5 Things That I Grew Up On

1. Barney

No joke, I used to watch Barney VHS tapes for hours. I was completely enamored by the enormous purple dinosaur. In fact, when my dad wanted to relax, he would set up my carseat in the living room, put in a a 6-hour tape of Barney, and let me sit there in front of the TV and watch it while he slept (I'm only assuming, because he loves sleep more than he loves me) (Okay, that's exaggerating a bit, but he sleeps a lot).

2. Chips and coke

My grandparent's watched me almost every day when I was really young, before I went to school, because of my parent's work schedule. I would also watch Barney at their house, and always with a bowl of chips and a giant glass of Coca Cola. To my day my grandparent's still ask me if I want chips and coke when I go over their house and I always answer, "I've switched to Baked Lays and Diet Coke."

3. Walks to the library

In addition to my grandparent's watching me, my aunt Anch always used to watch us as well. As a result of not having a license and us being pretty young, she always used to take my brother and I on walks to the park, which happened to be next to a library. We'd always go in, look at the books, then go sit at the playground and wreak havoc. 

4. Homemade chocolate chip cookies

By the time I was in school, my other grandma would come pick my brother and me up from school. Pretty frequently we found ourselves making homemade chocolate chip cookies in her tiny kitchen. I was always allowed to lick the beaters and constantly devoured warm and melty cookies fresh out of the oven. 

5. Sunday night dinners

My family is Italian and Polish, so Sunday night dinners are very important to us. We don't always have pasta and sauce (in fact, we rarely have it--not many of the kids in the family like sauce!), but we haven't skipped a Sunday night dinner for as long as I can remember. Sunday nights expanded into Wednesdays (now Thursday), and with a day delegated to each kid, when I'm home from school I end up eating dinner with my grandparent's 3 nights a week. 

What did you grow up on?