10 stupid things I did as a little kid.

a meme n (mëm): is an idea that is shared and passed from blog to blog, like a question posted in one blog and answered in many other blogs.

10 stupid things I did as a little kid.

I really don’t remember doing anything stupid as a child, I was “gifted” with maturity beyond my tender years, that snorting and sick gagging sound you hear now are various members of my family that are in total and absolute disagreement over that statement.

1. I wanted to be as beautiful, and glamorous like my mother, (blessed with “movie star” good looks) and I got into her makeup when I was about three – totally trashed my parents bedroom since I did not have the motor skills and manual dexterity to open containers, take just a “tiny bit” and then close them up and put away… One of the few times I REALLY could not wait for Daddy to come home!!!

2. Cooking with my grandma (mother’s mom) and setting the stove, and pot holders on fire when I was four.

3. Letting my Uncle’s dog, a boxer, “Cindy” loose when my brother was an infant and I was about four. I just wanted to play with her since EVERYONE was busy with the baby. Cindy when released from “confinement” was a little wild and would run and jump all over everyone. She was a BIG dog that still thought she was a lap dog. Now add a newborn baby – okay, can we all see now why this was not smart.

4. One summer night, about age 6, I was just able to “go around the block” suburban neighborhood, 24 houses on the block in two rows of 10, very quiet streets, and my house fronted a road that was just starting to become a thorough-fare. My curfew, be back in my own yard was when the street lights came on at dusk.

There were about 60 kids living on our block, two “friends” (only ‘cause our mothers were friends and we were the same ages), lived down the street, and another (real this time) friend lived across the street. I found NEW friends (same age but lived on the other side and half way down the block) and we were playing, way after dark… My parents were frantic, no one knew where I was, and last they saw of me I was walking home by myself before dusk.

When I was “finally” found my parents were way past angry to “fearful,” that was one of the few spankings I ever had, and you better believe I learned from it!

5. We had in the summer these “little bitty” toads, not much bigger than your thumb tip. My father found one. I was under a year old and sitting in my stroller outside. Strollers then sometimes had a metal tray that fitted in front of the kid. So Daddy puts this tiny toad on the tray, and instead of screaming, I am entranced watching this thing. I then proceed to smoosh it before Daddy can stop me and then look at my hand. EEEUUUUUUuuuuuuuu!

6. Tumble down stairs on purpose, it’s easy, you just start to somersault and go from the top down. Start with one or two steps and work up to more. Best done in the summer when all the adults are on the front porch outside and really can’t hear you and your siblings and cousins do this. Being the eldest, I got to “teach” everyone how to do it safely! You only do it on the carpeted stairs, not the basement stairs!

7. Climbing things, there is a balance between what is adventuresome and what is dangerous, it took a long time for me to learn the difference once I started to climb at first shrubs, then the railings of the different front porches, then the attic stairs, and shelves in closets… You get the idea. The ladder to the roof… Until one day sheer panic set in and you are “frozen” and someone has to come to your rescue.

8. Swimming at the lake with cousins and friends and swimming OUT PAST the buoys and driving platform, and the beach markers… and having your family panic since they can no longer see you waaaaaaaay out there.

9. Getting into so many accidents, that by today’s standards someone in the ER would have filed a possible child abuse report instead of joking about what you are going to damage next, or which child’s turn it is.

10. Going to, or coming home from school. There were too many distractions, playing in the marsh, ice skating (sliding) in the winter, or wadding in the fall and spring. Climbing the hills formed by the highway construction and then running down, or after the interstate was built, climbing up under the bridge on the slope of concrete to the fence near the roadside and watch the cars, or turn around and admire the view of the town, clear to the grocery store a mile away! Coming home OR going to school. I was often LATE, and showed up (usually with a couple of other “Explorers”) dirty and disheveled.