What were you like as a child?

[h2orowe]

I was talking to my mom tonight about how much of a little devil I was when I was a kid. Most of it, I don't remember. It's funny because, for the most part, I'm the good kid in the family. I rarely, if ever, get into trouble. I obey the rules and whatnot. I'm not too loud and I don't really talk back very much because I usually keep to myself in my house. However, when I was little, I was a hell raiser.

When I was 4 or so, we had kittens. I had actually taken in their grandmother who gave birth to their mother who gave birth to them, of course. Apparently, when I was a bit hyper, I threw one against a wall. It was fine because I didn't do it hard, but it was scary enough for my mom to freak out on me.

Another time, I had had a kitkat (I rarely had sugar-y foods when I was little) for Halloween when I was four, when I was dressed as the Hulk. My brother's friend wanted to spend the night but his father said no, so, me in my feral, candy-high state, jumped off of a hutch (Not a table, I climbed up a tall hutch) and onto his back and tried to strangle him.

I was also the only grandkid/great grandkid/kid in general that my great grandmother was tempted to spank. I was also addicted to peeing on things. I peed on my little cousin when he was in diapers and I was two or so years out of them. My other cousin was changing his diaper and I hopped on the table and pissed on his belly (I was like 3 or so when I did it, though, so, haha.), I also pissed on my dog when I was 7 or so, pissed on every plant in my old backyard, pissed on many other things, and the like.

Among that list of offenses, I also: tried to jump off second story windows, would escape from my house by either climbing the fence or sneaking under it, flash people, and apparently when I was in kindergarten, if I didn't get my way and other classmates were mean to me, I'd moon them. Needless to say, I was a little punk ass when I was younger. Somewhere along the lines, I calmed down a lot.

What were the rest of you like as children? I was misbehaving from ages 0-8 or so.

[blank slate]

Apparently I was very difficult. Especially when it came time to give me a bath and brush my teeth, I would fight them all of the way. I would also complain a lot, lol.

Although I mellowed out as I got older. After the difficulty of the first few years, I've been trouble free ever since. I guess I got it out of my system when I was a little kid. My trouble spots where much like you rowe, from about 0-8 years old.

[Stephy]

Same as I am now. Introverted, shy, very skinny, tiny, awkward, and a cry baby if told I did something bad. Was more of a tomboy though when I was younger. Climbing things all the time, (how I broke my nose and arm...) like big trees and playing hide and seek with the boys (I could outrun them all~). The older I got the more "girlie" I became and loved Barbies and Disney.

I was a good girl, but my dad says I tried to get naked all the time and run around the house and get the tub of butter out of the fridge and eat handfuls of it (ages 1-4yr). Tried the standing to pee thing when I was little, but that didn't work out so well.

I am the oldest sister, so I was sort of a bully to my younger sisters until they grew bigger than me.

[MNJetter]

According to my parents, my behavior for the most part was great. But I hated shoes and socks. I absolutely couldn't stand to have anything on my feet. I was a sleepwalker too. Until my early teens, I'd get up at night and wander around. Once I mistook my mother's laundry hamper for a toilet, but she woke me up before I could actually go. :box:

I've always been a huge bookworm. Started learning to read at 19 months old, and by 2.5 yrs, I read my first book with words. And I have a couple very early memories, at least one from when I was only 10 months old.

Some of those things have carried over. I still don't like wearing shoes in the house, though I'm kind of indifferent to wearing them outdoors. I don't sleepwalk anymore, but according to my roommates from college, I am capable of holding perfectly lucid conversations in my sleep (I don't remember them at all). I still love to read, and I pride myself on my ability to remember details, though I don't have a photographic memory.

It's interesting to see how little kids behave, too. I worked at a daycare for a couple months, in the toddler room, and I remember noticing that it was always the smart kids who were the little hellions, at least in the 18-24mo. room. They were the ones who figured out first that pushing other kids around gets you attention and more toys.

[Samurai_Pooh]

I had temper tantrums. really bad ones, where I would scream things like 'i wish i was DEAD!' if I didn't get my way. My parents were pretty worried about how I would be when I got to adolescence but I mellowed out a lot. kind of strange how that works. oftentimes you will find that friends of humanity and protectors of animals were sadists and animal torturers when they were children.

also, I was a very philosophical child apparently. I occasionally would say things in sunday school and whatnot that would stop the teacher in her tracks. When I got teased in class I would often have comebacks that the other children wouldn't understand. I don't remember any of this of course, but it was told to me by my parents.

