3 Increasingly Insane Childhood Stories ⊹ ˖ Ი𐑼

This is a repost bc nobody saw it the first time </3

Hi my sweet angel babies. 

Recently I've been thinking a lot about my parents and their digital footprints. My mom has a considerably larger digital footprint than my dad because. Well. My mom is alive. My dad died in 2011 so there honestly wasn't that much he could've done anyway </3

Anyway the things at the top of my mind as far as this topic go are my mom's blog from 2009-2010, my dad's twitter account, etc.

That "whatever you put on the internet stays there forever" thing happens to be true in some mundane cases, and I think that's nice. It's interesting to see my parents as functioning, normal adults outside of being...y'know...my parents. Especially since these pieces of them, notably my mom's old blog, show my childhood memories from a different point of view. Which is great because I love any excuse to think/talk about what went on when I was a kid.

I think probably too much about my childhood. Almost 24/7 I'm reminiscing on it. I had a pretty good childhood, all things considered. 

I'm only 21 and though some things remain constant, it feels like I've lived about 6 different lives. The "life" or part of my life that feels the furthest away was that first seven years of my life. Obviously I only remember like 4 or 5 years of those 7 but nothing makes me feel quite as warm and fuzzy as remembering some of the fun things from those 4-5 years of my "early" childhood.

I thought I would share some of these stories from my early life with you, my readers, because ummm I'm vain and I love talking about myself <3 Just kidding it's mostly because the people that I have told some of these stories to find them interesting and seemed to like reading them!! Also because I consider myself really lucky to have had a pretty alright childhood and also to remember so much of it. So. Without further ado...

[Here are some things to keep in mind while you read these stories ₍ᐢ. .ᐢ₎ ]

The time frame for everything you're reading is between 2006 and 2010.

My brother is 4 years older than me, and my sister is 10 years older than me. They are both my half siblings.

1.) I'll start off with something nice. My father was kinda strict. Not obsessively so, but he liked to keep us in line. One of his firm rules was that once you were in your bedroom for the night, you were not to come out unless something was genuinely wrong. Otherwise, you were not allowed out of your room before 9:00 in the morning. If both my siblings were home (some Saturday and Sunday mornings), we would all go downstairs together at 9 to usually find my dad making breakfast while my mom slept in. This story takes place on one of those mornings. Saturday, I think.

My siblings and I came downstairs to no smell of breakfast and a completely silent house. A quick glance over the room gave us the reason for that. My dad. Sleeping on the couch, snoring like a bear with the TV remote on his chest and infomercials blaring on the big early 2000s floor model TV.

This was not normal, but also not alarming. Not to me at least, who usually didn't give a shit about the 9:00 rule (especially when I was the only kid in the house) and would sometimes find my dad in the basement doing the exact same thing at as early as 5:30. My siblings, however, were a lot more cautious being that they were older and knew much more of his short temper than I did.

I assured them that all we had to do was wait. We could watch cartoons until he woke up. My brother then pointed out that while that was probably the best course of action, the TV remote was out of reach on the chest of the sleeping bear.

I said "So?" and my brother was like "You get the remote then, if it's not a problem. You're the smallest, and he never yells at you...so go get it for us."

And I did. I walked over to the couch and stealthily plucked the remote off my dad's chest and handed it to my brother so he could turn on HBO Kids, which is what we always watched on weekend mornings. I obviously wasn't in any actual danger and if I had accidentally woke him I'm positive he wouldn't have been mad but I felt really mature and accomplished doing something as the youngest that my older siblings couldn't.

The rest of the morning is fuzzy, but I know we at least got through Crashbox before my dad woke up and took me into the kitchen with him to help make pancakes. He made very good pancakes, and I still think about him whenever I have them.

Regardless of what a dump it was, my dad was fiercely loyal to his mom, and that's why I spent so much time there. This particular memory centers around a morning after I had slept over at that house. The only kids in the house are me and my identical twin cousins. One of the at the time four adults living there set the three of us up with bowls of cereal. I remember it was served to us in styrofoam bowls with a cup of milk on the side.

I'm not sure what happened, but while we were eating, my cousins got up and ran outside. We didn't often care about the same things because they were little boys and I was probably the most stereotypical spoiled little girl you can imagine, so I stayed put and ate my breakfast alone.

