M's first grade

Continuing with the journaling. Okay, I was 6 in first grade. I have a picture of me at Chuck E. Cheese for my birthday --I believe it was that year.
I remember from this school year that my teacher was Miss Rich. She was a young and very pretty blonde lady. The kids would ask if she was my mom because of her last name. Um, no. We didn't really get the Mrs. vs. Miss at that age. I remember my teacher being SUCH a nice teacher. I loved her.
This was the year that when my mom took me school shopping, we had to find some black jeans to go with a red/black/gray sweater vest I had and the red turtleneck that went under it. Very stylish. :) We could not find black jeans in the girls' section, so my mom went to the boys' section. How embarrassing. I remember trying the pants on in the store dressing room and being mortified that I was putting on boy pants. We ended up getting them and I think I just eventually got over the gender bending pants. :) I wore that outfit for my school pictures.
My good friends were Faith and Paige. They both must have moved after that year. Very sweet girls. There was a different but nice girl named Audrey in my class who I remember chewed on Silly Putty like it was gum one day outside at recess. I was a little grossed out because even if it worked like gum, it didn't seem like it would taste all that good. I turned down her offer to try it. I remember having a crush on Mark Y. that year. Crushes start early. Also, we changed classrooms once for some kind of activity and had to wait in line outside of the classroom. I saw tall Seth B. and had a 1st grade crush on him. The crush would repeat itself in the 6th grade. --Nice guy, good friend even through high school. There was a girl named Shantell G. in my class who would wear nice dresses, but pee her tights sometimes. I felt bad because she seemed nice but smelled like pee.
I took home a reading text book this year and forgot to return it. I found it in my room later and I still have the thing. I like the stories in it. I probably should have figured out a way to return it...
One memory that still bugs me from this year is....I went to the craft store Piece Goods with my mom and my sister. There was a bin of little maybe 5 cent whistles (bins were abundant in the 80's and very tempting for a kid, especially the button bins at the fabric stores). I took one. I stole it. My sister saw it in the car and accused me (rightly) of stealing it. I made up some lie about getting it at school, and she called me a liar (rightly). I don't remember actually using the stupid thing because I think I felt too guilty. That would be my one shop lifting experience, minus a few grapes as a kid, and I am still bugged that I didn't make that right somehow --as dumbe as that might sound. If Piece Goods exists still in Salt Lake, maybe I should head over one day when we are in town and give them a quarter for the whistle -with interest.
In the younger years of grade school there was this metal not so steep slide with a bar above it on the playground. Some jerk would sit at the top entrance and demand "payment" before you could go down. The fee was usually a rock.
I had a bit of an issue with reverting to sucking my thumb somewhere between kindergarten and 1st grade. I had never done it before, but there I was with a horrible habit. I remember trying to suck my thumb behind a text book on my desk once, but I decided that it was way too hard to try to be discreet about it and stopped doing it at school. At home once when I was watching TV on our yellow striped lounge chair while sucking the thumb, my dad came in from doing yard work. You have to understand that this was in the "Dad is Terrifying" decade. I immediately ripped my thumb from my mouth. He asked me, "Were you sucking your thumb?"
I took a moment to think of a response. I knew I might have a chance of getting out of trouble if I lied, but then I remembered what we had learned about recently in school. I had heard the story of George Washington chopping down the cherry tree and being honest about it to his father. Everything turned out okay because he told the truth. So I told the truth.
"Yes."
Then came the spankings.
I decided George Washington was full of crap.
I think it was somewhere around the time my dad put bandaids on my thumb that I thought I would show him and start sucking my pointer finger instead when he wasn't looking. It was uncomfortable. The whole thing was more of a nuisance than a comfort at that point, so it stopped.
As far as memories about my siblings...I don't know. My brother had awesome chubby cheeks I loved to kiss when he was little. My sister was ALWAYS in charge. The rules were made and steered by her. That would be the job of the eldest sibling. We shared a room until maybe Mandy was in Jr. High. We kept it pretty clean and each year were told that Santa was not going to show up unless we cleaned our closet.
I remember one of my favorite toys that year was some kind of pink snail with hair. Sounds nasty, but it was all sparkly, and i loved it. It came with a little comb, and the shell had a key you would use to unlock it and open it up to keep little treasures in it. My Little Pony and Strawberry Shortcake were big hits during this time for me.

