Self-Portrait

Sock Art

The Wettening

Sometimes small events that happen during childhood can seem very traumatic. Almost every small thing that happened to me in my childhood seemed traumatic--mostly because I was a fantastic crybaby. One time I gouged my knee on a nail at a neighbor's house, and, like most normal children who get bad injuries, I began to cry. (It was probably more like screaming.) Blood was running down my leg, soaking into my D.I. Salt Lake Bees sweatpants and my rolled down socks. It was a pretty nasty cut that was worthy of stitches. My sister, used to my dramatic cry fests, protested my neighbor's concern.

Blood running down my leg. My sister: "She's fiiiine."

Pieces of bone showing through my skin. My sister: "Stop crying, it doesn't even hurt."

Getting a butterfly band-aid and kool-aid: "She doesn't need that, she's just faking. Oh brother, Sara, stop crying, you're fine."

We had a healthy relationship, me and my sister. She would steal my silky blanket, I would whine and cry, then complain to my Mom. She wouldn't let me play with her toy horses, I would whine and cry, then sneak into her room while she was at school and play with them. She would be slightly bratty while babysitting, I would whine and cry, then "tattle-tell" to my parents when they returned home. Being the youngest of 4 girls, it sometimes seemed as though I had 4 mothers instead of just 1. My poor brothers, however, got 5 mothers. Geeuug. 

There was a certain traumatic event, however, that occurred over and over again throughout the course of my childhood.

Some people have a condition that causes them to wet their pants very easily. I have no such condition. I just have a retarded bladder. 

Little children wet themselves; it happens. But when slightly older children wet themselves, it begs the question: Did this fool ever get potty trained? Do they even know what a toilet is??

One time I wet my pants when I was with a group of neighbor girls. It apparently made a big impact on me, because it's an event that I remember with certain clarity. It was after an Achievement Days activity, and the other girls invited me to go to someone's house and jump on the trampoline with them. I was thrilled, mostly because some of the girls were a few years older than me, automatically making them cool and sophisticated. 

To better understand the particulars of this story, I have come up with a little equation.

Chocolate desserts + dry mouth = water + excitement about hanging out with cool girls + laughing + uncontrolled jumping = WET. 

It's a known fact that when you jump on a trampoline, you loose control of almost every part of your body, inside and out. That's why professional trampolinists wear such tight uniforms.             It's a good idea.

I was jumping and laughing, and all of the sudden I realized that the trampoline seemed to be wet for no apparent reason. Horrified, I jumped off the trampoline and threw myself onto the ground in a kneeling position, because that's what discreet people do. The other girls noticed my strange behavior, and asked me what I was doing. I think I said something like, "Oh, I just feel like sitting on the ground right now." Right.

When they kept asking me what I was doing, I started crying, and blurted out that I had wet my pants. It was so mortifying, but thankfully, the girls were completely understanding--that, or they were really good at holding back their laughter. Probably the latter.

Fast forward a few years. Okay, now fast forward a little bit more. Sophomore year of high school. I was at my friend's house, and the decision was made to jump on the trampoline. You'd think I would learn that laughing and jumping on a tramp after drinking a lot of water only ends in humiliation. During the course of our trampoline adventure, I laughed so hard that I wet myself.....again. But this time, it was impossible to cover up, because my friend saw what was happening, and I was wearing green athletic shorts that showed EVERYTHING. What's ironic about this incident is that when my friend saw that I had wet myself a little, she started laughing, which caused her bladder to release the reigns of control as well.

This time, however, I was prepared with a solution. I didn't have anything to change into, and her clothes wouldn't fit me. I didn't want her family to guess what had happened, so I did the obvious thing: I asked her to spray me in the bum with the hose. We told everyone we had had a water fight, but as I was the only one who was wet, I think they may have been a little suspicious.

Another time, when I was a few years younger, I was sitting with my cousin on her bed. Once again, my laughter got the best of me, and my retarded bladder decided to let loose a little. I was scared that my aunt would find out, so I begged my cousin not to tell her mom what had happened. I went home, feeling confident that my aunt would never know my embarrassing secret. I found out only a few years ago that the instant I left, my cousin went and told her mom. Traitor! What, she didn't want to go to bed with spoiled sheets? Ridiculous.

Don't ask me why I shared these experiences. Blame it on a tired brain, a pillow pet named Eustace, 3 helpings of runny lasagna, a long day at work, a mosquito bite, oil paint that I can't get off of my elbow after almost a week,  late night texting, a burst blood vessel, and gorilla toes.

Freckles

I'm trying my hand at portrait painting. Here is my first attempt. I have no idea who this girl is. 

Concussed.

Elementary school was fun. Playing with colorful blocks during math, practicing handwriting, recess, lunch boxes, Bill Nye, etc. My elementary experience was pretty enjoyable, except for the one or two mishaps I had. 

Once, in second grade, I got my fingers smashed in a heavy, wooden classroom door. I had seen some of my classmates waiting by the door after recess for their friends to arrive, and I thought they looked super cool. So, in an effort to make myself look cooler in the eyes of my peers, I decided to wait by the door after recess one day, even though all of my friends had already come inside. (The logic here is not sound, but in my defense, I was only 7 or 8.) Somehow, I got my hand too close to the edge of the door, and the door slammed shut on two of my fingers. Being the calm, pain-tolerant person I was, I screamed bloody murder. My poor teacher probably thought I had been stabbed by a rogue 5th grader. After some ice and a cherry-flavored sucker, all was right again.

My favorite mishap occurred in third grade. I was playing by myself during lunch recess--probably making grass homes for little animals, or tying a jump-rope to a tree and pretending the tree was a horse--when I noticed a lone kickball sitting by the side of the school. 

Let me briefly explain the set-up of my school. The exterior walls were brick, and about every 15 ft or so there were random pipe things sticking out of the lower part of the wall. A small cement strip ran adjacent to the wall, bordering a patch of grass that bordered the sidewalk. The kickball was resting against the brick wall, on top of the cement strip. 

The sticky, gummy wheels in my 9 year-old head began to turn.

Knowing I had just minutes until the bell rang and recess ended, I ditched my jump-rope and ran over to the ball. 

My brilliant plan was as follows: place ball on cement strip, near pipe. Hold on to pipe. Stand on ball. Look amazing. Gain admiration and adoration from peers. Rule the school. No more waiting in line for the rings on the playground, and no more, "One-Two-You're-Through" at the drinking fountain.

Unfortunately, things didn't go according to plan.

The ball flew out from under me and I fell hard, landing head-first on the small strip of cement just as the bell rang. Anxious not to be late to class, I quickly stood up, shook off the ringing in my ears, and ran inside.

Prior to recess, my class had been working on some sort of craft. All I remember is that I was in the middle of cutting out a monster before I went out to play. When I got into class after the bell rang, I went straight to my seat and resumed cutting. However, something seemed a bit....off. 

Instead of cutting out one monster, I was now trying to decipher which monster I was supposed to cut among the three that were before me on the page. The lines kept moving around, and my scissors were bouncing like a jackhammer. The bell to come inside was still ringing, and someone had tuned the classroom radio to an annoyingly fuzzy station. Unconcerned, I continued to cut out my monster, certain that everything was fine and normal.

After a few minutes, my teacher asked another student to escort me to the nurse's office, where I got more ice, and took a small nap. (As luck would have it, he asked the one girl I hated to take me to the nurse. She got a sucker out of it. Whadda heck.) I woke up a little while later with normal vision and hearing, so the nurse permitted me to go back to class.

I honestly don't know how my teacher knew I was feeling a bit peckish. Teacher's intuition, perhaps.