A Magical Childhood

It's funny because although I had divorced parents growing up (which was challenging) I wouldn't change a thing about my childhood. I mean...without the divorce I would have never had my fantastic step parents or ANY of my siblings. I couldn't imagine my life without Sumara and Akira who made being a kid SO MUCH FUN! They were my side kicks....we were the Three Musketeers....we did just about everything together and we had some pretty great adventures as city kids in Sacramento,California. So many things we explored...like the sewer tunnels and under the freeway bridges and my personal favorite....The Back Yards and Neighbors Yards we would turn into Secret Gardens behind the trees and bushes! My sister and I would make sour grass spagetti (YUM!) and Mud pies. We would stay outside in the extreme summer heats until evening when we would return home with dirt and sun streaked faces ready for our cool baths and bedtime stories our Mother would ALWAYS read us! Life was good.

It never seemed to bother us that our parents had to both work all day and we were home alone. We never felt alone because we had eachother. Nor did we have the slightest cares about money being tight or bills not getting paid....we never worried about it because somehow my parents always managed to keep our tummies full and our minds preoccupied with all the fairytales my Mom told us! She had the ability to take any ordinary thing and make it magical.

I remember on my 5th Birthday we were living in an apartment in Santa Ana and my Mom was pregnant with my sister Sumara. We had very little money and we went outside and picked roses from our neighbors garden and I was wearing a pretty white dress I had worn as a flower girl in my Auntie's wedding. I was pretending to be a princess in the garden and my Mom totally got into it with me. She put flowers in my hair and she... started singing "And...he walked with me and he talked with me....Once upon a dream...." from the fairytale sleeping beauty! When we went home she decorated a simply homemade white cake with all the pretty flowers! It was so beautiful! I don't remember the few friends that came or if I got a gift...all I remember was twirling around in my princess dress to My Mom singing...and that magical birthday cake she made me.

I also remember one night when my brother Akira who was only like 3 crawling up into her lap with the book the Frog prince and she would make all the characters voices in different pitches. It was great! My brother would laugh everytime she talked like the frog! Yep even though times were hard for my parents financially and in everyway as an adult....they made a very secure, loving and magical life for a child. It just proves that prior to x boxes, PSP's, ipods, cell phones, texting, laptops and the internet....life as a kid wasn't boring or deprived. We had everything we needed with just our imaginations and our Mother.

~Tiffany