Journal Topic: Describe a childhood birthday.

I don’t remember any of my birthdays from my childhood clearly, so I took a brief dive into some old journals and picture albums to try and jog my memory.

I have a couple of pictures from my 2nd birthday. I do not remember this party at all, but it looks like I had a Big Bird cake and was surrounded by family. I have one picture with Grampy (my great-grandpa); another with my sister, Treva, and my cousins, Tara and Katie; and another picture with my cousins, Katie and Ryan.

The next birthday I have any record of was in 1986—my 9th birthday. I do remember this birthday vaguely. It was my first birthday in Alexandria. My cousin, Katie, came up from the Cities for my birthday party. I was so excited for her to come and visit. She probably stayed for at least a few days. We had been best friends for my entire life, but everything changed after this birthday. I don’t remember what happened exactly, but things were never the same between us after that. Two of the girls in the picture were neighbors of mine. We were marginal friends. I remember being very excited about the third friend in the picture to come to my party. Her name was Dawn Calloway, and she was a friend I’d met at school. Having a summer birthday always made it difficult to have friends come to a party, so I remember being so very excited to have a friend from school come celebrate.

In 1991, my dad took me to Valleyfair for my birthday. From what is written in my journal, it sounds like it was just him and me. Apparently, it was very busy that day, and we only got to go on 3 rides. All the same, from what I wrote, it seemed that I had great fun spending time with my dad. We had a little party later that evening with pizza from Godfather’s and I got some clothes for my gifts. I also got to go to a church dance later that night. I was probably pretty excited to go, but I wrote that it was pretty lame—I only danced with one boy, Adam Smith, who apparently was very nice.

I also found some pictures that are dated 1992, but I have a feeling that they are actually from 1991 when I celebrated my birthday in Alexandria with my mom. I was big into collecting porcelain dolls back then—especially if they had August somewhere on them. I still have some of the dolls I received that year. I think the year might be wrong because in my journal for 1992, I only mention going shopping with my mom for my birthday. It seems odd that I wouldn’t have mentioned the gifts, but I did mention a party, so perhaps the date is correct.
From reading through my journal and looking at old photos, I gather that I loved receiving clothes for my birthday—especially if I got to go shopping to pick them out, and that we usually celebrated with pizza. Today, I still love getting new clothes, but my tastes have gotten more expenseive, usually we go out for steak for dinner.