And who is the sick person? Who else would it be? It's me. Nothing too horrible, but bad enough that I came home sick from work yesterday about halfway through the day. And stayed home again today (after getting up, getting ready, and getting over to sylvia's place . . . she didn't have to try too hard to convince me to head home). So I have this whole set-up next to my bed of advil, vitamin c, water, and a box of Kleenex I stole from the bathroom this morning. When I came back home today ten minutes after I initially left, both my roommates made comments about how nice it was that I could stay at home. Yeah, sure it's nice to not have to work, but how nice is it to be stuck at home in your bed all day with a runny nose and a headache? So I got to thinking about how much I loved sick days when I was a kid (and y'all know you loved them, too) and didn't have to go to school. Two reasons why I loved them:
1) Mom waited on me hand and foot.
2) I got to watch TV . . . during the day. Kind of a big deal at my house.
Now I have no one to wait on me hand and foot while I'm home sick, but I do have the option of watching TV (well, movies, at least). But because of my headache, looking too long at the TV screen (or the computer screen for that matter) isn't working for me. So those reasons have completely gone out the window, and I have absolutely no reason for liking this sick day. Maybe things will brighten, though. I can always make some paper snowflakes.
So what else did I love as a kid?
1) Playing "Robin Hood" with the neighborhood kids (although i didn't love always being stuck playing Little John)
2) Helping Mom make brownies. That was always the best creation to lick out of the bowl.
3) Sleeping out on the trampoline.
4) Bringing out all the bedding and jumping into piles of it on the trampoline.
5) Okay, so maybe just the trampoline in general.
6) Meeting Emily at the crosswalk at 125th to play. (Not to play at that particular spot. It was just the halfway point between our houses that we always agreed to meet at.)
7) Dress-up. Especially when Tom dressed up with me. (Sorry you had to find out this way, Lisa. Your husband was, in fact, a cross-dresser.)
8) Avoiding cracks in the sidewalk.
9) "Hot meal" days at school (I got four each month) and chocolate milk. Chicken fried steak day was always the best.
10) Annoying Tom and Craig by continually watching Anne of Green Gables and The Secret Garden.
11) Reading books like Anne of Green Gables and The Secret Garden for the first time.
12) Being tall. I loved being the one who could reach things on the shelf when nobody else could, until I was about 11 years old. Then I became jaded. How sad.
13) Summer visits to Grand Junction, playing Nerf wars, and racing "boats" down the canal.
14) Writing stories. My first real "ambition" was to be an author.
15) My birthday. Macaroni and Cheese dinner.
16) How big a deal sleep-overs were.
17) Soccer. I thought it was the coolest sport ever.
18) Dresses. I loved dresses. (hated the tights that i had to wear with them, though)
19) Being absolutely certain that I would marry Tom Powers one day. (hahahahahahahaha)
20) Dad blow-drying my hair.
21) The first day of summer, even if it was cloudy and gray (which it generally was).
22) Sleeping in one bedroom with my brothers and sister on Christmas Eve. ("Sleeping", yeah. As if I really ever slept. I was always too excited for the next morning.)
The list could go on and on. And I'm not trying to live in past and say that there's nothing I love about my life now, because that is also a list that could go on and on. Just fun to reflect every once in a while on the simple pleasures of childhood. And that's what I'm pondering today while I sit in bed (achoo!) and laugh at myself, both past and present.
-Me
"It's never too late to have a happy childhood." -Anonymous
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