Many, many things. I don’t think I’ve ran around naked quite as often as you girls when I was a toddler, but I do remember many other mischievous activities. My parents would often leave us at home for errands and felt safe about it, I guess, since I have a few siblings. Well, my brothers and I would get bored and each of us would creatively find ways to cure the condition, mostly in ways that I should definitely know better than to do by now.
One day, we spent the whole day calling different people in the phone book. We didn’t think of it as prank calling, we were just interested in exploring the world and the phone book was our way into it. It began with the idea that I could secure my brother a spot as a professional race car driver when he turned 18. I figured I’d get him a head start so I found a phone number next to a picture with a race car and checkered flag next to it. The lady on the other end sounded very confused. I suspect, today, that at the time I was really speaking to an agent of a car repair facility. We spent the whole day on the phone and ended only in the evening when we called one of my brother’s friends and her father picked up at one point. He explained to us how using the telephone is far from free and that we needed to stop calling.
Another incident makes me wonder how we are still alive. One day, we climbed on a bunch of chairs to extract different chemicals out of the top cabinets of the house and had spray wars. Very scary parenting, I know, but when my folks found out about that one, we went almost everywhere with them for quite some time.
Upon my own observations, I’ve noticed that children spend a good amount of time talking to themselves. What is called imagination and play for them would probably cause me to lose a lot of friends and put me in a mental health facility today. And temper tantrums! I pulled many as a kid and every time I hear one I want to just buckle down at my parents feet crying “I’m sorry” and plead for their forgiveness.
Fun post, Erin!
