My Childhood Home

Mary over at Owlhaven asked us to share some favorite memories of our childhood homes. I've been thinking about this post all day long (actually for several days) and finally I've found the time to sit down and write it. It was fun thinking back to the place I called home until I made my home with Pastormac.

I grew up in two homes. Both in the same city in Small Town USA. The first was the house that my dad was born (!) and raised in. I remember walking from my room to my parents' room in the middle of the night and the moon shone in through big picture windows in the sunroom. I remember too, sleeping in sleeping bags on the front porch with my brothers and sisters on warm summer nights with bats flying off over our heads. We moved from this home before my 5th birthday so I don't remember too much more about it.

I spent rest of my childhood in the home on 1 Crescent Drive. I still remember my phone number.

I remember sharing a room with my older sister. I remember she snored and I talked in my sleep and we were each bugged by the other's annoying nighttime habit. I remember the ugly sound the alarm on her clock radio made when she got up early for swim practice. I remember building blanket forts over our beds which fell down on us during the night while we slept. I remember giving up our room each and every Christmas to an aunt and uncle who came to celebrate the holiday with us. Every year we slept together in a tiny pull-out sofa bed in a back TV room.

I remember my dad coming in to kiss me goodnight and give me a backscratch every single night until I went away to college. I remember my dad coming to kiss me goodbye in the morning every single day before he went to work, right before he kissed my mom. I remember the sound of his feet clunking down the stairs and his car starting in the garage.

I remember watching TV with my older brothers in my parents' sitting room in the afternoons before my folks came home from work and then rushing to turn it off and get out of there when we heard their cars pull into the driveway.

I remember BBQing and swimming and my dad's delicious homemade chocolate walnut ice cream on the 4th of July. I remember the sound of the ice cream maker as it churned away outside the backdoor and the way the mortor groaned when the ice cream was almost ready.

I remember our yellow kitchen, bright and warm and cheerfully inviting, a fireplace and breakfast room with fireplace adjoining. I remember my mom there working her cooking magic. I remember helping her prepare huge Thanksgiving and Christmas meals. I remember getting all dressed up for dinner and eating on the good china in the dining room. I remember doing the piles and piles of dishes afterwards with all my brothers and sister.

I remember watching my oldest brother proposing to his financee as she sat in the kitchen with all of us standing around waiting to see her reaction. (We knew she'd say yes.)

I remember my mom catching us as we walked through the kitchen and two-stepping with us.

I remember my dad deciding to turn our back patio into a pool when I was in 3rd grade. I remember my mom coming to get me from school so we could watch as a giant crane lifted the pool off the semi-truck that had brought it to our town and up over our house, placing it into the hole that had been dug to hole it. I remember playing Marco-Polo and other fun pool games with my siblings.

I remember sitting by the pool after dark in a lawn chair beside my dad as he taught me the constellations.

I remember talking with my mom in the evening as she watered her roses and honeysuckle. The sweet smell of both filling the air.

I remember watching mom walk to the end of our yard, slip off her shoe and then punt a football WAY down the street to my waiting brothers. I was so impressed.

I remember my parents standing together at the front window waving goodbye to me every time I left to go back to college and then later to Pastormac & me (and then us and our kids) each time it was time for us to leave.

I could go on and on but I think I might cry. So I'll stop here.

May our home now be a place of many many warm and happy memories for our children.