I spent Saturday hanging out with my high school friends, which was very good…I haven’t seen them all in one place since Sonya got married last summer. (interesting side note…at that time, one of them said “Erin, you have to do this next year so we can all get together again.” um. yeah.) So Jennifer had a party at her house, and we all gathered…

We had a nice time talking, catching up, reminiscing. Getting to know the friends’ babies. It struck me as noteworthy how much we are all in completely different places.

Jodi’s been married for quite a while and has three children. Janel has been married probably about as long, but hasn’t been able to get pregnant. Ginger’s been married for two years, to the guy she started dating about four months before the wedding, and has a baby. Kim, who also has a baby, is with the father but not married to him. Jennifer, our fair hostess, is sharing a house (HIS house) with the guy she’s been on and off with since we were seniors in high school.  They have two dogs.

Like me, Tracy and Vicki are single. Tracy’s been teaching in Maryland for four years and is looking to buy a town house. She moved there to be with her then-boyfriend, whom she is no longer with, but he apparently calls her every now and then to suggest that they get married. (what? head case.) Vicki just moved away from home and is doing the whole single-gal-in-her-own-apartment thing.

And me…well…you already know about me. 😉

We watched entertaining and highly embarrassing videos. Me playing a parrot in the girl scout play, for example. Seventh grade gymnastics. (Erin falling off the beam. hee.) Pee wee football cheerleading. We talked about our lives, about being 30, about where we are and where we thought we’d be…

I entertained myself by interjecting, frequently, “I’m not 30 yet!”

But seriously…it was great to reconnect like that. These are people I’ve known, for the most part, since second grade. We’ve been through a lot together, good and bad, and it’s nice to know that still means something.

(By the way, Dancing in Heaven was a huge hit….)

I learned something odd about myself this weekend. (Um, keep comments to yourselves please!)

While we were helping Brandy with her project, we were discussing what we used to do in kindergarten. I was a bit of a precocious child. I could read when I was four. I had oodles of books. I got tons of encouragement from my parents, as well as two aunts who happened to be teachers, and I watched Sesame Street and The Electric Company constantly. (Allow me a moment of wistfulness for the good old days of children’s television. None of that Barney crap. I actually learned stuff! Letters, numbers, Spanish. What Silent E does. How to make an adverb by adding “-ly.” What the ladybugs 12 brought to the ladybug picnic. 😉 Yes, folks, I learned all of this on TV….but I digress…)

“I remember that my kindergarten teacher didn’t believe that I could read,” I said to my mom.

“That’s because you pretended you couldn’t read,” my mom told me.

What? No really, what?

“I did?”

“Yes,” my mom said. “The other kids couldn’t read yet, and you didn’t want to be different. So you pretended.”

Whoa. I had no recollection of this whatsoever.

Here’s the thing that really confuses me…where on earth did I learn such behavior at five? Where did I pick up on the idea that it was bad to be different and I needed to “fit in?” Gah. No wonder middle school was so painful.

This blog entry brought to you by the letters N and Q and the number 4.

Ah, lovely rural PA. I’m back home for the holiday weekend, and have been enjoying some quality time with the fam. Today I had the joy of helping my 5-year-old cousin Brandy work on a school project. I thought the assignment was a bit, um, advanced for kindergarten. Whatever happened to naptime? cookies? coloring? Sigh…

She had to cut pictures out of magazines and create a book, about a particular topic. The assignment sheet made it sound like it had to be a STORY. As in a plot. Wha? (Remember, she’s five. And supposed to do this on her own. HA.) So it turned into a bunch of pictures with unrelated sentences written about each one. And getting her to do that was painful. As my other cousin Dani pointed out, “Five-year-olds do not have the attention span for this.” You can say that again! I must say, kindergarten teachers are very special people…

But it got done, and we all survived. 🙂

As long as I’m on the topic, here’s something that’s been on my mind lately. As I approach the ripe old age of 30, I can’t help but think about what my future holds as far as marriage/family/etc. I have never imagined my future self without kids. Someday. And adorable as she is, spending time with my little Brandy just proves to me that I am not ready for children. But…when is “someday”? Will I be ready? The idea of motherhood terrifies me. But on the other hand, the idea of not ever having a family makes me sad.

Wow. Didn’t mean to get all heavy there. Let’s find a lighter topic. Like helium! And how it makes your voice sound all munchkin-y! Discuss.