very obedient child, so I didn’t go into the bath tub. Instead I got a big cardboard box and dumped our toys out of it. I then took it to the bathroom and then somehow (I assume with a cup) began to fill it with water. Then my sister and I got undressed, got our crayons, and climbed inside the box to play. We weren’t in the tub unsupervised and we still got to play with our crayons! I know, that’s brilliant, right? I didn’t know that the cardboard wouldn’t hold the water and it would leak all over the floor. I didn’t know that trying to draw with crayons on a wet cardboard box wasn’t as easy as drawing in a bathtub. I also didn’t know we would nearly give our grandpa a heart attack when he found us dancing in a cardboard box wet and n*ked.

(I know that I was younger than 5 years old when this happened because grandparents moved to Florida in 1984.)
*Unfortunately due to way too many creepy searches leading to this post than what I’m comfortable with I had to edit the title, url, and text within this post in hopes that this will stop it.

1984-1985
Kindergarten

I attended Central Elementary School for morning Kindergarten with my teacher, Mrs. Dakis. My mom tells me that I didn’t want to go to school because I hate change. I actually do hate change, or at least I did, but I don’t remember not wanting to go to school. I’m sure that I was scared, but I also remember being excited.

I remember when I first found out that I was going to start Kindergarten. Something came in the mail for me that said I was going to start Kindergarten on such and such a day with this teacher. I remember that my name was written on a cardstock cut out of a Care Bear and there was a string attached for me to wear it around my neck. I seem to remember the bear being Cheer Bear (the pink one with the rainbow on the tummy), but that might only be because Cheer Bear was the Care Bear that I had at home and had received as a gift for my 4th birthday. I remember being at my paternal Grandma’s house when I received the Care Bear name tag and I remember being excited that I was going to go to school. But I only remember that particular moment so it’s quite possible that between then and the first day I began to get frightened. To comfort me my mom told me how great Kindergarten would be, how we would have story time, and then drink milk, and then take a nap on a mat.



When the first day of school came my mom told me that she would be waiting right outside the door when I got out. I thought that she meant she would stand out there all day and I felt better “knowing” that if I needed her I could just open the door. When school was over the first thing that I said to my mom was, “Mommy, you don’t know anything about Kindergarten. We don’t have story time and we don’t take naps. Naps are for babies!” Well, alrighty then. I’m pretty sure that I was fine going to school after that.

Liar, Liar! Pants on Fire!
I made a friend at school. I think her name was Amber, but I’m not sure. One day I told Amber that I was going to be having a birthday party at Brady’s Run Park. I was not. What was actually going on was that our church was having the Sunday School Picnic at the park fairly close to my birthday. I knew that it wasn’t my birthday party…but I told her that anyway. I had forgotten all about it until we were at the Sunday School Picnic. Our family was at the shelter when a car pulled up. A little girl with a wrapped present got out of the car. Oops…busted! I had to tell my mom, and Amber, and her mom that I had lied about my birthday. I really don’t recall getting into a lot of trouble. In fact I remember our moms telling us that we could have a play date and maybe I could even ride the bus home with Amber one day (which was exciting for me because I was a walker). Then Amber and her mom got back into the car with the present and drove away. I don’t have any memories of Amber after that. I know that we never had our play date and sometime before the end of the year she moved away (probably to a place where people tell the truth). Amber did not come to my real birthday party that year. I’m not sure if it’s because we didn’t invite her, or if she just didn’t believe me, or if she had already moved away by then. I have absolutely no idea why I lied. It was very out of character for me. In fact while preparing for this post I asked mom if she had any cute stories of me at this age. She told me that I was such a good girl all the time, I never did anything wrong, and there just isn’t anything funny about a little girl who’s always behaving herself.

You can find links to posts about my 1st-5th birthdays here: Celebrating 30 Years in 30 Days

My Piggy Tales:
*My Birth Story: I’m always late!
*Ages 3-5: Dancing in a box
*Age 6 First Grade: There’s a bra in my lunchbox!
*Age 7 Second Grade: Bossy Wheels and Shady Deals
*Age 8 Third Grade: I will not talk in class
*Age 9 Fourth Grade: I didn’t really need those fingers anyway!
*Age 10 5th Grade: Nothing’s Scary in the Fifth Grade
*Age 11 6th Grade: Jenny Got Ran Over by her Grandma
*Age 12 7th Grade: Youth Camp Stinks
*Age 13 8th Grade: “Talent” Show
*Age 14 9th Grade: (N)O Christmas Tree
*Age 15 10th Grade: The Newsboys Wouldn’t Ditch Their Friends
*Age 16 11th Grade: Acrophobia Gets You the Good Seats
*Age 17 12th Grade: In School Suspension

My Young Adult Years
*Dreams and Aspirations: The Long Road There
*Friends and Fellowship: Friends Don’t Get Friends Grounded
*My First Job
*How I Met Cool Daddy Part 1
*How I Met Cool Daddy Part 2
*Colonel Mustard on a Rollercoaster with a Plastic Fork

Coolest Family on the Block is committed to helping you find creative ways to have fun and make memories with your family all year-long. Don’t miss an idea, tip, or trick…subscribe and have updates sent directly to your email!