The Wonders of Childhood

Being a child is magical, really. But the childhood imagination has a tendency to veer toward the hilarious and absurd. Here are some of the magical, hilarious and absurd memories of my childhood.

-When I was very little, my dad found a ginormous bullfrog outside. First, he brought it inside and let it just hop around on the floor. Then, sensing my discomfort, he picked it back up and tried convincing me to hold it, eventually chasing me around the house with it until I locked myself in the bathroom. I've been absolutely terrified of frogs ever since.

-One of my earliest memories of being conscious of my appearance, was looking at myself in the mirror, and discovering how long my hair was. I stood there and swished my hair back and forth in front of the mirror. It made me feel beautiful. Ironically, just a few days later, my mom decided it was time to cut it all off.

-I wanted a doll in the worst way, that had a button you could push to make her hair grow long, and eventually got one for Christmas - her name was Violet. I'm pretty sure this was due to the fact that I fantasized all the time about my own hair being long again.

-There were many kids on our street. All of us were good friends and attended church regularly. One day (I was about 7 or 8) we were playing outside, and we "beheld" a cross and the face of Jesus in the clouds. We knew it was a vision from the Lord and spent the rest of the day praying and repenting. I even called my pastor to let him know there had been a visitation from God that day. (Some of these memories still make me cringe with embarrassment:) )

-I had an obsession with Valentines. I kept every Valentine I had ever received and put them in categories from favorites (being the ones that had the cutest pictures on them) to least favorites (the plainer ones). And I kept all the birthday cards I received, starting with my 4th birthday. I still remember what some of my favorites looked like.

-I got chicken pox in the 3rd grade. All the kids on our street visited me by standing mournfully outside my front window and staring at me for hours as I lay inside on the couch, as if I could die at any moment. As careful as we all were, soon my sister and friends starting "dropping" like flies, one after another. Every single one of us kids fell victim to the chicken pox, and eventually we all compared our blisters and scars, and argued over who had it the worst. My sister had gotten absolutely coated with chicken pox, from head to toe. So the award went to her. It was an odd award, but I wanted it just the same. :)

-A travesty occurred during my chicken pox isolation - my mom kept me occupied by playing records for me, and I ended up developing an obsession with Barry Manilow and wanted to marry him.

-Our pastor's daughter broke her arm, and her entire arm was put in a cast. For some strange reason, I wanted a cast too, like nothing else I'd ever wanted. I even fantasized about breaking my own arm somehow. Yes, I was a weird child.

-I also wanted braces/retainers in a bad way, and spent many hours of time fashioning "retainers" out of paper clips. It seemed I was the only kid on the block with straight teeth and I considered this to be a terrible misfortune.

-In 4th grade, I became convinced that if I just had enough money to buy a movie camera, I could make the best movie anyone had ever seen. I set about trying to raise money. I had it all planned out - the theme song of my movie was going to be, "Weekend in New England"....by Barry Manilow.

-In 4th grade, I experienced a severe bout of separation anxiety and fear that something bad would happen to my mom. I lived just down the street from where I went to school. I begged my mom to keep our VW bus parked on the street or in the driveway every day so I could see she was home. Every recess and lunch break, I ran outside to check and make sure my mom's car was visible to me. The few times I came out and her car was missing, I would panic, and usually had to visit the school secretary or nurse, until they convinced me that everything was fine, and it was time to go to class. Strangely enough, this horrible fear just disappeared, almost as quickly as it came on.

-In 5th grade, I had saved up enough money from selling some toys at a garage sale to buy a record player. I only had $24.oo, so I had to buy the cheapest record player K Mart sold. I brought it home, full of intense excitement, triumph and anticipation. It took me weeks to accept and then recover from the realization that the thing was an absolute piece of junk and didn't really work.

-One Christmas, I asked for a stereo system, and I just knew I would be getting one. What I got, essentially, was a clock radio.

-In Junior High, I finally gave in and got a boyfriend, because I was tired of being teased for never having had one. About 1 month into our "relationship" (you know, the kind of Junior High relationship where a boy and girl are technically going together, but in reality, they hardly ever see each other), rumor had it that he was planning to kiss me, so I promptly broke up with him.

These are just a few of my silly childhood memories. I laugh at them now and think of them with fondness. I'm so thankful that because I had loving parents and a God-centered home, I was able to experience childhood the way it was meant to be experienced, as opposed to a childhood laced with pain and uncertainty.

God is the giver of all good things. I'm so glad that because of His grace, I can look back on my childhood with fondness. I know also that it's because of His grace and presence in our home today, that I can help facilitate this kind of carefree, silly, magical childhood for my own children.