[MNJetter]

Lucky. I think of great comebacks, but usually a day or two after the perfect moment for them. ;)

[bluestars87]

Embarrassing.

[Myrsilus]

Everyone thought I would be a prodigy or something when I was young (started reading early, high grades, offers to private schools, witty as a kitty, etc.), but I wasn't as fond of academics as I was of praise. I was also an asshole to my peers and teachers, which led to me being in detention pretty damn often. Around 3rd-4th grade, though, I mellowed out.

Outside of school, I was well-behaved and generally likable. My mother hardly ever had to discipline me. People loved me outside of school and I always got the "he's so sweet and cute" stuff. I think I just really disliked school.

I definitely don't love college, but at least it can be more tolerable than grades K-12.

Edit: Alan just reminded me of something important: I hated having to take baths for a while. I took them, but I usually put up a fight beforehand. My mother also had to pin me down many times to force-feed me cough medicine since I drank the "cherry" cough medicine more often than the comparatively delicious grape cough medicine.

[OliveButtercup]

This is a fun thread. Apparently I was an introverted baby through toddler years, shy, reserved not a crier. I'm sure I got obnoxious around age 9 though.

[MNJetter]

Instead of us telling each other how we were as kids, we should be getting our parents on the forum to write posts with our user accounts. :D

[japanat]

My mom said that I was a precocious bundle. Walked into a party with her when I was three and yelled, "OK, everybody, I'm here now! The party can begin!"

I was also a doctor's dream. I had to get stitches at least twice a year, after crashing on a skateboard, wrecking a trike, splitting my chin open slipping on a freshly-waxed hardwood floor when I jumped for a balloon. By the time I finished elementary school, I had already gotten over 75 stitches, in 14 different incidents. And it appears that my youngest is just like me.

We moved to the mountains when I was 8, and that's when I discovered the joys of reading and skiing. There was no TV reception, other than 2 fuzzy stations, so we read a lot. And I'm convinced that reading as much as I did is what helped me score so well through JHS and HS.

[SlickWilly440]

Instead of us telling each other how we were as kids, we should be getting our parents on the forum to write posts with our user accounts. :D

And after that we can start a poll to vote on who's childhood story is the most embarrassing.:clap:

[Dead Sexy Vocab]

Is there such a thing called an introverted shit-disturber? I'd be off screaming and running away from my cousin's dog all around his house, next thing you know I'd be taste-testing the kibbles n' bits. I never ate them after that.

My parents told me I have attentative problems in school, despite being able to read and write at the age of 4. Like most Filipinos, they believed in my ambitions to grow up as an astronaut or a doctor. :sarcasm:

As of now, I'm a far cry of who I was as a little kid. I'd rather sleep in (during parties as well) and listen to music (nothing like good ol' Zeppelin) than run around chasing Canadian loonies for shitting on school property.

[shinobi_kokujin]

my mom annointed my head with olive oil an attempted to exorcise me cause i crucified some lizards.

i made crosses out of popsicle sticks and thumb-tacked the lizards to them an placed it on ant hills......by the time u look at it the next morning theres just a skeleton on the cross

when me an my cousins got together.....that was a real riot... but for the most part i was a cool kid.....just had a sneaky an mischevious tendencies when adults aint around

[qwert]

I used to cry because I was afraid to go to school, but once I got back from school, I would say I had fun. In fact, I cried a lot about going anywhere, but always ended up saying I had fun after getting back. When shopping, I would try to hide from my mom and she had to call security a few times. I liked to go exploring in the woods with my friends and collect rocks. I also liked to build forts back in the woods. I loved to play with Legos and work with model kits. I once built a small gas powered RC car with my dad. So much fun because it would go so fast and the parts were very well made.

[farstrider]

I liked burning things...

[Neon Pink Shoehorn]

I was painfully shy and unable to really talk coherantly.

[MeneerDijk]

I could be a bit michivous and i liked playing with buttons...still do i guess. But i was a good kid in general..

