The beginning of March signals the beginning of a number of good things: spring is approaching, bringing with it warm weather (yay for tank tops and Birkenstock sandals!); my birthday is approaching, bringing with it another exciting year to look forward to ("I am sixteen going on seventeen..."); and the end of the 3rd quarter is approaching, bringing with it the exciting thought that I only have a little over a year before I graduate (junioritis?). Needless to say, March is a good month.
As much as I am looking forward to my birthday, as it approaches I can't help but feel a little sad at the thought of my childhood growing further away. Now, that sounds awfully melodramatic, but it is kind of shocking to wake up one morning on your birthday and realize that seventeen years have gone by just like that. It's dawning on me that soon I'm going to be heading off to college and in a little over a year I'm going to be 18 (!!! legal?!!!). I'm not a little kid anymore, in fact in the "old days" I would be at the perfect age to marry and have kids of my own. Scary huh? So here's a list of a few things I'm going to miss about being a little kid.
The Woes of Aging
1. Toys - This may seem somewhat silly, but there are some days when all I want to do all days is sit down with my Barbies or American Girl Dolls and play dress up. The older I get, the less time or reason I have to do this. People often say that imaginations begin to fade as you get older (although I know some adults who have not lost even an ounce of their imagination) and that is sad because a person's imagination allows them for a time to escape into an alternate reality of their choice; to get away from bustle of day-to-day life.
2. Being Physically Tiny - I used to love getting rides on my dad's shoulders when we would go to the zoo, or curling up on my mom's lap before bed. Some people may still be tiny enough for these activities, but by the middle of your teenage years, not many. When you're tiny you can also fit into ridiculously small hiding spots for a game of hide-and-seek which makes the game much more entertaining.
3. Little Things - This may be a quirk only I have, but I have always loved miniatures of, well, anything. Whether it be tiny spoons to eat with, tiny glass figurines of animals to collect, tiny models of big structures, tiny musical instruments, tiny (living, breathing) animals, you name it. However, when you're sixteen and you ask someone if you can eat with a baby spoon, they tend to look at you strangely.
4. The Innocent Little Kid Big Eyes Puppy Face - Pretty self-explanatory. When you're little you can make a face, maybe cry a bit, and you're off the hook. This is especially the case if you have an older sibling to place the blame on (whether or not they did anything). Not so as you get older though. There's actually a thing called responsibility, and the older you get, the more of it you receive.
5. Parents Paying - When you're little and you see something you want, you ask your parents and they either buy it for you or they don't. As you get older you have to begin to decide what is worth buying and what isn't. More responsibility! ugh...
6. Napping - I had to include this one. One of the things I wish I had appreciated more as a child was napping. I used to hate naps when I was little and never wanted to take them. Oh, how I wish I could take all the naps I gave up or refused to take then, now!
Next time it'll be The Excitement of Aging.
Until then...
Peace to all and stay safe!
As much as I am looking forward to my birthday, as it approaches I can't help but feel a little sad at the thought of my childhood growing further away. Now, that sounds awfully melodramatic, but it is kind of shocking to wake up one morning on your birthday and realize that seventeen years have gone by just like that. It's dawning on me that soon I'm going to be heading off to college and in a little over a year I'm going to be 18 (!!! legal?!!!). I'm not a little kid anymore, in fact in the "old days" I would be at the perfect age to marry and have kids of my own. Scary huh? So here's a list of a few things I'm going to miss about being a little kid.
The Woes of Aging
1. Toys - This may seem somewhat silly, but there are some days when all I want to do all days is sit down with my Barbies or American Girl Dolls and play dress up. The older I get, the less time or reason I have to do this. People often say that imaginations begin to fade as you get older (although I know some adults who have not lost even an ounce of their imagination) and that is sad because a person's imagination allows them for a time to escape into an alternate reality of their choice; to get away from bustle of day-to-day life.
2. Being Physically Tiny - I used to love getting rides on my dad's shoulders when we would go to the zoo, or curling up on my mom's lap before bed. Some people may still be tiny enough for these activities, but by the middle of your teenage years, not many. When you're tiny you can also fit into ridiculously small hiding spots for a game of hide-and-seek which makes the game much more entertaining.
3. Little Things - This may be a quirk only I have, but I have always loved miniatures of, well, anything. Whether it be tiny spoons to eat with, tiny glass figurines of animals to collect, tiny models of big structures, tiny musical instruments, tiny (living, breathing) animals, you name it. However, when you're sixteen and you ask someone if you can eat with a baby spoon, they tend to look at you strangely.
