2 or 3 y/o: I had a toy gnome at the time. one day, I peed my pants. (sounds completely unrelated right?) when my mom asked me "who peed their pants?", I blamed it on the gnome.

7 y/o: in my 1st grade class photo, I'm "smiling" with my mouth open as wide as it can possibly go, because I was trying to emulate the :D smile I saw in shows such as Pokemon. I have no clue why my teachers didn't stop me.

10 y/o: my 1st ever crush was Gary Oak. my 2nd crush was Syaoran from Card Captor Sakura. I had it *bad* for him. I was seriously, *seriously* lovesick, & in distress that he wasn't real. I dreamed about him nearly every night, & thought about him *constantly*.

12 y/o: the 7th + 8th grade classes had a sticker chart where each of us would put 1 sticker on it for every book we read, and once we got to 100 books collectively, we'd get some sort of party. I was quickly banned from putting up any more stickers b/c I was carrying the class.

11 y/o: my aunt had a baby girl who she named Erica. in the months leading up to the birth, I was trying very hard to convince her to spell it Erika (after the grass-type Pokemon gym leader) and was extremely upset when she chose not to.

13 y/o: my class put on a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, where I was Puck. without meaning to, I quickly memorized the entire play line-for-line. and so when the day came & 2 kids called in sick, I played 3 roles: Puck, Titania (fairy queen), & Hippolyta (Amazon queen).

6 y/o: my mom had me go to bed crazy early, so in the summers I'd be laying in bed as the sun was setting, listening to my friends laughing & playing outside, AC gently humming. this gave me a Pavlovian response of painful melancholy to the AC sound that I only recently broke.

10? y/o: at some point I started regularly dissociating during school due to a bully teacher. in the "happy place" I always escaped to I was sitting under a big tree at the top of a big, grassy hill on a breezy sunny day, and as far as my eye could see there were just more hills.

11 y/o: we had to do a report on an animal for school & I picked the stoat. in addition to writing a report, I made a papier-mâché model of it then cut it in half across the belly & glued a slinky between the 2 halves (got the idea from the slinky dog in Toy Story). I was proud.

9 y/o: some friends and I gathered some of our unneeded trinkets/toys to do a yard sale together. I ended up pocketing this one girl's cool-looking lenticular Pokemon card thing while nobody was looking. she never found out. sorry Rachel.

9 y/o: I made a guild on Neopets called "Rainbow Pride". I had NO IDEA the connection either of these words had to gay rights. I just thought rainbows were cool & pretty & that people shouldn't be made fun of for liking them (?????). my mom died laughing when I explained this

10 y/o:

---
RT @pareinoia
when I was 10 I "fell" in "love" with a boy I met on Neopets simply because he was the first boy I encountered who used emoticons like :3, xD, ^^ as well as proper grammar & spelling. I thought only girls did that & figured I caught myself a rare specimen I needed to hold on to
https://twitter.com/pareinoia/status/1348855297733918721

8 or 9 y/o: one night my mom brought home sushi after working late. I was dancing around outside, waving the chopsticks around like wands. my sandals were unbuckled & so I tripped & fell & got a gash on my elbow that still has a scar. was still happy due to sushi though.

12 y/o: I convinced my mom to let me leave our computer on for 2 days and 2 nights in order to download the 700mb Ragnarok Online client (I hadn't heard of download managers at that point). honestly I'm surprised it worked and that the connection didn't break at any point.

11 y/o: mom & I visited my aunt in the hospital after she gave birth. it was the first time I saw a newborn up close. she was bright red like a lobster, & kept her eyes tightly shut — we kept trying to catch the fleeting moments when she'd open her eyes to see her eye color

6 y/o: on the first morning of 1st grade, when I was sitting waiting for class to start, instead of talking to kids & making friends, I was looking around & imagining how the room would look underwater. the pretty colors, how different objects would be floating, the bubbles, etc

12 y/o: I got scarlet fever & ended up staying home from school for like a month straight. I watched Spirited Away a *lot* of times in that month. my mom always stressed the idea of recovering from illness fully before turning to work or school, which I really appreciated

6 y/o: mom took me to Disney. we went on Space Mountain. I'd never been on a rollercoaster before. I eagerly volunteered to sit at the very front. I deeply regretted it & kept my eyes closed most of the time. been terrified of rollercoasters ever since.

