Looking down on the ground at a shadow of my feet and legs as I swing on my little swing set my dad built in the backyard for my sister and I, it would remind me of Wendy from Peter Pan. It reminded me of the part in the movie when all of the kids flew to Neverland, but they all just looked like a string of shadowed body’s floating through the night sky. That image in my head sticks and I always think of that summer every time I pass a swing set or I feel the warm glow of the sun shining on my back. I remember that summer as if it was moments ago. Swinging for what seemed like hours back and forth looking down at my swinging shadow in the green grass created by me and the sun shining down.

The events that day were vived, like my dog Valentine and how she’d always run through the yard like she was chasing imaginary rabbits all day long. That dog always seemed so happy that you almost thought she was smiling whether she was stopped and panting or was sprinting through the yard. We also had another dog named Chelsea, and she knew how to hop the fence in our back yard. The two were so funny together while one was running in circles and the other always finding new ways to escape the back yard.

Then there was the kids my mom would babysit. They were all related and it was a brother and two twin sisters. They loved getting into mischief with me whether it was powdering baby powder all over the furniture one day or letting the brother cut my hair the next week. when it was really hot though, we had this small kiddy pool we kept in the back yard that we’d all play in and eat popsicles while we got sunburnt.

Although, after a while my mom stopped babysitting the family and I found a new friend that summer. His name was Brent and he lived right across the street from me. We had sold the kiddy pool by then, so our new outside toy was my dad’s water sprinklers and we loved those water sprinklers! Although he somehow would always find a way to slip and fall, so by the time he would stop crying we had to take a break from the sprinklers for the day.The end of the first day we met was so cute now that I think back to it. We were just saying goodbye in the middle of our cul de sac when he decided to give me a kiss on the cheek goodbye and after that we were friends for the rest of the summer until he had to move again.

My room is now in what we used to call the playroom which is where I said goodbye to my friend Brent. There is this little window in my room that if you are standing in the front yard right outside my house you can see. We were standing there and it was the day before my first day of preschool and he was moving. We were both excited about the next day not even thinking about how we’d never see each other again. I felt so big and proud of myself for being the first out of the two of us to start school. I was older and so naturally I had a very big head about how much I could do before he could.

School turned out to be great as long as I wasn’t getting into trouble. I was always getting into mischief, such as staying outside for recess a good amount of the school day when I was supposed to be going inside. As well as things like going to, two lunches instead of one, or when I didn’t want to go to music class I’d pretend to fall asleep during reading time. I was a happy kid for sure, I do remember that the most. I think I was pretty out going as well due to all my competitions on the playground. Things like seeing who would hang on the monkey bars the longest got to cross the whole way, were the sorts of “competitions” I was always so sure Id win and usually did.

Things I was never that outgoing about though, you could include the first time I ever got a shot, I remember the most out of all of the other shots because my mom put on my favourite movie and let me eat McDonalds in her bed. You can imagine how psyched I was when I found out this 2016 that Finding Dory was coming out. For the most part though I don’t really remember any times I didn’t enjoy being a kid. Well, except maybe the time my sister tried to convince me I was adopted.