My Childhood

The third challenge is to scrap about ourselves with at least half the page being journaling. Well, the journaling part is not so hard for me, but the talking about part is harder. I've decided that since Audrey seems interested in what it was like when we were growing up, that I would write a letter to her about my childhood. So here goes:

Dear Audrey,

You have asked questions about what it was like growing up. I know you usually are asking in reference to what it was like for your Mommy, but this letter will be more about what it was like for me.

I'm the oldest, so some of my earliest memories were when Kathy was a baby. We lived in a house in Houston. The house was on a short street that curved into another street. We were the third house on a 3 street house. I had a several friends that I played with on the 2 streets. There was Bob Allen that lived in the house on the corner. There was Janice Williamson that lived 2 doors down the other way. There were twin boys, Brett and Bart - I can't remember if they lived between us and the Williamson's, or further down. Then a couple of houses down was Lana Lee. We would play in each other's driveways or in the yards. I remember we had a large shade tree in our front yard, but there was enough room that we played baseball as well.

Our house growing up was a 3 bedroom, 1.5 bath house with a 1 car garage. You walked in the front door and there was a brick planter box that separated the doorway from the living room. The living room was to the left and the doorway to the hall was on the right. In the living room was a sofa that flattened out into a bed - you lifted the bottom and the back fell down then you flattened the seat back down, like a futon. There was also Daddy's platform rocker tucked in next to the planter. There was a console TV under the front windows. Over against the far wall was the maple table that's in Mom's breakfast room now. I remember a large brass tray on the wall above the table and some other brass sconces or something as well. Mom used to sell for World Gift, I think it was a home show type business. Between the sofa and the dining table was a doorway into the kitchen and breakfast nook. I seem to remember another planter box that separated the breakfast nook from the kitchen area. There was a door to the garage off the breakfast area, and a door into the backyard between the breakfast nook and the kitchen. The kitchen was like a galley style with a little L on the end closest to the breakfast nook. The counters were ceramic tile. The sink was on the back wall along with all the cabinets/counters and the pantry, stove and refrigerator were on the opposite wall. At the far end of the kitchen was a door into the hall. Going into the hall, to the left was a Hollywood bath, straight ahead was Mom and Dad's bedroom. Turning right in the hall then going down were the other 2 bedrooms. The middle room was mine and Kathy's and the other room was the guest room. I remember moving into the front bedroom for just a short period of time before we moved to Pearland. The house wasn't centrally air-conditioned, but there was an attic fan in the hall and we had window units in parts of the house.

I was sick a lot when I was really little. I had kidney and bladder problems. I remember being in the hospital a lot when I was 3 or 4 years old, and had surgery when I was 5 or 6. I also had to have my tonsils out, so I spent a lot of time at Texas Children's Hospital in Houston. Somewhere in there, I also broke my collarbone. I remember being in a body cast that came down like a short sleeve on the right side and then angling across to my under my left arm. The whole thing went down to my waist - I was wearing a plaster, one-sleeved shirt for several weeks. No one knew for sure how I broke it, Mom thinks I may have fallen off my tricycle. I just remember waking up from a nap, crying because it hurt. I remember trying to color, using my left hand because I couldn't use my right arm much.

Kathy was almost 3 years younger than me, and wanted to do everything that I did. I remember Mom dressed us either alike or in coordinating outfits. I remember red dresses with white lace and buttons down the front. Mom and Dad were going to let me stay up later or stop taking naps, but Kathy wanted to stay up as well - so I still had to go to bed earlier and take naps up until I went to school fulltime.

OK, enough for now - I will be making this a multi-part letter and may rearrange things as I think of new things.