Growing Up

The real chapter 2! The daycare and Merritt

The daycare was an amazing place. I loved it there just as much as I loved it at my grandma's house. So when I started the daycare, I was six weeks old and I would be there basically from 06:00 until like 17:00 at night, Monday through Friday. Everyday, until I was 5 years old.

When I would get there in the morning, I would watch things like Nightmare Before Christmas, (I guess that was my go to movie. 😂 They like to mention that a lot.)

But so I would watch that or watch Sandlot, Puff the Magic Dragon (Papa's favorites) or the Secret Garden. (Toni's favorite) I'd watch various things like that in the morning. As I got older, more kids would come and watch their go to movies and I would eventually start helping out and getting their breakfasts ready. Different kids came at different times, so all breakfasts were different, but were mainly like cereal. And Papa would always make his famous chocolate milk. And the kids would crazy over it! Most times kids would watch various shows like Teletubbies, Barney, Mary Kate and Ashley movies (ok that was actually my go tos when they'd let me pick 😂 they said I resembled them, too.)

After breakfast and watching the morning movies/shows while everyone got there... tv would go off. This was the time EVERYONE had to play. That included me. 🙄 But it was ok if Merritt was there. He always had great games we could play together. Like magicians, cars, house, being different character from shows, like speed racer (our favorite). Or Dragonaball... But as he got older he would go be with his friends more and I would be playing with the kids. I won't lie, I would be like "do I have to?" But honestly I'm glad we did. We would play hide and seek, play with the cars, make houses so big we could play inside them. 😆 But we didn't spend too much time inside. If it wasn't yucky out, we'd be going to the park (and I would be helping push strollers, helping make sure everyone as buckled, helping change diapers and go inside to the diaper changing station...) I would clean tables, but my favorite part would be when we could go swimming in their pool! Most afternoons, during "nap time" I could either watch what I wanted, go in the pool with Merritt, go to the pond with him and his friends, or go bike riding. Nap time, was my favorite! I would either draw, do those things mentioned above, or I actually would sleep. That was pretty rare, actually. Sometimes, I would even watch soap operas with Toni. She would watch guiding light, as the world turns, and Idr the rest 😂. But I got invested, and as Merritt got older and stopped coming, I would eventually have to take the other older kids swimming. See I had taken swimming lessons from 5 on, and made it to lifeguard. So I was the go to swimmer for this... so I guess, it made sense, but the soap operas were so interesting! I had to know what would happen next! The prince came back and now he's dead?! What Edmund the brother was a traitor?! What?! And his brother the prince is now back to life?! Wtf!? They were with the same girl?!  See what I mean? They didn't have anime during those hours, I mean they had stuff like hey Arnold, rocket power and some of my other favorite shows, but let's be honest, I was already recording that and emeril lagosse at home. 😆 Bam! Bam! Don't judge me... >.> 😂 Anyway... I mean they would pay me for all of this and helping out, don't get me wrong. I'll never forget the day they gave me a my first $100 bill, you should have seen my eyes pop out of head! (Opposed to the normal $20/week I'd get) it was one of the best days of my life! 😂 for real!

When I was there I would spend a lot of time with their grandson,Merritt, the most. He became one of my best friends. He was like my big brother and just all around, We had a great time together. We would go swimming, we'd go for walks, go for bike rides, like, while the kids were napping. And I would go to, like, outdoor movies with them on weekends. I would go have play dates and sleepovers over there. Merritt was one of my best friends, hands down! We were inseparable for awhile, too. They became like my second family over there and a lot of my time was spent there as a kid.

I'm gonna talk more about Merritt. So, Merritt he was...He was very competitive, but who am I kidding, so was I! 😂 Me and him would fight over, like everything! Stuff like could eat their lunches the fastest. Who could run faster. Who could use their bikes faster. You name it, we made a game out of it. Wherever We'd go, we basically make a game out of everything! And if we weren't doing that, we would be playing things like House. I won't lie. This one time when you're playing House was, like, five years old, I wanna say? And I had like this weird feeling, like we had done this before. I was holding a baby doll. And he was getting the food ready in the little house, and it felt all so familiar! It was almost like I had done this shit with him before.