Six to Ten

And now we are six...Oh Winnie the Pooh.
1989- Six years old We move back to Charlotte, NC. Another house at the end of a cul-de-sac. When we move in Wendy and I get my aunt's old bedroom furniture, complete with a canopy bed that my friend eventually breaks by swinging on it. It is white, and princess-y. Our pillows are lacy and peach colored. We have a peach colored canopy and dust ruffle too. We have white ruffled curtains at the windows. This beauty is almost too much for my sister and I to bear. But, we have to share the bed. Wendy rolls around in the bed until she is pressed up against me and I can't sleep with her hot little limbs and rhythmic breathing on my neck. I start wondering if a chainsaw could cut through a bed, giving us each our own.

My mother comes upstairs one afternoon to find Wendy and I playing tea with a makeshift tea set. Books are used as plates, batteries from various toys are teacups. She buys us a real set.

On my side of the bed I set up a 'nursery' for my babydoll Megan. Every night I put her to bed and every morning I wake her up to feed her plastic bottles that make the milk magically disappear. I can still smell that distinctive powdery smell of plastic Megan. Wendy has a doll baby named Rachel that is similar to Megan, but instead of having lifelike eyes that open and close Wendy's doll has eyes that are scrunched close. To make her mad I constantly refer to her baby as 'Blind Rachel'. As in, 'Wendy, did you leave Blind Rachel on the floor again! I'd never do that with Megan. You must be a bad mother!'

The next door neighbors have two children, a girl, Jennifer, a year older than me, and a boy, Christopher, who is Wendy's age. We spend all of our time in the playhouse my dad put together in the backyard, or making up clubs in our room. When a hurricane hits we spend all of the next morning prancing around the neighborhood in Jennifer's dance tutus while the adults clean up broken branches and shingles.

Jennifer is in second grade at the local elementary school. My mom home schools me. I am so jealous of Jennifer's obvious coolness, and the fact that she gets to ride the school bus, that I decide I want to go too. One morning I wake up early, put all of the books I know how to read into a little purse that will be my backpack and go into the bathroom to take a shower, like I've seen my parents do in the morning. My parents wake up when they hear the water running and find me trying to figure out how to make it hot. They decide it is time for me to go to public school and I start soon after. The second day I discover I hate public school and want to be back safely home.

1990-Seven I might be wrong about this, but from what I can remember it was around the time of the Gulf War. I remember being afraid my dad would be drafted. Somehow I knew that had happened in previous wars, but I didn't understand that it wouldn't happen in this one. I was seven and I understood what a draft was! How did I know that?

I had a birthday party, the only home video my family owns, since we never had a camcorder. My friend's father videotaped it and this video has gone down in Byrd history. To this day my friend the Pea occasionally breaks out into a Southern accent and quotes me.
Let me explain the awesomeness of this video. I am turning seven, sitting in the middle of the living room with presents and friends all around me. I open a present and get very excited. My mother sticks her head into the the room: 'What did you get, Meredith?' she asks. I hold it up proudly and say...'It's saidwaulk chaulk!'
Later on we have an obstacle course designed by my parents, consisting of filling up an aquarium with water at the bottom of a little hill, while wearing my dad's giant sneakers, and crawling through things until eventually reaching the slip 'n slide at the bottom. Julia, who is two, doesn't understand the taking turns concept, so she decides she's going to fill it up whenever she damn well pleases. I have to wrestle the cup away from her to take my turn. Wendy, ever the supportive cheerleader, is jumping up and down like she's desperate to pee, squealing 'Go Meredith! Go Meredith!'

1991-Eight years We move to Montreat, NC, near Asheville. I begin the third grade. There is an apple orchard across the street from us and we make apple pies as the leaves change. I still remember the crisp sweet smell of those apples in the cool dusky mountain air.
We play in creeks in the spring, imagining the dust swirling around our ankles to be dust angels, and pick raspberries and blackberries from the tangled thickets along the streams. We slide down the sides of mountains getting black dirt and leaf mulch down our pants. There is a baseball field down the hill and across the street where we meet up with friends to play baseball after school in the fall. I think I knew, even at the time that this must be the most idyllic place to grow up as a child.

1992-Nine years We are on the way home from swim practice one evening when we look up to the mountain we live on and see black plumes of smoke. There is a forest fire and they aren't letting anyone into the cove. My mother manages to get us through because my grandmother, who is 80 is still at the house. Once we arrive home my mother realizes there is no danger because the fire is a few streets up the mountain from us. We children don't understand this and in a mad panic we run into the house to gather our most precious posessions. Coming out of the house we drag giant suitcases behind us filled with our stuffed animals. We are desperate to escape the fire but my parents see no reason to leave. After dinner we drive up to the opposite side of the cove and look across the valley to see the fire burning on the mountain above our house. This sight does not comfort my siblings and I. My mother has to lie with me until I fall asleep.

1993- Ten years A couple of days before I turn ten I tell my mom I'm really relieved to be leaving nine behind me. 'It feels like a great weight off my shoulders' I tell her. We are driving in the car and she starts laughing uncontrollably.
I have my first girl-boy party, inviting all the guy friends I have, including my crush. All but one have to cancel, for various reasons. Ben, the only one not to get sick, have a Boy Scout camping trip, or something else going on, is stuck playing charades with six girls.