Bedtime Rituals...

Being the middle child, I always had to share a room while growing up. Or maybe a better way of putting it is that I always GOT to share a room. First with Carol, who then got her own when Jeannie got too old to sleep in the crib in my parent's room, after which I became "roomies" with Jeannie.

I have two very distinct memories of those two different arrangements, which at the time may have been just silly childhood goings on, but they have somehow stuck in my mind forever.

Carol and I had storytime.

I think it all started on the day when somebody barfed on the patio outside the nurses office right after we got our flu shots at Valinda Elementary. I was in first grade.

I came home and told everyone about it and and how totally gross it was and that how afterwards they'd had to call the Jennifer (janitor) to clean it up... (except that I don't think the word "gross" actually existed at the time...as a matter of fact I don't remember if the word "barf" did either.)

Well anyway, Carol, big sister that she was, roared with laughter...

So then ensued our midnight tales in bed every night after the lights were out. The stories could be as absolutely discusting as we could possibly make them, but the one rule was that they always had to end with the tag line "And the Jennifer cleaned it up." I remember the stories involving every possible type of bodily excretion that we were aware of at the time... And Vic Tanny (the health fitness guru at the time) also found his way into many of our stories so they were never lacking in entire swimming pools overflowing with fat and blubber. Fun times, fun times.

Many years later... I was writing to Carol and we were laughing about all those stories we use to tell each other... when I ended up with the thought of "Wow, little did we know that one day she REALLY would..." hahahaha (some of you will get that...)

We also had our alternate story theme called "The Family Wash"... but I don't remember any of them too distinctly, but I think the stories were pretty similiar just maybe not quite as graphic. At any rate airing our dirty laundry wasn't one of our big specialties at the time...


Me and Lala... a couple years before "the stories"...

Next came little sis Jeannie and the back scratches. We had a nightly routine that we couldn't stray from. This was the order. Short design, long design, scribble, short picture, long picture, scratch. Of course each one had to be erased in between, which basically meant a backrub. I was usually the unselfish older sister always offering to do her back first... so that I could just fall asleep afterwards. Haha

We had a date last year to revisit the backscratches when we found out we were going to have to share a bed at our family reunion in Aspen Grove, but then unfortunately, a room freed up...

We all played Apples to Apples out in the common area instead.


Jeannie and me in the BYU dorms summer of '64 while mom was going to school. I think this may have been where our backscratching tradition began.


The three of us in the backyard on Lawnwood St. in '60.

I sure do love my sisters and all our memories! I think we really need to do another sleepover one of these days.