4. The Innocent Little Kid Big Eyes Puppy Face - Pretty self-explanatory. When you're little you can make a face, maybe cry a bit, and you're off the hook. This is especially the case if you have an older sibling to place the blame on (whether or not they did anything). Not so as you get older though. There's actually a thing called responsibility, and the older you get, the more of it you receive.
5. Parents Paying - When you're little and you see something you want, you ask your parents and they either buy it for you or they don't. As you get older you have to begin to decide what is worth buying and what isn't. More responsibility! ugh...
6. Napping - I had to include this one. One of the things I wish I had appreciated more as a child was napping. I used to hate naps when I was little and never wanted to take them. Oh, how I wish I could take all the naps I gave up or refused to take then, now!
Next time it'll be The Excitement of Aging.
Until then...
Peace to all and stay safe!
I agree - sometimes I hate growing up; looking back, being little was so much easier. But when I was young I always wanted to be older - in retrospect being young was so much more fun. (But I still love my American girl dolls!)
ReplyDeleteI definitely miss my parents paying for my stuff. Like AgentK, I also wanted to be older. I would look up to my big sister and see all of the things she could do. Nice post and yet another great idea!
ReplyDeleteI really don't want to get old. This post made me so sad, because it basically mirrors my dreadful thoughts about growing up. I don't want to leave my house and go to college and be legal! That's too much responsibility! What if I want to sit in my room and dance to Justin Bieber?!?!?! What if I don't have time for that when I'm old!
ReplyDeleteAflksdjflkwehrlkjwer. Anyway.
I look forward to the "Joys of Aging," because I would like to see what you can come up with that could possibly compare to the loss of toys and being able to fit in the cabinet under the sink.
I definetely agree with numbers 1,5, and 6. When I happen to find a really old toy or my old Lego kit, I sometimes have a little fun, building the Lego forts and spaceships that I once built.
ReplyDeleteFor #5, I am really indecisive when buying things. "That shirt looks awesome, but $24 seems excessive. Oh the decisions!" This kind of mentality runs through my head a lot when I'm in a store or restaurant and I miss the days when everyhting was simpler and my parents ruled what I could and couldn't buy.
#6 is something I desperately need throughout the school year and even right now at this minute. School, sports, and friends are so hard to keep up with nowadays, I lack the 8 hours of sleep I used to get as a kid.
Great post. I like how you looked into the more subtler aspects of being a kid. Makes me want to reminisce about the good old days.
As always, I love your post topics. I've been struggling with the "I don't wanna grow up" syndrome lately as well, because there are definite perks to being a kid. One of my most frequent thoughts when I encounter a situation lately is, "Now, if I were 8, I wouldn't have to deal with this."
ReplyDeleteAnyway, nice job! :)
No one seems to appreciate napping when they have it. I remember that I never liked naptime because all the big kids were playing on the playground or taking Spanish, and I wanted to be like them. I always wanted to grow up when I was younger. Now, like you said, the idea of becoming an adult is actually quite scary.
ReplyDeleteGreat post. I love all your comments in parentheses.
I dunno if I completely agree with the toys thing. I think more adults play with toys than we realize. I still have my teddy bear and my stuffed tiger Lance on my bed and I play with them all the time with absolutely no embarrassment. Maybe I'm just weird, but there are adults who still play toy airplanes and Play-Doh. It's all good fun so you should feel free to make your barbies dance to "Bad Romance" or dress up your American Girl Dolls if you want to. Why Not!?!
ReplyDeleteI'm already 18 and it's not as amazing as I had expected. I never use my driver's license and watching rated R movies...well, I could have snuck in when I was 15. This post reminds me that I should look around and smell the flowers instead of constantly engaging in an upward spiral.
ReplyDeleteYou'd be impressed at the amount of playing you can get away with if your toy of choice is Legos (Lego bricks if you care about the nomenclature). Just build really complicated things out of them instead of playing with them (Though, Lego seems to be abandoning its building aspect, compare Ben 10 or Hero Factory to Bionicle or Technic for the most egregious example)
ReplyDeleteI generally agree on the others, especially #2.
I find that I don't really miss objects or actions from my childhood, but rather my daily life as a child. I often find myself wishing that I could go back to being completely entranced by a pond, for example, and never feel the obligation to get up and go do anything else until I had fully exhausted my interest. I guess everyone misses something different :)
ReplyDelete