13 y/o: friends got me to go on another coaster, Batman & Robin: The Chiller. at the front of the line, group in front of us zoomed off & left an afterimage b/c of how fast they went. I felt sick. when we went, it was over in what felt like 15 seconds. the worst 15 seconds ever.

13 y/o: in 7th + 8th grade, we'd cook a Thanksgiving feast together as a class (had a kitchen in our classroom. long story). it was so cozy & lovely. puttering around making stuffing, cornbread, turkey, etc, then eating it all together as a group & being thankful for each other.

12 y/o: a few of us had taken high school placement exams & the results were in. principal called us one by one over the PA to come to his office & get the results. my heart was pounding & I was dizzy the whole walk over. & got into the high school of my choice. amazing day

6 to 11ish y/o: my mom left for work early in the morning, so my grandpa would ride the bus with me to school each day. he never trusted that my mom properly fed me breakfast, so he'd always bring me food, usually a sandwich w/ butter & bologna and an apple.

6 y/o: I took ballet classes for a while, but once my growth spurts started, my legs hurt so bad I could barely sleep at night (would cry myself to sleep a *lot* during this time), let alone do ballet, so I quit.

12 y/o: at sleepaway camp, the girls were helping set up for a dance later that night. one of the girls laid down on the grass face down & started thrusting her hips. we laughed & asked "getting ready for tonight?" but she didn't react. then we realized she was having a seizure.

8 y/o: I plagiarized the entirety of Goodnight Moon for some sort of thing at school (talent show maybe?). nobody ever found out. I have no idea why I did that.

8 y/o: overheard kids in my class talking about Digimon & Yu-Gi-Oh. got mad when they didn't even know what anime was & that those shows came from Japan. like *really* mad that they seemed to think those were American shows & weren't giving credit where credit is due.

9 y/o: speaking of Digimon, I spent a *lot* of time fantasizing about being like ~the Eighth Child~ Kari and being swooped up into a magical adventure one day.

5 or 6 y/o: as an only child, I fantasized about having a cool older brother to protect me, care for me, and of course tease me / bully me a bit. when I closed my eyes to go to sleep at night, I imagined him soaring through the air like Superman with me sitting on his back.

7 y/o: when I was little, "lanyard" meant those colorful plastic woven things we'd all make. I was obsessed w/ them and had several that I treated as "dolls". laying in bed at night, I'd play out little puppet shows using them, on a small ledge on the wall next to my bed.

11 y/o: the 6th/7th/8th grades would have a "current events" hour every Wednesday morning. each of us brought 3 articles to share: 1 local, 1 national, 1 international. we sat around a big table, ate bagels w/ cream cheese & drank hot cocoa, and discussed these articles.

10 or 11 y/o: we'd often play dodgeball in the yard during recess. I was terrible at throwing, but amazing at dodging. one time I was the only one left on my team, and then the game dragged on 'til recess was over b/c I kept dodging each throw (but not getting anyone out myself).

9 or 10 y/o: for a while, the man in the ice cream truck that drove down our block would give me & my friends free ice cream every day in the summer. at some point I think someone tattled on him or something because there were rumors he was fired (or just had a route change).

8 or 9 y/o: mom and I went to the Poconos for the summer. to keep me occupied, my mom sent me to a Christian kids' day camp in the area, though we're Jewish. all I remember is a scavenger hunt in a sandbox, finding some kind of rubber Jesus and then... chewing on it later.

8 or 9 y/o: same Poconos trip, my mom would take me on long walks in the woods and drill me on memorization skills. she had me memorize increasingly longer strings of numbers, as well as poems, and recite them back to her. this was honestly so much fun and so soothing.

12 y/o: going on an overnight school trip, crammed into a van with a bunch of classmates. at one point I raised my arm for some reason, & the girl next to me looked at me and went "ewww, you've got a jungle under there!" after the trip, I asked my mom if I could start shaving.

6 to 8 y/o: in 1st/2nd/3rd grade we had "snack time", where 2 kids at a time would be called over to a table where they could eat the snack of the day (choc chip/oatmeal/sugar cookies, or pretzel rods) and drink the drink of the day (fruit punch, lemonade, or iced tea).

6 to 13 y/o: the Scholastic book fairs were my *absolute* favorite time of the year. I was ecstatic about both carefully reading through the catalog beforehand, and wandering around the fair itself. it filled me with an energy that wasn't matched by anything else, not even close.

alright, that's 58 stories for 58 likes. 🥵 gonna round it out with 2 more to make it 60 and then call it done. 💖