This is where the good part starts. Even though that house was very ew, there was something about the exact spot where I was sitting at the exact time I was sitting there. I was sitting at the head of the table, next to a big bay window with white curtains. The morning sunlight was orange and golden and was shining in through the window in such a mesmerizing way. I think sunlight can make just about anything look beautiful. I remember very vividly in my brief moment of peace and quiet at that place appreciating it to the best of my ability. I happily finished my cereal and drank my milk. The milk was especially enjoyable and if you were a kid in the 2000s you will probably know why. Milk flavoring straws. Omg. One of my favorite things ever. My grandma was nowhere near perfect or even good, but goddamn that woman kept milk flavoring straws stocked in the house. My #1 go-to flavor was strawberry because strawberry milk was my favorite drink growing up. It's pink, and I am like if the color pink became a girl. It only makes sense. But when all the strawberry straws were gone, and all the chocolate were gone, and all the other flavors...there was one flavor left in the box. Every time. Banana. Nobody liked banana. Until one day I was desperate for flavored milk and tried one.

Heavenly btw.

So on this lovely sunshiney morning where I was alone in the dining room taking my sweet ass time and enjoying the silence for once, I was also sipping on some delicious banana flavored milk.
When I finished my breakfast (on my own time, of course), I cleaned up after myself and decided to head outside to see what the boys my were in such a hurry to see or do earlier. And when I made it outside, what did I see?

They were UNDER my grandpa's fishing boat, crouched on the gravel, SMASHING FROGS WITH ROCKS. Yes, you read correctly. My cousins, who couldn't have been older than three or four at the time, were exhibiting early serial killer behaviors in the driveway of our grandparents' house at like 8 in the morning. Genuinely I cannot tell you what happened after that because the realization that they were KILLING FROGS??? was enough for me. I don't remember any of the rest of the day. I checked the fuck out and you would too. 

3.) This story is the one of my near-death experience! I know, I'm just full of happy stories and good stuff. I said I had a good childhood and I swear I did for the most part, I'm just trying to hook you so you say "Grace!!! Tell me more insane stories from your childhood!!" and I can say "Patience, grasshopper..."
Anyway, every year my dad's family held a sort of family reunion cookout at a local waterpark.
I can only remember attending the last two family reunions my family attended in my entire life but from what I understand they happened every year before my dad even met my mom. So there's that. I think this story takes place during the final family reunion. I am freshly six years old.

This waterpark had a ton of different areas. The reunion itself took place under a big pavilion, but everyone in attendance paid for admission to the entire park, which meant waterslides and the splash pad and lazy river and other things that people who frequent waterparks enjoy.

Often I was snatched from my mom by my aunt and grandma and taken to the kiddy pool area with fun little slides and fountains and stuff for babies and kids and for the most part that was a highlight for me. My favorite part of all of this was the pelican slide. It was a big-ish fiberglass slide in the shape of a pelican in which the body was the stairs and the bill was the slide. I looked forward to going on the pelican slide on this particular day because I had had so much fun on it the last time.

Well. Life had other fucking plans for me on this day because something happened when I climbed up the stairs and crested the top of my beloved pelican slide. I say "something happened" because I genuinely do not know what it was. But this something that happened caused me to slip down the slide and not in a fun way. My...everything??? got knocked out of me on the way down on the actual slide and I was catapulted into extremely shallow baby pool water and somehow ended up on my back, skidding across the textured bottom of the pool, completely unconscious.

The next thing I knew I was laying face down on a fluffy white towel on a chair next to the pool and my back was absolutely SHREDDED. And the next thing I remember after that?????? Is forgetting about it. I don't remember my parents finding out about it, which they absolutely would've because they were still helping me bathe at that point I'm pretty sure and even if they weren't they would've noticed a massive bloody scrape on my back. I don't remember the healing process. I also don't have any scars that I know of but I'm also not really looking at my back that closely these days lol.

The craziest part about all of this to me is that I brought this story up to my mom a year or two ago and she said she hadn't know about it at all. Like literally didn't even have an inkling that anything happened to me. I could've died in so many ways!!!! I could've drowned, I could've gotten a serious head injury, the wound that I did have could've gotten infected???????? AND THE WHOLE THING WAS KEPT COMPLETELY FROM MY MOM SOMEHOW??? I need to assert that my mother has ALWAYS been an extremely attentive and present parent so HOW something like this was kept from her I will NEVER know.

Also before you say "maybe you dreamt it," my brother says remembers the event vividly. I don't remember him being nearby at the time of the accident but I know he was with us at the family reunion and there is a chance he could've been around. His memories of it match up with mine, and he insists he's the one that saved me. I can't confirm or deny that because I was too busy being unconscious. It's a weird story. I find it really interesting. Especially the fact that I totally could've died that day in that pool and ruined a lot of peoples' day. Crazy stuff

Okay that's all I have time to write now :o Three stories suffices I think, but I have PLENTY more where those came from. Let me know if you'd like to hear more, like for example the story of my first best friend, or the time I found out I was mildly lactose intolerant or perhaps the funeral I went to as a kid in a scary ass liminal space. Super interesting right??? Lol. 

If you've read this far, thanks for doing that!!! Let me know also what you think in the comments because I love hearing people's reactions to these stories.

Until next time. 
Kisses! 

-G ♡