Musings - Mama Kat's Workshop (1st September 2011)

Write a post about a childhood memory as if you're in that memory... from the perspective of yourself as that child.

I am eight and half. My favourite subject at school is Mathematics, I am currently taller than all my class mates, I am in love with Joey McIntyre of New Kids on the Block fame, I read ALL the time, I am precocious...

My bed time is eight thirty...

Hercule Poirot, my new favorite television show doesn't finish until nine...

I make a deal with my parents. The deal is that at nine o'clock when the show finishes and the credits are rolling up the screen, I have to run up the stairs with no chatter or messing about. I need to be in bed by five past with my eyes closed and the duvet tucked under my chin.

We shake hands, that was three weeks ago, the plan is working well.

But tonight, I am wide awake. I resent my enforced bedtime, even the extended one.

As the credits start to roll and the theme music plays I grin to myself in my armchair and close my eyes. I hear my Dad get up from the sofa when I don't do my usual jumping up act. He gently taps my shoulder but I stay really still. For effect I even pretend to snore slightly, he buys it! From her opposite side of the sofa my Mum tells him he might as well carry me up.

I stifle a giggle...

I feel him lift me and try to keep still, try and keep my eyes shut. I am not a small child, I am tall for my age but my build fits my frame. With my eyes closed I picture the journey across the living room to the bottom of the stairs. I hear my Mum follow, her slippers shuffle on the carpet.

My Dad whispers about how heavy I am, my mum says I look lovely when I am asleep.

I stifle another giggle...

We slowly make it up the stairs, it's awkward, my feet touch the wallpaper, I feel muscles strain around me. I can't believe I have got away with it. He has carried me to the top. I can't control myself any longer.

I start to giggle and open my eyes...

"Are you awake?!" He asks incredulously.
"Yup, the whole time." I am laughing now, whole heartedly. So is my Mum, she has sat down on a step half way up looking at my Dad as he tries to be all indignant.

Then he starts to giggle too because between me and my Mum the resistence to laughter is futile. I am chased into bed, kissed goodnight and told that next week... I had better make a run for it. :)

(This story, over the next 22 years, has been told many times, usually by my parents when I am trying to con my Dad into / out of something... it still amuses me but what I love most is that such a simple memory amuses them.)

:) xx

Writing as part of Mama Kat's Writing Workshop