Chinese Gold

Like many Americans, I have been glued to my television for the last week or so, taking in as much of the Olympics from Beijing as I possibly can, like some sort of Olympaholic. Like the good patriot I am, I am constantly paying attention to the medal count, hoping to see the United States run away from everything. As of the time of this post, we have the most medals over all at 79. However, the Chinese have 17 more gold medals than we do and are on our heals with 76 medals total.

Having watched hours of gymnastics, swimming, and track and field, I began to wonder where all of these Chinese gold medals were coming from. They were certainly strong in diving and gymnastics, but to have that wide of a gap over the U.S. baffled me.

So I went to http://www.nbcolympics.com/ to see what their medal breakdown is. I must admit, I went thinking that for sure they were beating us with the "non-sports" such as badminton, table tennis, and trampoline. And yes, they do have an edge in each of those sports with 7 total medals to our 0. But, I was surprised to find that they have really asserted themselves as a force to be taken seriously.

The Chinese have 9 gold medals in gymnastics to our 2. They have 8 gold medals in weight-lifting to our 0. They have 6 gold medals in diving to our 0. Sure, the United States has 12 gold medals in Swimming to the Chinese 1, however, the Chinese have gold medals in 13 DIFFERENT events, the United States only 11 at this point. And relatively few of those events are obscure. In fact, they have gold medals in shooting, judo, wrestling, archery, fencing, and rowing.

So I had to change my tune with regards to the Chinese gold medals. They can feel free to revel in their dominance of the shuttlecock, for with or without it they are still the golden country.

M's kindergarten memories (other ones too)

I was thinking last night while I was running that I should write down some of my random growing up memories. I think this venue is as good as any. I figured I could type a couple down now and then. --Maybe it'll be easier to put them all together one day.
I went to Hunter Elementary in West Valley City in fall of 1984. I had Mrs. Matonen (sp?) as my teacher. She had been my sister's k teacher, and ended up as my brother's as well. As just a little side thing, my mom tells me that when my sister went for her first day of school a couple years earlier, I had a fit. I wanted to go too and did not see how it was fair at all for Mandy to go and not me. She had to keep tossing me in the car because I kept jumping out to go.
Anyway, what I remember about kindergarten is this: I remember cubbies where the fat crayons were kept. I remember a sweet faced little dark headed girl as one of my friends. I think that Candice Jameson was also one of my friends that year. I remember recess out on the little playground and making a little paper kite and trying to fly it out in the wind one day. I remember sitting on the carpeted floor and singing songs as Mrs. Matonen would play the piano. Mrs. Peter's class would come in and sing with us. I remember singing "Peanut Butter and Jelly" the very most. I remember calling my teacher "mom" a couple times and being so embarassed that it had slipped out. She was such a nice lady. She just would quietly and quickly correct you if you made that mistake. I made an Easter bonnet out of paper. I remember playing around a play house in the class with my friends. I remember the smell of the purple ink from the old roller copiers in my early years at the elementary. I remember the gradebooks those years as well since the computers didn't become part of grading at that school until I was in sixth grade. I remember the little worksheets in kindergarten with the big numbers or letters on them. Especially the lines above the vowels for the "hard" sounds. I don't remember much else about kindergarten.
I was trying to remember my time at home with Mom before my school years started, but I really draw a big blank. There are definitely some images and smells though. I remember loving my brother's chubby cheeks and struggling to pick him up so I could kiss them. I remember a few of the decorations from my sister and my room, as well as some toys. I remember playing in the back yard and popping of grass seedlings or dandelion heads with "Mama had a baby and its head popped off!" Where did I get THAT? I remember our old deck with the stairs going down the opposite side of where the stairs ended up when dad built the other deck. I remember mom swirling cloth diapers in the toilet to do the initial cleaning of them. That had to have been early on. I have vague memories of going to Disneyland when I was four or barely five and riding in my great grandma and grandpa Browning's RV. Great Grandpa Frank was the driver, a smoker, and a tease. My memory of him mostly is of him teasing me and telling me that spaghetti was really worms. I didn't believe him, and I was grossed out that he was trying to convince me of this. I did think it was funny that he was teasing me. Again, as far as staying home with mom, I just remember feeling safe at my house. If that's all I remember about her time spent with us, then that is more than enough. Oh, I remember going visiting teaching once with my mom. The grasshoppers were really bad that year and we walked through an area of the sidewalk where they were everywhere. Nasty. I remember going to dance at an early age at Brendance. We held on to the barre to learn the tap steps. Mom attended some dance class when I was little too. I think it was Lori Rupp's. I remember sitting in a side room and watching a little until she was done. I remember Mom sewing our costumes for Brendance.