Pound Pup Legacy

Among the many really good questions asked on the survey, I found the "First" theme really interesting... (btw... is there ever NOT a good survey?!?  I LOVE  doing all sorts of Q& A's!!!!!  My goodness... I'm the nerd who takes IQ tests just for FUN!)

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anywho.... questions #1-5 asked:

1. Gender
2. How old were you when you were adopted?
3. Do you have memories of your 1st family and/or 1st country?
4. What is your 1st memory of your adoptive parents?
5. What other memories do you have of growing up adopted in that 1st year with your family (especially if older at time of your adoption)?

Now... for myself, I love discussing Firsts, because I think First Experiences set the tone and pattern of a person's expectations.

My first memories are still very vivid in my mind.  Other than meeting my brother for the first time, there were three things I distinctly remember seeing doing and feeling as a baby. (12+ months of age)

I remember my bedroom itself.

I remember it looking like a big, empty scary old woman's room. The head of my white crib was against the wall to my mother's room, and the crib itself faced out towards the center of the room.  From my crib's perspective the left wall had 3 doors.  The door closest to me was the door used to enter the room; the middle door was to the closet, and the third door was to the guest room/my dad's room.  There was a large green slip-covered oversized chair caddy-corner to my dad's door... a large window centered on the front wall, a changing table/dresser against the right wall, and a window on the left wall, near the corner of the room.  Closest to me was a radiator, with the silver notched nozzel where steam could be seen and heard hissing through it's pipes.  That room scared me.  For some reason, there was an area of exposed hard-wood floor in the middle of the room, right before the closet.  Maybe there was only an area rug, I don't know... I just remember some areas having this horrible silver gray low nubbed carpet and then there were areas of real dark hardwood flooring.  The green chair was the only "color" in the room... underneath the slip cover was a mustard-yellow velour-like striped fabric.  The ends of the arms of the chair were dark, rich wood (mahogony, I would have to guess).  I thought the mustard yellow was just as ghastly as the intestinal green slipcover... but at least the chair itself was beautiful without that stupid slipcover.  Not that MY opinion ever mattered!

I recall ripping small pieces of wallpaper  off the wall near my crib.  I remember standing, picking with my nails, then peeling slowly very small pieces of peper, thinking, "if I just peel a little, She won't notice".  Yet, I KNEW there was this huge pattern of missing wallpaper seen right by the head of my crib, which, of course, was set against the wall!  I used to get so worried that she'd yell at me about the wall-paper.  Sometimes she did, sometimes she didn't.

Most of all, I remember how I had to trick myself into going to sleep.  I used to call it "My Short Nap".  If I balled myself in a fetal position, with my belly, chest and face against the mattress, my knees tucked close to my chest, and my butt way-up in the air, I would fall asleep, quick enough for me to think I was only sleeping for 5 minutes.

I remember being afraid to fall asleep.  I remember needing to be as close to myself as possible... and still feeling afraid to sleep.

Those are my first memories at Home.

I never liked my room.  I never felt  comfortable enough to rest and relax at this New Home.  I remember ALWAYS missing my mommy.

<why did she leave me there?  didn't she KNOW what it would do to me to be left alone like that?  I missed my mommy... why didn't anyone understand that?>