Day Six: Glistening in the Moonlight

This is Day 6 of the October Memoir and Backstory Blog Challenge, which is something about a 6 year old.  To catch more on this, please visit  Jane Ann McLachlan.
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Sheriff John was a Sheriff.  He wore a shiny badge and shiny boots, and wore a cowboy hat that coveted up all his hair.  I never saw his hair. 

Every week, he would sing, "Put another candle on my birthday cake", as a carosoul cake spun around and the camera went in for a close up.  There were lions and tigers and bears on the carosoul.  They spun around and around, as if dancing in their own world.

I was six.  I closed my eyes really, really tight and I thought that if I closed them hard enough and thought extra hard, I could turn into one of those animals.  And so I did it.

I closed my eyes and I blinked just like that Genie in TV that has a home in a bottle.  I closed my eyes and I thought so hard that I expected to open my eyes and literally be in the body of a lion.  I could definitely feel my tail growing, I thought.  "It must be almost time to open my eyes."

I scrunched my eyes more now, as I wanted to make sure that nothing would be missing.  I wanted to be sure as ever that my teeth would be long and sharp, and that my claws would glisten in the moonlight.  "There had to be nothing better than glistening in the moonlight," I thought, momentarily forgetting that I was still a girl.

I thought I was ready to open my eyes now, without getting it wrong.  Certainly I was on the right track.  Ever so painfully slowly, I opened my eyes.  At first, they were crinkled up from squinting so hard in my prayer.  I saw the light of day, and there he was again.  Sheriff John was reading off a piece of paper.

"Wait!", I thought, "I'm not supposed to know what a piece of paper is!" My eyes began to blur as the first tears started forming.  "I must not be a lion!" He wouldn't stop to care about my plight. "Linda, Joanne, Sarah, Tom, Edward, and Brian!  Wishing you all a Happy Birthday!" said Sheriff John, happy as could be.

I was disappointed, hurt, and well, I was sad.  I was shocked.  "How come it didn't work?" "I can't believe it didn't work!" I was already six years old, the smartest one in my class, and I get Gold Stars on my tests!  What did I do wrong?

I sunk in the living room sofa.  I cried big tears of reality and disappointment.
And I learned, as we all do, that I couldn't just change into a lion whenever I wanted to.

I kept it to myself until just now.  I'm only telling you because I know you won't tell anyone else.

Age Two: Getting Past the Edge of the Bed

This is Day 2 of the October Memoir and Backstory Blog Challenge, which is something about a 2 year old.  To catch more on this, please visit  Jane Ann McLachlan.


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"Oh boy!"

She woke up and had a quick thought.  "Oh!"

The little two-year old toddler hurriedly threw the blankets back, sun-drenched room bright.  Her orange night-light was still on, for some reason, and the checkered red sheets spoke of things colored and happy.

Her dark green pajamas were those kind with a zipper and feet, padded on the bottom with that sticky pad kind of stuff.  Rolling over on her stomach, she positioned her body so that it was perpendicular to the bed.  She meticulously laid her head on the middle of the bed, then scooted her legs so they flipped over the edge of the bed.  This was the challenge of the day:  to get past the edge of the bed.  To get to greater things that were unseen.

She laid on her belly first, then grabbed onto the bedsheets with her little hands clenched tightly.  Her feet dangled over the edge, now her knees were on the edge.  One hand loosened grip and moved closer to the edge, too.  Her hips pushed on the edge of the bed.  Now both fists were white at the knuckles.   Slowly, ever so slowly, she let gravity pull her down.  The edge of the bed was at her belly now.  Her feet swung from the bed, and they inched down.

"Uh!  Uh!"  She grunted as her eyes looked at her own back.  She looked backwards so hard that her eyes hurt.  It was morning again and she just had to do it!  "Uh!"  She couldn't wait!  She had to get out of this bed!

"Bam!"  Her feet hit the floor, and she went tumbling overboard.  "Uh!"  Her body was going upward now, picking herself up.  She was glad to be off the bed, at least.  This was progress.

Quickly, she picked herself up and started running.  But she fell again.  She had been in forward motion, and her body lost control and pitched forward.   "Boom!"

"Uh!"  She was sprawled out with her hands before her, elbows down.  She struggled a bit.  "Uh!"  Wiggled this way and that, grunting as she lifted herself again.   At last, she was on her padded feet again.

"Mama!  Where?"  Her eyes searched left and right, right and left as she made her way out of the sun-soaked room.  Into the hallway she went, scrunching her eyes to adjust to the dark hallway.

She looked under the bookcase.  She peered under the chair.  She searched.  She pouted.  Nothing was there.

Then she had a thought.  "Outside!"

She toddled over to the back door, hands smearing another set of handprints on the glass window.   "Oh boy!"  She smiled.   Relief.  Bliss.  Now she could play.

Her eyes widened as she saw them together.  The brother and sister cats were licking themselves in the sun, bellies up, no care in the world.  She thought they were little people stuck inside of a cat's body.  One was Fluffy, and one was Mattie.  Today she would put them in her blue bucket, then put them on her slide.  They would slide down the slide, and she would laugh.

She would do this over and over again, just like yesterday.

There was nothing else that she wanted to do.

That's all she wanted, and that's what the whole day was all about.

That's it.