When I was 5

I told you I had some stories to tell. This is one of the first memories I have.

When I was 5 or so, and we lived in Azusa, California, I had these friends who lived down the street, and may have been in the same grade as me - kindergarten. Eric was the boy and Kimberly was his neighbor. We all had these pedal cars - a firetruck, a coupe, and another one, I have a picture - well, it's one of the ones my Mom has and will send me. We'd play pretend - we had these tea parties in the backyard at Eric's. The grass wasn't really grass, but dichondra and we were allowed to play on it, even though it was pretty and too nice for kids (my Dad thought). Eric's mom would make us tea and put milk and honey in it (she was from Sweden?). We drank the tea out of these little balancing tea and saucer toys of Eric's. You'd stack the saucer on top of the tea cup and then stack a tea cup on top of the saucer, until you stacked all four sets. Each set was a different color, red, green, blue and yellow. We also made forts in the living room out of folding lawn chairs, the kind that folded in thirds. They made the BEST forts. That was a great place to play and that is pieces of a year of memories.

Blanca - that was Eric's mom's name. She took pictures and she wanted to take pictures of me once, to give to my mom. I had gotten home from school and changed into my play clothes (1970's and we had school clothes and play clothes), and I left my house without using the bathroom so I wouldn't miss a second of playtime. Blanca caught me in the driveway, and asked me to stand in her tulip garden so she could take some nice pictures of me. I was too embarrassed to tell her I had to pee, so I stood in the tulip bed, both hands in my crotch, smiling as best as I could under the circumstances. My Mom still has that picture, and if I post it you'll see a 5 year old kid, looking sweet but uncomfortable, like she needs to be somewhere else. And I did. I am pretty sure I wasn't able to hold it until I got to her bathroom and I was very embarrassed.