When I was seven, I also drew a man and woman, anatomically correct and naked and stabbed with knives with the simple caption "YOU." I left the sketch taped to my grandfather's front door. He had just died, and my parents were selling his house. The realtor came by with a prospective couple, while I stood next door…

I was a precocious reader (I was pretty sick as an infant and toddler, so I spent a lot of time with books and could read by like 2.5) but for some reason my mother still thought it was safe to spell words around me.

When I was definitely old enough to know better, I was utterly convinced that my parents switched off with exact doubles (possibly evil, possibly vampires) every other time they picked me up from somewhere. It was clear in my mind that or town must have two sides with a copy of my house and neighborhood for my real…

My teachers would look at my parents with great sympathy at every parent/teacher night. My mother tells the story of how a teacher once said to her, "OH! You're Sybann's mother - let me tell you..."

I always wanted a Power Wheel Car as a kid. All the kids on my street had them and would drive up and down the street, I was so jealous. That is all I would talk about for what felt like years. I was obsessed. Well one time at Sam's Club they had one on display, a pink barbie jeep. So I got up and promptly told my…

I kind of skipped over a lot of the "cute little kid" stuff and went straight from being a toddler to being cynical and dark. This story exemplifies my point:

For a long time I didn't have much or any hair. Maybe until I was three. But since I was a girl my mom put me in the hand-me-down dresses that my sister has used.

When I was in 2nd grade, my class made gingerbread cookies. The teachers orchestrated an elaborate ruse where they pretended the gingerbread cookies ran away. They left flour trails around the school, and wrote messages from the gingerbread cookies with chalk. Messages like "Run run as fast as you can, can't catch…

I don't remember this but my mum has often told me the story. I was two years old and my mum had dressed me up to the nines to take me to the ballet, dress, stockings, the works. I obviously had no interest in being there because I yelled at the top of my lungs "I have to pooh!" Obviously my mother was mortified.

My mom was a postpartum nurse and my older brothers and I spent many days in the waiting room with other kids whose mommies couldn't find babysitters for last minute shift. On one day long visit I heard a woman in labor screaming and moaning like she was being murdered. I have never and will never give birth and this…

I (and my best friend, but it was my idea) dragged a wagonload of rocks from my gravel driveway around our neighborhood, selling them door to door. Because we were little (about four) and cute, we made like $5, which in 1975 was really good money for a preschooler.

One time when I was playing with the dolls that my grandmother would buy me in an attempt to make me a girly girl, I stripped the clothes off all of them except for one. I then arranged all of the naked dolls in a circle around the clothed doll, with their legs bent back and their arms up, clearly worshipping her. My…

I had a running nose from 18 months to 3 years old. My Nana would refer to me as the snot nosed child and would not touch me for the most part. During this same time period my Mom notices that around the knees of my Dad's pants and coveralls would be this weird gunk. She kept asking him what he was doing, and he had…

I was maybe 4/5 years old and wanted to know why black pepper made cartoon characters sneeze. Mom kept the salt and pepper shakers on the kitchen table, but once dinner was over and the kitchen cleaned, that room was dark and quiet. I could carry out my experiment in secret. I climbed up on a chair to reach the…

When I was around 2 or 3 I had started taking swim lessons and we were learning how to go underwater so I wanted to practice at home while I was in the bath. My mom said, "Ok go like this" she puffed out her cheeks "and hold your breath!" I went under the water with my cheeks puffed out, hands over my chest and sucked…

Years later, once another sister was born, she told us "Last day, I dreamt my nipples went through aaaaallll of the trees".....whatever THAT means.

My aunt got pregnant when I was 2 years old. I was the first cousin born, so I didn't really have kids around to play with. My family hyped up this baby so much to me, telling me how I would have a new cousin and friend to play with, and I was apparently super excited about it.

This happened in either grade 3 or 4, when I was into fighting during recess. Some kids were stripping the leaves/bark off a bush. I went galloping up to them, yelling that they shouldn't do that to the poor bush because it can't defend itself, and they'd better stop OR ELSE. They took off.

This wasn't me (because I was sweet and normal and perfect, obv.), but one of my older brothers. My mom had brought the 4 of us (who were born at the time) to Payless for back to school shoes. We were browsing like regular people until my brother got up on one of the benches, held his fingers to his nose, and inhaled…

Not sure how funny (or really, weird) this is, but I have memories of sitting in my high chair and tearing up bits of paper napkin that I would then dip into my milk, soak, and roll into little balls so I could swallow them like pills.