[Black fist]

I was very quiet to about 2 when I could first hear. Then I was still quiet till about 5 or 6, very emotional back then. Didn't become really "bad" till about the 3rd or 4th grade.

[Saitou Hajime]

The details of my life are quite inconsequential.... Very well, where do I begin? My father was a relentlessly self-improving boulangerie owner from Belgium with low-grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery. My mother was a 15-year-old French prostitute named Chloe with webbed feet. My father would womanize; he would drink. He would make outrageous claims like he invented the question mark. Sometimes, he would accuse chestnuts of being lazy. The sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament... My childhood was typical: summers in Rangoon... luge lessons... In the spring, we'd make meat helmets... When I was insolent I was placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds — pretty standard, really. At the age of 12, I received my first scribe. At the age of 14, a Zoroastrian named Wilma ritualistically shaved my testicles — there really is nothing like a shorn scrotum — it's breathtaking... I suggest you try it.

[stsparky]

Really happy.

Like a regular kid in suburbia, I had lots of fun.

[D-pad]

I was pretty docile. Well behaved, quiet, large vocabulary. Started reading at 4. Had an interest in it, so by 3rd grade I had a high school reading level.
Grade school just sort of flew by at that point. Around age 12 I started doing near nothing in school. To this day I'm not a fan of busy work.

[ellie]

I was very bad when I was little. I could walk before I was nine months old, but I couldn't talk yet and didn't listen to anyone, so I was constantly running around and getting into trouble. We lived in Michigan when I was a kid, and we used to go to a lake a lot. Apparently when I was about a year old, I decided I really wanted to go into the lake...even though it was December. I kept trying to run in, and my parents had to keep pulling me back. I finally made it in, and immediately went in over my head. My grandpa had to jump in and get me. I don't remember this at all, but I am told that I was angry when I came out.

Another water story: Also when I was very small, we would go to the beach in South Carolina and Florida. I thought I could swim, even though I really could not as I was only three. So I kept running into the waves, my mother holding my arm, and would get knocked down by a wave and get water in my eyes. I never cried, but I would just get angrier and angrier.

When I was a baby, I HATED being tied down. My parents never got to use the stroller with me because I would scream the entire time I was in it. We drove from Michigan to North Carolina once, and I screamed for the whole twelve hours in the car. My mom says I never even took a nap, just continuous screaming, not even really crying, just anger. When we finally moved to NC, my mom and I flew down while my dad and my sisters drove.

When I was one, I scratched my cornea. My mom isn't sure how I did it, but she brought me to the ER and that's what the doctor determined had happened. The doctor put a patch on my eye...which I immediately pulled off. So the doctor then wrapped gauze around my whole head, hoping that would stop me from yanking it off. But I yanked that off, too! So we finally left the ER with gauze around my whole head and my hands tied up with more gauze. I looked like a tiny burn victim, and I only had a minor scratch on my cornea.

[ruaidhri]

ellie, did your mother ever tell you about the mother's curse: May you have a child JUST LIKE YOU.

Sounds like you were a real hoot. Our younger son was also a hoot. We tried the curse on him and it didn't work. His little son born last November is a beautifully quiet baby.

[h2orowe]

Speaking of swimming, I used to be a pretty damned good swimmer as a kid. I was swimming without floaties/in the deep end on my own by age 1 1/2.

[japanat]

Started reading at 4. Had an interest in it, so by 3rd grade I had a high school reading level. Good for you (no sarcasm), especially since most American high schoolers read at a 3rd grade level...

Ruaidhri, I use that curse on my kids sometimes. Turns out, my mother used to use it on me....:knockout:

[ellie]

ellie, did your mother ever tell you about the mother's curse: May you have a child JUST LIKE YOU.

Sounds like you were a real hoot. Our younger son was also a hoot. We tried the curse on him and it didn't work. His little son born last November is a beautifully quiet baby.

Yes, she has said that to me before! At least I was bad mainly when I was little, and then was pretty good as a teenager (not an angel, but not as bad as some of my friends!)

[stsparky]

I read poorly until someone put me on a machine to test my reading speed. Somehow the thing switched something on in my brain and I was a superfast reader.

I read at a 12th grade level by 3rd grade. I remain an extrovert.