Things I miss about my childhood

I never thought I'd say this, but thank God that I was tagged with a meme (thanks Vince!). Not that I am particularly fond of them; however, I'd rather tackle this than put you through another madly depressing post. I'm sure I'll be doing a lot of that in the upcoming days so to shake it up a bit, here we go...

The Meme: What five things do you miss about your childhood?

Rule #1: Remove the blog at #1 from the following list and bump every one up one place. Add your blog's name in the #5 spot. Link to each of the other blogs for the desired cross pollination effect.
1. This is Ali
2. It's the End Of The World As We Know It
3. More Than My Luggage
4. Welcome to My Truth
5. The Angel’s Cloud

Rule #2: Select new friends to add to the pollen count.
1. Kelly
2. Robert
3. Edwin
4. Eny
5. Dag

Here we go...

1. IHOP on Sundays. Every Sunday for as long as I can remember my family had "family day". Because my parents worked so much, we never got to spend much time with them. On Sundays though, it was mandatory that we all went to brunch together and this usually took place at IHOP because eventhough we never really agreed on very many things, we always did agree on pancakes.

2. A house full of kids. When my parents divorced, Ivan, Gus and I went to live with out mother and her husband. Soon after, his daughter Jackie moved in with us. A few years later, Jasmin and Jonathan, his grandkids, moved in with us and then my cousin Randall, whose mother was in the military and had been deployed, moved in with us as well. For about 4 years our house was home to anywhere between 7 and 9 kids ranging from ages 4-18. It was the most fun I ever had.

3. Getting grounded. As a child I got in trouble for EVERYTHING. Because I was the oldest and the most rebellious, I got to test drive some of my mother's ridiculous rules. Needless to say, I broke the rules on a regular basis and I was grounded more often than not. The thing was that I never really minded being grounded as I have always been okay with amusing myself by myself if need be. Anyway, my mom though always felt bad about isolating me from humanity so she always came bearing chocolate cake and sat with me even if only for a little while.

4. My dad. There was a time when I actually loved my dad beyond words. During that time he was still good and he seemed like he cared. That was a good time.

5. Paper bags filled with candy. My first step father used to come home from work way after our bedtime and usually left before we got up to go to school; but every night he brought home a paper bag with one piece of candy for each of us and left it on the table in the foyer. No matter what, he never forgot. Every morning felt like Christmas morning.