When I was a little girl in third grade we lived in Rhode Island for just nine months, just long enough for all of us kids to attend one year of school and my dad to attend the Naval War College.
We lived in military housing there, in a duplex of sorts where two three bedroom houses shared a wall and the street was filled with young families like ours. We all walked to school and my teacher's name was Mrs. Paranzino. She taught us how to stick cloves in oranges to make a delicious smelling Christmas decoration and she instilled in me a love of reading and writing. When I was in third grade I was awarded the Rhode Island Young Authors award for my brilliant story The Key That Opened Any Door. My mom and my dad attended a celebration and ceremony with me and I remember feeling pretty special about that.
My best friend on that street full of kids was Jennifer Williams. She was an only child and she thought it was pretty amazing that I had a sister AND two brothers to play with all the time (Auntie Allison wasn't born yet). I thought it was amazing that she had a quiet house with no brothers and no sisters to bug her all the time. We got along pretty great!
And since we were nine years old my mom thought we were responsible enough to go to the grocery store across the street behind our neighborhood to get her a block of cream cheese one day. By my memory, the story went something like this.
My mom gave me a five dollar bill and me and Jennifer were so excited to get to walk over to the grocery store all by ourselves! This was long before the time of cell phones or GPS tracker watches or even the good old family 1-800 number. It was just me and my friend and what felt like all the money in the world.
My mom told us to go straight into the store, buy the cream cheese and come straight home. And we did go straight into the store and we did get the cream cheese, which was probably about 80 cents. But then we saw some of those delicious Hostess cupcakes that are filled with cream and we knew we would have enough money for both, so we bought the cream cheese and the cupcakes and then we left the store. Just me and her and what still looked like a whole lot of money, plus some crumbs on our lips.
Next door to the grocery store was an arcade, and with all that money in our pocket we thought it would be okay if we slipped in and just played one or two of our favorite games. Ski ball has always been my favorite arcade game, and it was such a treat to get to play a few rounds of it with my belly full of cupcake and my pockets now empty of any sort of change for my mom. But we had the cream cheese so eventually we decided to head home to deliver it to her.
I don't know how long we were actually gone, or how worried my mom really was (I don't recall Newport, Rhode Island being an overwhelmingly busy city) but I do know that she wasn't very happy when we finally strolled in, warm cream cheese in hand, crumbs on our lips and not nearly as much money leftover as we should have had.
And of course, when she asked us where we had been and what on earth took us so long to get home, I don't think that the whole truth came out. It might have taken a few days of not getting to play with my best friend Jennifer to decide that I was going to tell the whole story.
Lately we've been talking a lot in our family about what to do when we make poor choices. Not IF, when. Because the whole point of this earthly experience is to make choices, good and bad, and learn from the consequences, good and bad. And to understand the role of the Atonement and forgiveness and God's mercy in all of it. And hopefully come away from each experience a little wiser than we were before. I'm pretty sure that my kids are making their own 'when I was a little girl' stories to share with their kids, but in the meantime, lucky for them, I've always got a plenty long queue of naughty little mommy stories that I am always happy to share!
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