Childhood.

I played a fun game this morning during my long run.  I asked myself, If I had to take the five senses and pick an example of each of them that best represented my childhood, which ones would I chose?  Here is what I came up with:

Smell-Maple sausages. They must be maple flavored though. Whenever I smell these, which isn't very often, I think back to Saturday and Sunday mornings when I was a kid.  My dad would make Alyssa and me maple sausages to go along with pancakes.  Whenever we had our friends sleepover, there would undoubtedly be a hot, steaming plate of sauces ready for us when we got up in the morning.   

Taste-Tombstone pizza.  Tombstone pizzas for me represent the countless days spent on the beach at our cottage during the summer.  My dad would make a Tombstone pizza and walk it down to the lake so that we could eat it shore side.  My family also usually ate a Tombstone pizza for dinner on Halloween.  It was a quick and easy dinner that didn't take away from our Trick-or-treating time or from my dad's handing out candy time.  

Sound-This one was easy.  The voice of the radio station WXRT DJ Terri Hemmer's voice along with the Beatles' songs that she plays during her Sunday morning special, "Breakfast with the Beatles."  Although her voice is the one that is particularly strong in my mind when I think back to my childhood, all of the DJ's voices on that radio station remind me of childhood,  since this station is always playing in my house.  

Touch-This one was a little more tricky to think of.  Do you remember those "touch and feel" kids books where the dog feels like a dog, the snake feels like a snake, etc?  My grandma had one of those books in her house.  I loved that book as a child.  I can still picture the page of the dog and remember how the little chestnut brown circle of its "fur" felt.  

Sight-When I reflected back on some of my strongest childhood memories, one thing became very clear that I honestly did not even realize before making this list.  Out of all the people in my life, my dad is the one that is most prominent in my childhood memories.  In my high school and my college memories, my mom is the dominant figure (along with Alyssa), but this is definitely not the case with my childhood.  One of the most comical daily routines of my childhood occurred in the mornings and went like this: My dad would wake up Alyssa and me and ask us what we wanted for breakfast.  He would then prepare our Poptart or bowl of Oreo O's or whatever other terribly unhealthy breakfast item we decided on that morning.  Then, as we sat at the breakfast table to eat, he would put our socks on for us.  This legit happened every single morning.  It felt so normal for him to do this back then, but it seems so comical now.  

I am so extremely lucky to have been raised in a home with such loving and caring parents.  I sometimes forget that not everyone's childhoods are so memorable and carefree as mine was.  I do know however, that although Furbys are back (why?), my children will not be getting one of those annoying creatures that are impossible to turn off.