Memories 4: Age 7 / Grade 2

Although I didn't lose my personal sense of self, grade 2 brought with it a sense of vanity.  I have thick Chinese hair, and it is bone straight, end of story, but it was the 80's and I wanted so badly to have big luxurious hair.  I didn't ask for much, and my Mom must have known how important it was to me, because she let me have a spiral perm, bangs included.  Although it was definitely cute, in no way did it look natural.  (I know, I know, I need to go to my Dad's warehouse and find some pictures)  I loved it, I felt so grown up and cool with my big curly hair.  It's amazing how young the need to "grow up" can set in.

I also remember the need to have beautiful nails in the pursuit of vanity and maturity.  Beautiful was my favourite word by the way.  I wanted long, perfectly shaped nails, but given all the time spent in the playground it was never really meant to be.  That is, until someone taught me that I could make my own "nails" by allowing blobs of white glue to dry in the bottom of my drawer at school and peeling them up and sticking on my nails when they were still tacky.  This NEVER actually worked; they never stuck, they never hardened nicely and mostly ended up making a mess all over my drawer and myself.  I was not easily deterred however, I'm pretty sure that I tried to make "nails" the entire year.

The drawers I'm referring to were actually small plastic totes in a large rectangular unit, very similar to the ones available at IKEA except there were enough bins for the entire class.  In addition to housing my nail salon, that unit beat me up one day.  I remember I was wearing an off-white coloured sweat suit (surprising given m affinity for colour) and I had just been to the pencil sharpener, I wasn't watching where I was going (as per normal) and I walked into the side of the unit jabbing my pencil right into my upper thigh.  A piece of the lead broke off in my leg (I can see the spot to this day) and it hurt so bad, but I held back the tears.  I was so embarrassed, I never told anyone the incident until I was an adult.  Fortunately my doctor assured me that given my age, the pencil wasn't really lead and that there was nothing to worry about.

Grade 2 also happened to be the year that I got to visit Disneyland.  My little brother would have been 5 and my sister, only 2.  I don't actually remember a ton, though I'm sure if I had all my pictures in front of me I would.  I remember the hotel that we stayed at, a continental breakfast with warm croissants and an afternoon swim after a long day at the park.  I remember a photo with Snow White and I remember lots of walking, laughing, pictures and hugs.  What I remember most is family.

I can't wait until the boy is old enough to truly experience Disneyland!

This is post 4/15 and is part of Mommy's Piggy Tales 
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