Childhood memories - Fact or Fiction

This morning began like most mornings do in our home. One of our girls up around 7am to be shortly followed by the other one waking up. Then breakfast and a cartoon (or a "Lainey Show") which right now has been The Backyardigans because I actually enjoy watching it too. After breakfast Lainey joins me in the bathroom as I do my hair and put on my make up. She wants to do everything I am doing. She needs her face lotion, her deodorant, her perfume, her hairbrush, her mascara, and on and on. All is pretend for the most part, except I do blow dry her hair with a round brush most days. I do use a thickening serum on her and hairspray after. I'm a hairstylist so I have the product and a willing canvas. Don't worry we are no where close to toddlers and tiara's, I promise!

Lainey was saying the words "bubbles" and "pink" as she pointed to a bottle of nail polish on the bathroom counter. I realized she was remembering her birthday which was over a month ago when we sat outside and painted her toenails and blew bubbles together. I was so fascinated and amazed by her little two year-old memory.

I got to thinking about my childhood memories and which ones have remained in tact without exaggeration and which have been blown out of proportion. Like the ridiculously steep hill my parents pushed me down on my bike to help me learn how to ride. Somehow, over the years, that hill had shrunk to barely an incline when I went back for a visit to the old neighborhood. Or how my pet lamb that I had at age nine was crying out for meat six in the morning to come to her because she was lonely . (yep, Kelli had a little lamb and it's fleece was cut in the same shape that my hair was. Insert "reason I became a hair stylist" here)  The neighbors did not understand her morning loneliness and strongly urged my folks to return her to the farm from wince she came. I have been assured she truly went back to a farm and not to the "special farm" where sick and/or old pets go.

One childhood memory was recently triggered as I was preparing for Lainey's second birthday party. We did an Elmo/Sesame Street themed party. I got a wild hair and decided to decorate her an Elmo cake, which turned out pretty good for my first solo cake decorating trial.

I had sent a picture of the finished cake to my dad to show him my handy work. His reply was, "Don't enter it into a cake contest, cause you know they'll think you cheated!" His response could not have been more perfect! My dad harbors the same bitterness I still do about a father/daughter cake contest we were a part of when I was in elementary school. We had made a cake of a panda bear sitting on a bed of grass. It was truly amazing! We had dyed coconut with green food coloring to be grass on the sheet cake. We then sat the seated panda bear on top (which we baked using a bear cake mold) and decorated it like a panda in black and white frosting using a star tip to get the fur like texture, just like the Elmo cake above. Our spectacular cake didn't place at all. We didn't even get an honorable mention ribbon and our cake was far superior to most of the others that were brought in! I remember being so upset because even my cousin and uncle got a ribbon that night for cake I deemed less than worthy and we got nothing! Come to find out the judges thought we cheated so didn't award our cake any sort of prize. 

Although the bitterness lives on, that is one of my favorite memories with my dad. Being up late covered in frosting and coconut doing row after row of frosting stars. 

I am curious to see what memories my girls will hold on to. What ones get exaggerated, and what ones we will remember with the exact same details. Will Lainey remember our mornings in the bathroom together? She may not, but that is what pictures are for. To possibly embarrass and hopefully trigger fun memories in the future! 

Not too bad for applying in a hurry and with out a mirror!