7

I think I've left out some things. One being that by this age, our family pets were adopted into our home. I remember picking our dog, Zelda (named after the Legend of Zelda cartoon) out from a litter of puppies at the animal shelter. Our cat, Flossie, came from who knows where and used to sleep in my dresser drawers and lick our woodstove until her tongue audibly sizzled.

This is my brother and Zelda when she was a puppy. It's odd that he's so young here because the first time I really thought of my brother as a man (and not just my baby brother) was many, many years later when we had to put Zelda to sleep. My mom, Isac, and I went to the vet and obviously we were all incredibly broken up, but after she was gone, he was the one who stood up straight and carried her out, to the car, and home so we could bury her. Rest in peace, Zelda and Flossie. You were great pets.

Anyways! On a happier note... second grade! A lot of memories revolve around school. School was pretty much life. Life in second grade revolved around my first crush, Glenn MacDougal. He was smart, I was smart, we worked well together. It was meant to be. On desk change day, as the teacher was calling out students to switch seats, I thought in my head over and over “Emily and Doug switch seats, Emily and Doug switch seats, Emily and Doug switch seats.” Of course, Doug sat next to Glenn. And it happened! Emily and Doug switched seats. Emily was happy. Seems like there was a collective groan from the class. I may have been a little obvious in my affection. Still, we really did work well together and I’m sure I was all A’s on those report cards. I moved on in third grade.