Past Part One

So, I really don't know where to begin in regards to my past. To be honest, I don't know much about my past, period. The large majority of my childhood is gappy, populated only with stories I remember being told and a few poignant memories. I couldn't even begin to put many of them in order. The vast majority of my memories are grouped by recalling either my relative size (I used to be small for my age) or which girl I liked at the time (there was almost always one specific girl). Therefore, I'll begin with three events from my pre-school days (I may or may not have attended pre-school at this time, but it was definitely prior to starting formal education, and so I will call it "pre-school.") I may have details wrong, but I will relate them as I remember them.

Round Cookie: My mom, my brother, and I were visiting our relatives in PA (Dad may have been there, but he's not in the memory). Ben and I each had gotten to eat at least one cookie. I had asked for another, and my aunt Emma (who was always just "Emma" to us), asked if I thought she should break a cookie in half for the two of us to share. My response, I'm told again and again, was "No, give Ben a ROUND cookie." At this point, the teller of the story stretches out the vowel of "round" to last at least a full second, while shaping their lips into a perfect 'o' shape—something I can only assume I did at the time. The joy of this story is that the adults saw in my childhood brain the greatest scheme of all time: if Ben got a "round" cookie, that is, an unbroken one, then I would logically get a full cookie as well. I can't be sure that was my motivation, but it seems consistent with my personality, both then and now.

Are You a Lion?: Much shorter, much cuter - my Dad tells me that I was bounding around the living room of our home roaring and in general behaving in a lion-like fashion. My Dad asked me "Are you a Lion?" My younger self apparently was quite precocious, because Dad says that without missing a beat, I replied in an exasperated tone: "No, I'm pretending to be a lion!" I'm not sure if I genuinely thought he was confused by my act or if I was insanely witty, but either way, it's an adorable story.

Dinosaur decorations: This story is actually from pre-school, because that's where it happened, at my late grandmother's preschool. I remember we were making what I'm fairly sure were Christmas ornaments shaped like dinosaurs. In fact, I think my parents still have one of them. They were made out of something that was somewhere between cookie dough and playdough, and I am 90% sure they were actually made with cookie-cutters and ribbon. I remember that I was so excited. I also remember that that was the day I discovered I had chicken-pox, and I got immediately sent home, without getting to finish my project. I was crestfallen. I think I may have known what it meant, because I seem to remember trying to hide that I was sick so I wouldn't miss out. I can only assume someone else, possibly Ben, had been sick with the Pox beforehand, and I had recognized how much I would be limited if the adults knew. This one isn't all that adorable, but keep this in mind in the event of a zombocolypse: I am not to be trusted. If you think I have been infected, you check me for bites and check daily for signs of change.