On Being Seven Years Old

When I was seven years old I ran away from home. I was so tired of always having to fight the competition for attention. And the competition was fierce - three brothers, a big dog, a couple of cats all vying for the attention of, for all intents and purposes, a single mom. But if I ran away people would notice I was gone and boy would they be sorry. I bet they would have to call the police and everything.

I took my suitcase and packed it with the essentials - cookies I stole from the kitchen, my favorite baby doll Annie, and a pair of underpants. I put on my coat and walked out the door. 4 PM on a January afternoon in Minneapolis. Cold, icy and dark. “Bad idea, Never mind. I will just go and hide in the cleaning closet and that way I will be able to hear everyone talking about me and how worried they are,” I thought to myself.

I snuck into the closet. Not a big place, but it had an overhead light you could turn on by pulling a string. This is where all the extra rolls of paper towels, cleaning supplies, vacuum and brooms were kept. I could push things to the side and make a little nest from my coat and sit down. For the next hour I played with my doll, ate the cookies and tidied up the cleaning closet.

An hour later my mom opened up the closest and was surprised to see me. She asked what I was doing in there and I told her through my tears that I was running away and nobody even noticed I was gone.

I recently told this story to my boys as we were tooling along the vast expanse of prairie in between Rocky Mountain National Park and our next stop for the night – the Walmart in Rocky Springs, Wyoming.

Josh has asked Evan and me to tell him five small moment stories from our lives. He will be choosing one to expand upon for a writing class he is doing on line through Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth.

After I told this story Simon said, “Oh Mommy I am so sorry for the little girl Wendy. That is exactly how I feel. Nobody talks to me. Nobody plays games with me. Everybody ignores me.”

My heart is breaking. “Oh Simon, that isn’t right,” I reply and immediately feel guilty for pulling him away from other kids his age and think this is the issue that is going to get him onto a therapist couch at the ripe old age of ten.

We decide the next day will be Simon’s Day and we will all turn ourselves into 7 year olds for the day and play. Just play.

Monopoly, card games, read books, draw pictures and play imaginary games. He calls me Wendy and we make fun of his teacher Penelope Snodgrass and call her old Stuffy Pants, and Antelope Snotgrass. Evan makes fun of his teacher old Higgenbottom and we call him Professor HiggenBumBum. We make plans for how we will torment them in our next day of class. But then Simon says Mrs. Snodgrass brought him chocolate crepes for snack one day at that was nice,

For lunch we have a picnic in the City Park in Pineland Wyoming, where the city motto is, “All the civilization you need.” We pretend we are airplanes and ninjas and run around the pond. We climb on the big rocks, hold hands going double down the slides, swing up to the trees, and climb to the moon on the climbing frame.

We take an adventure walk and cross a bridge - but the bridge is blown up behind us so the only way we can get back across the river is to walk through the water. Simon’s croc floats away and Josh comes to the rescue and races through the water getting all wet but retrieves the croc!

We eat lunch on a picnic table -- Simon picks out and eats mac and cheese. We eat purple popsicles and watch each others tongues turn purple.

Then I have to go through a portal to turn myself back into a stinky old adult because I need to drive. But before we go through the portal we make a plan to meet every day to be seven. Excuse me, seven and three quarters.