My Best Childhood Memory -- Me and Dad

It's Friday and another Marketing For Romance Writers blog challenge. This is week 21 of the 52-week challenge.  Want more information about this venture? Click here.

This week's topic--"A Childhood Memory."

My earliest memory is of me as a four-year-old and my dad.  That year, my mom worked at a summer camp run by a church. If fact, like the camp kids, she stayed there. So at home, it was me and dad until he went to work and then it was me and my aunt, his sister.

In the mornings, he cooked breakfast and we ate together. Sometimes he'd let me watch Bozo the Clown (I'm dating myself) while he braided my hair and got me ready to walk me to my aunt's house before leaving for work. When he returned home in the evenings, he would pick me up from my aunt's house and we'd go home. He would cook dinner. Again, we'd eat together, watched television and talked about our day. Then he'd get me ready for bed. I had him all to myself. Can you tell I was a daddy's girl?

On the weekends, we went to visit mom at the camp. Back in the day, before seat belts, I would stand on the front bench seat in the car with both my little arms hooked behind the backrest, talk to dad and point out cows and horses in pastures and other cars we passed as we whizzed down the highway.

At the camp, we'd hug mom really tight. I missed her and wished she was home, but we got to spend the entire weekend with her. I remember looking at all those kids running around laughing and screaming and I thought, I got to see my dad every day and my mom every weekend while they had to wait until the summer was over to see their parents.

That's about as much as I remembered myself. I had to get a little help from my mom.  What about you. What is your fondest childhood memory? Tell me in the comment and don't forget to cruise by the other author blogs.

Update/Mother's Day

It's been some time since I blogged. I had been assisting my mom in caring for my dad and brother. My mom is a woman of strength, fortitude, nurturing, compassion, patience...all the things mentioned in the side photo. She cared for my brother until he lost his battle and went to live with God. So, I thought I would repost a Mother's Day post I wrote in 2010. Here it is:

Just a few thoughts on Mother's Day. For most of us, when we were young, Mom was the single most important person in our lives. Let's face it, she knows everything there is to know about us. She let us have space in her body for a little over nine months, feeding us, nurturing us, keeping us warm and didn't even charge rent!...Wow, who else would do that?

Mom was the first person to see us naked...think about it. The first person to witness us drooling, eating and drinking like a pig, throwing up, smelling like urine and lighting up a room when we "break wind", having bowel movements and also when we have temper tantrums. All the really embarrassing stuff. Here's the kicker...she still loves us for it.

She was there when we took our first steps and picked us up when we fell. She fought all of our battles until we could fight our own. She helped us celebrate our first victories. Our very own cheer squad and fan club rolled into one. She was the first person we told our secrets to...and she kept them!

With all of that, she was also the first to set us straight when we got out of line--our judge, jury and excecutor of punishments. Sometimes we got off light and sometimes we couldn't sit comfortably for a few days. Some of us would say, "Wait until I grow up. I won't treat my children this way!" But one day we wake up, put our hands to our mouths and say "I've become my mother!" Our punishments were executed with love and the knowledge that this would help us become well adjusted people, following in Mom's footsteps to be good parents.

So whether our moms have left this plain of existence for a better one or still here to give us love and advice, let's remember:

The time we ate all of the jelly, denied it and everyone got punished, or...
The time we came in after curfew and was grounded for a week, or...
The time we ran that touchdown and we could hear mom screaming the loudest from the sidelines, or...
We won an award and could hear mom clapping, screaming, "That's my child!" and...

Thank heaven we were given the best moms in the entire world.

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY, Mom. I love you!