I often find myself telling stories to my kids about my childhood, which always end with the saying, “But, don’t you ever do that.” Looking back, I don’t know how I made it to adulthood relatively unscathed.

Back in the day, we sure had a lot of fun. It seems to me, way more fun than our kids have these days. But, truth be known, I’m lucky to be alive.

There were the climbing races to the top of my neighbor’s maple tree…a good two-and-a-half-stories high. The perilous jump between a 2nd story roof to a bedroom window, which had nothing below it but ground. And, the one time in early Spring when my cousin and I tried to stand on floating blocks of ice that were breaking apart on the river. We were holding onto a railing near a boat pier, but the freezing water was deep enough to go over our heads. Brilliant.

We climbed high upon the steel beams at a construction site, and rode all over town–without helmets–on the handlebars of each other’s bikes. All while someone else was hitching a ride on the back of the “banana seat”.

We swung across a ravine on the end of a warped vine, and spent afternoons walking across the moss-covered tops of low-level dams. We dove into a quarry, rode our bikes on very busy streets, and never wore seat belts.

But, my personal favorite has to be our creation of “storm forts”, where we would sit outside with golf umbrellas fashioned into a stronghold against the wind and rain. I’m not sure where our parents were, as we sat there just asking for a bolt of lightening to hit us and our AM/FM radios.

I can not believe how downright stupid we were. Completely oblivious to the chances we were taking, and abundantly lucky that we weren’t hurt beyond a few scratches and dents. So, I tell those tales to my children with caution…and I TRY not to make it sound like it was a TON of fun.

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My Mother-in-Law was here for a visit yesterday.

She was working on a crossword puzzle in the other room, when my daughter ran into the kitchen and asked me, “Mom, do you know an eight-letter word for ‘Driving up the wall’? I told Grandma you would know, because you always say we’re driving you up the wall.”

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As my son was scraping a dismantled high-chair across the floor, I said, “Stop that! Dad told you not to do that. It’s scratching the floor”.

He stopped and looked at me for a second, then moved it forward a little.

I raised my voice and said, “Hey! Stop doing that! Didn’t you hear me? Dad told you this morning not to do that anymore!”

He stopped again and said, “I CAN do it.”

I said, “Uh…no, you can’t. You’re not allowed. Dad said so.”

Then, with an irritated look and annoyance in his voice, he turned to me and said, “But Mom… Dad’s at work”.

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