forty things i miss about being a kid

mr. b., isaac and i went to my older sister's house for dinner a week ago. spending time with her and her husband and their three kids made me miss my childhood a lot. {the above photo was taken that night... my niece, who is the oldest, holding isaac in the front yard.} there were five siblings in my home when i grew up. for much of it, we lived out in the country... similar to the atmosphere my sister now lives in. life was often carefree {though not always easy} and so different from my life now. {of course it was... i was a kid then, and now i'm an adult. but you know what i mean.} anyway, it got me thinking about all the good memories i have from my daily life as a kid. so i'm turning my thoughts about it into today's thirty days of forty list. i'm wondering if any thing on the list will sound familiar to you... from your childhood.

anyway, here goes. i miss...

my mom's cinnamon toast {simply... buttered bread, sprinkled with cinnamon-sugar and toasted in the oven until the sugar is just shy of burning. YUM!}

running around the yard in summer time with my siblings and cousins or friends to capture and keep fire-flies.

going to kentucky fried chicken for dinner as a family of seven. i was always super excited to have a drumstick from the bucket and a warm biscuit with butter and honey. i was pretty big on the coleslaw, too.

building elaborate tent forts in the living room with all the blankets we could find to drape over furniture and as many books and things we could find to hold the blankets in place.

spending hours on end under those tents perusing my twin sister's and my sticker collection.

memorizing bible verses for awana clubs and going to awanas to recite the verses for points. i also loved the game time at awanas. {if you don't know what awanas is, it's a kids "club" for church that is somewhat like girl scouts or boy scouts.}

singing with my family of seven in four-part harmony... sometimes just for fun, sometimes in performance. i loved to hear how it all came together harmoniously after we all learned our individual parts.

eating pot roast dinners that my dad often made on sundays. he would prepare each one before church and have it stewing all morning in the electric frying pan so it would be ready for us when we got home from church. walking in the door to the smells of the cooked roast was always so wonderful!... complete with potatoes, carrots, onions and french bread with butter and homemade jello and punch. my mouth is watering just from writing about it.

riding my bike down the road to the country creek with my brothers and sisters and exploring the banks of the creek.

drawing and sketching... ALL the time.

going on small road trips and getting to stay in hotels when we did. swimming at the hotel pool was always the highlight of those trips. it felt like i was the luckiest kid in the world when we got to do that.

playing with my cats and the litters of kittens that they had. {so many stories there... too many to mention right now.}

buying candy at stone's candy store in the historic downtown square of the city we lived in.

all those christmas holidays... even the ones when we were dirt poor... somehow, those were the best ones! {so many stories around those, too. but for the sake of saving time and space, i won't write about them today.}

singing in competitions with my twin sister and our best friend... or practicing our singing in the bathrooms at school after the school day had ended because the acoustics in those old school bathrooms were so good!

having my mom and dad trust me enough to mow our five-acre yard with the tractor mower, and riding around on it just for fun, even after the grass was all cut.

my mom's delicious avocado sandwiches! i had them about a year ago when i went to visit her. i don't even attempt to make them myself, because it's just not the same... although, i just might start to once isaac can eat big-people food. {perhaps i will share the recipe here some day... unless it's a family secret that my mom does not want me giving up.}

hearing my dad play his trumpet along with whatever jazz record he had playing on his turn table at the time.

watching little house on the prairie or love boat or other various shows while we ate pizza for dinner {always a treat} in the living room.

playing on our homemade slip-n-slide in the back yard.

making {and eating} rice crispy treats.

visiting the nursing home on sunday afternoons with my mom and dad. they used to take us kids with them to go and minister to the elderly there. i don't think i always enjoyed it at the time, but most of the time i did.

swimming for hours and hours on end at the city pool each summer. water tag, back flips, high-dive jumping, opening eyes under water, laps races... you name it, we did it. i was always so sad when i would hear my mom's loud and high-pitched whistle from the chain-link fence that surrounded the pool... letting the five of us know that it was time to say goodbye to our friends and head home.

putting on several little entertainment productions with my twin sister for the rest of the family... just for fun. we were always making up silly stuff.

singing in the junior choir at church, which was directed by my mom. never a dull moment there, especially during practices!

doing any kind of project for school that involved having to be artistic or creative. i wish i had kept every single thing i made.

playing house with my twin sister. we turned our kitchen into a space ship, our bedroom into an office where we worked at a desk or a grocery store where we went to shop, our dining room into a restaurant where we would play customer and waiter. we could be anything we wanted if we just let ourselves pretend. mostly, we just wanted to be adults. funny... now we just want to be a kid again.

playing soccer in the dining room. {it was a BIG dining room, and for a long time, we had no table in it, so we had the space.}

going to work with my dad... he was a carpenter.

going to work with my mom... she did many things, mostly in various office settings.

the touch of my mom's caress when i was sad or getting tucked in, or sitting in my parents' laps and falling asleep. it's why i enjoy the same with isaac, only being on the giving end instead of the receiving end.

listening to my mom play the piano. {now, when i visit, i try to get her to play for isaac.}

eating neapolitan ice cream or orange sherbet push-ups. {do they still make those?}

going to great america and riding the rides.

walking around the county fair with family or friends... the sights, the sounds, the smells, the tastes of fair food. i loved it all, and though noisy scenes like that aren't really my thing now, i would love to go to any county fair because of all the nostalgia in conjures up.

being on the bible quiz team. i especially miss the weekly practices with our coach, who was also our youth pastor. those were some of my very best memories.

playing games as a family... like pit and monopoly and the dictionary game {sort of like pictionary}... some hilarious moments inside those family nights.

learning new things in school... yes, that's right... school. =)

taking naps on the couch while the guys in the family watched football on sundays.

visiting my grandma... the only grandparent i ever knew. she's actually still alive, but at ninety-six, she is not up for visits as often as i would like to visit. i hope to visit with her soon, though. i want her to meet isaac, and i want to take photos of her with my mom, isaac and myself... four generations in one photo!

there you have it... the good ol' days. quite a long list. but i enjoyed walking down lanes filled with memories from my childhood... especially while my memory serves me. who knows how much longer that will be around. i am about to turn forty, after all!!! {*wink*}