This list just appeals to me as something to put a smile on my face. May you find some of my kidlike behaviour just as amusing.
1. Make "milkshakes" where I'd fill up an old 4 oz shrimp cocktail glass with 2 oz of Nestle Quick powder; and add 2 oz milk and stir to a paste.
2. Draw anything and everything. I would use any material that would leave a mark; on any substance that would take one. I was often a very "colourful" child. :-)
3. Watch Transformers, Voltron, Thundercats and GI Joe. I STILL love transformers; but generally won't admit it in public! (I'm thrilled that they're suddenly back in vogue!)
4. Play at Thundercats. I didn't care which role my friends picked; I REALLY wanted to be Cheetarah; and had a big staff that I would run around trying desperately hard to twirl. I was convinced I would be able to run as fast as she could, if I just practiced a lot. I got places really quickly for a few years.
5. Read just about anything. I LOVED books; they were an avenue of escape where my vivid imagination could run rampant; and I could take ideas from my stories and try and convince my friends to play them out with me.
6. ReName people and things. A lot of the things I read had smatterings of other languages in them; and I was fascinated by how names were so close, but so different in other languages (even if the relationship was only in my head!) In turn, that meant if I'd seen a 'variation' of your name in a book; you got renamed by me, and it apparently was permanent. To this day, I can't remember the "real" names of some of my playmates; but I remember what I RENAMED them. *blush*
7. Make up plays about my secret life as a wild thing. I didn't do the princess route so much; but I spent years vividly defining how my life as a... mustang, cougar, mermaid, air sprite, fairy, wolf, etc would be.
8. Climb trees. Scare people; and try to only fall out into HUGE piles of leaves. I was a great tree climber; and often ended up at the top of the tree; usually around the 3rd floor of buildings; which is apparently disconcerting to the neighbours. :-) And in autumn, I'd dragoon all my friends into dragging ALL the leaves we could find in the ENTIRE neighbourhood into one GINORMOUS pile; and then we'd climb into the bottom branches of the tree we had placed the pile next to, and try and fall into the leaves. :-) Sometimes we missed a bit, and that might explain a few things about me!
9. Try and make the swing flip over the bar. I seem to remember seeing some poor small child get too much of a push from their parents; and the swing literally went all the way around (360 degrees) and got hung up that little bit higher. I was OBSESSED with trying to pump so hard that I'd get to fly around the bar. When I couldn't make that happen for years, I decided the next best thing was to learn how to fly up as far as I could go, and at the height I got, flip out of the swing backwards, and try and land on my feet.
10. Sledding. We had winter where I grew up; and winter in my mind means snow. Lots of glorious snow. And the best was when school was closed; we'd go down to the big hill by the house, and I had a thin red plastic rectangle sled; and MAN was it fast. Once I actually got it going so fast down the hill; and I hit the snow bank we'd made, shot over it; and flew across the creek. I actually embedded the sled into the bank on the far side of the creek; and was so worried I was going to fall into the creek and get all wet and get in trouble. Instead I climbed out, up the bank; and had to get some adults to come down and help me pull the sled out of the creek bank. But I still got hot cocoa when I got home, even after all that adventure. :-)
Posted by dancingblonde
at 5:41 PM PDT
