Reliving Childhood Memories

Instead of reading to him at bedtime, lately my five-year-old son has been asking me to tell him stories about when I was little. Preferably, really silly stories that make him laugh until he's hiccuping too badly to fall asleep.

Many of my tales are about me and my little sister, Julie. My family moved a lot when we were little, so Julie and I often served as each other's best friend as well as sisters. When we shared a bedroom, we would get in trouble for staying up too late talking, so we devised this complicated system of patting our hands against the pillow to talk. One pat meant "are you still awake?" Two pats was "yes." Three pats was "no" (haha). We went all the way up to about fifteen pats. I can't remember what they all were but we "chatted" at night by patting the pillow for YEARS and my parents were none the wiser! :)

My son loved the story about the time I decided to play a joke on my mom on our way home from the park. She was pushing my sister in a stroller, and I ran ahead to the house. Instead of waiting for her on the front porch, I decided to go around back and crawl in through the doggy door. How hilarious would it be when my mom got home and found me already in the house?! It might have been funny (for me at least) had I not gotten stuck in the doggy door. My poor mom ran all the way home, pushing a stroller, completely panicked when she didn't find me waiting for her at the house.

I don't know how long it took her to find me, still stuck halfway through the doggy door, but by that time both of us were crying, and no one thought it was funny. I was five. As the mother of a five-year-old now, I can only imagine how terrified my poor mom was when she couldn't find me!

But my son's favorite of all my childhood stories is from the summer I was eleven. My best friend at the time, a girl named Annie, lived right up the street, and we were at each other's houses all summer long. So often that one night I got up in the middle of the night and sleepwalked out of my house, across the street, and most of the way to Annie's house. Luckily, my mom was still up and heard the front door open. She caught up to me and brought me home. To my knowledge this is the only time I've ever sleepwalked. Annie and I laughed about it for the rest of the summer, what would have happened if I'd rung her doorbell at midnight and asked "Can Annie play?"

What about you? What are some of your funniest childhood memories? If you have kids, do you enjoy telling them stories about when you were little?

Rachel Lacey writes contemporary romance that tugs at your heartstrings. Her debut, Unleashed, will be out this October. She blogs on this site on rotation with the other Ever After Foxes. You can find her online at www.rachellacey.com, or connect with her on Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest.