My Quirky Little Childhood

I did some strange things as I was a child.  We all have, and today’s post is about the weird things I did, the weird habits I used to have.  So go ahead and read about my quirky past.  I know we’ve all been there…

Every day when I was little, I watched The Wizard of Oz.  I stared with joy in my heart at the screen while Dorothy wished to come back to Kansas and Toto dutifully listened to her.  I loved this movie.  Every day I sat on my couch and watched my favorite flick, not even flinching at the scary lion.  I was never scared of that movie, although now I’m a total chicken when it comes to scary movies.  The Wizard of Oz phase I went through lasted a long time, and I loved every bit of it, lingering on every single word Dorothy spoke.  This was just one of the many phases I went through when I was younger, along with wearing the same dress for many days at a time.  Without any washings between.

So like I said, for many days in a row, I wore the same dress.  I loved that dress, just like The Wizard of Oz.  This was another phase I went through that involved a fuzzy, pink dress.  I called it my lamb dress, and loved every piece of fabric in it.  I would strut my 5 year old body around the house, showing off my cool dress.  There would be no way I could wear that now.  For one, it would be embarrassing to wear the same outfit for numerous days in a row.  If that didn’t put me at the bottom of the “social pyramid”, I don’t know what would (even though, as I recall, I was never on the top.  J  I like it that way!).  Number two, as I’ve mentioned before, I am a germaphobe and I could not stand wearing the same outfit for multiple days without a washing in between.  Ew!  …and stinky!  Grody, man!

Bite me.  That’s was most people say to someone they don’t like, however in this case, that was something I did to myself.  I bit myself.  If my sister made me angry, I bit my skin.  If my mom put me in a time out, I made a deep mark right in my arm.  If my dad didn’t give me something I wanted, I sunk my teeth right on into my flesh.  Why didn’t I bite the people that gave me my hatred at the time, I don’t know.  I’ve always been kind of strange, I admit J.  Now, I wasn’t disturbed like Mike Tyson, but I just had to get my anger out somehow.  And that was just how I rolled, when I was two...

Personally, my favorite childhood memory is the one that I’m going to share now.  When I was little, my parents treated me to a white unicorn.  The horn on top of his head felt neat underneath my fingers, with its plastic-feeling material, and I loved that unicorn so very much.  But that was part of my problem.  I thought that my unicorn was a puppy.  And I was set on letting everyone know that. 

My parents would say, “Erin, that’s a unicorn.”

And I would shoot back, “It’s not a corn, it’s my puppy!”

My little five-year old ears would not stand to listen to people who told me that my Beanie Baby was a unicorn.  I wanted it to be a puppy.  And so it was!  Until all my family members began joining in the chant: “It’s not a puppy.”  I couldn’t stand it.  I loved my stuffed animal and really just wanted it to be a dog.  Dogs were the thing I loved at the time, and dogs are the things I love today.  I already had a gorgeous and sweet dog named Annie, but I wanted another.  Unicorns are make-believe and I just didn’t want to believe in them.  I wanted a fake dog, goodness!  But my family really wanted me to know that it was a unicorn, even though I understood that.  It was just a phase I had to get over (sniffle, sniffle).  I really liked my unicorn.  I actually still have him and boy, am I glad I made such a huge fuss about it.  That’s because it made for a good ending to this blog post J.