Moving to Janesville was very interesting for me. I was three-years-old. I can remember moving into the home and checking things out for the first time, but I cannot for the life of me remember the drive to Janesville or anything in that area.

My mother and I moved to a nice apartment on Centerway Avenue, east of its intersection with Milwaukee. The day we moved there I remember a bunch of family being there to help. It was my first memory of my cousin Chris. Even though I knew who he was, I have no memories of him prior to that day.

In the apartment, there was my bed room, the kitchen, a dining room, a living room, my mother's bedroom, a bathroom, and a small playroom. You can probably guess the room I spent most of my time in. I can still remember what my room looked like. It was a small room, but enough for my bunkbed, dresser, and other various things. My mother and I would always play games in my room and the game room. It was just us.

The dining room had my mother's piano sitting in front of the three windows over-looking the street. She would play it, and the one song that has forever been in my mind is, "She's Always a Woman." My mother would play that song perfectly every time, and I remember it so well. These days, it reminds me of the older days back then. Very warming.

In an apartment on the first floor there lived an old man with whom I spoke to only once. He taught me how to make paper airplanes, and good ones at that. I can recall speaking with him only once ... and he is surely dead today ... but I remember him for it.

My time spent in the apartment wasn't where I spent most of my time throughout the year that I lived there. Instead, I spent most of my time at my babysitter's, Laury Wrenn. Laury was a professional babysitter. She ran a daycare program with roughly 13 kids in it. Of those kids, I was great friends with two of the kids: Matt Baker and Jake, though Matt and I were never found without the other.

Every morning I would be the first to arrive at Laury's. I would go into the finished basement, plop down on the couch, beanbag chair, or whatever I fancied that morning and I'd turn on Cartoon Network. Every morning at 6, Popey the Sailor would be on. Oh how I loved that show as a kid. An hour or so later, Jake would arrive and then Matt, and then the rest of the kids. Once the three of us were there, we'd go out into the backyard and play on Laury's huge jungle gym. She had probably an acre of land or so.

In the summers, Laury would take all of us to the local pool, Rockport Pool. There we would take swimming lessons and the likes. Such great fun! I LOVED being out in the pool swimming. We'd all play games and just have a total blast! I remember the lessons, I eventually made it to level six, but I never took the course.

About a year after I started going to Laury's, Jake and I were sitting out in the jungle gym area waiting for Matt to show up. Next thing we see is a kid running towards us from Laury's house, and we thought it was Matt. "Hey, Matt!" we both yelled ... but it wasn't him. It was this girl, a girl we had never seen before. Her name was Kayla, and she was a girl. Ewwwwwwwwww! Man did she put a kink into things. She was eventually accepted into our little group. So now there were five of us: Matt, Jake, Brittany, Kayla, and myself. Oh yes, I didn't mention Brittany, did I? Another girl who had been under the care of Laury was named Brittany. She was a friend of ours, but I don't have many memories of her.

We used to love spinich (I can't spell it) pizza ALL the time. God I loved that stuff back then! One day, when the five of us were playing birdie, Laury yelled, "Lunch time!" and we all ran for the house. Being little crazy kids, we sometimes would run with our hands in the air, and I did just that. Under the birdie net I ran and into the lacing my finger was caught. Eh heh ... there went the skin on my right middle finger. I guess the pain was so horrible that I dreamed the rest of the day leading up to me going to the hospital. I had always thought that I didn't go until hours after, but my mother and Laury both say I went immediately. My memory said I was there and eventually was laid into bed to take my afternoon nap when Laury finally decided to take me. But one thing is for sure, I remember the hospital. My mother was a nurse then and still is a nurse today. She helped hold me down as I got some 32 stiches placed into my middle finger.

The running joke for weeks after that was that for the first time ever in our lives, one of us could flick the middle finger off at the rest and get away with it. Why? I had a bandage on my finger which proped it up the entire time it was on. Hehehheehhehe, I was naughty =D

One thing I was notorious for was being insanely naughty as a child. My ADHD and OCD took grasp of me around the age of three or four, and it went into full force as a child. Giving me a time out was never always a good idea. One christmas, I was given a time out because I wouldn't wait to speak to my mother and instead threw a fit. So while in Laury's living room, I cut up her Christmas Tree lights with a pair of scissors that I found lying around. That same winter I filled Laury's fish tank with an expensive bottle of perfum and killed all of her fish. When I was five, I took apart her Nintendo (original NES) to see how it worked; when caught, I said, "I thought I could put it back together!" Heh ... I couldn't; no one could.

The biggest touble I ever got in was with Matt one day. Matt and I were ALWAYS causing trouble and were the perfect team. In Laury's basement, there was a full-sized Billiard pool table. We would always build forts around it with whatever we could find, and Laury would take pictures of our creations. One day we decided it would be fun to make the biggest fort anyone had ever seen before. After we ran out of blocks to use, we decided to find items that could counter as blocks. First we started with box-shaped household items, then we moved onto semi-box-shaped items. By the time we were done, we had succeeded with a GIGANTIC fort. It was a fortress, but we didn't know how badly we'd need to it escape a very pissed off Laury. You see, we used every item in the house we could pick up with our two hands. It didn't matter what it was, it we could hold it then we used it. As you could imagine, we made a big mess.

I WAS THE ONLY ONE WHO GOT IN TROUBLE!

Bah! Matt just happened to be away as I finished up the fort, so he gained a lovely thing caused plausible deniability, and he USED IT. "I never had anything to do with this!" To this day, I remind him of that little incedent.

While at Laury's, I would also go to pre-school and kindergarten. For preschool, we all went to the St. Williams ABC Preschool. Of the memories I have from back then, I do remember show and tell, Lamb Chops, and my forth birthday. Show and Tell was always fun. I'd bring in an item that I thought was totally cool and share it with everyone else. Then we'd all gawk at it and go, "Ooooooooh, aaaaaaah!" It's so easy to amuse yourself at that age ... then again, I'm easily amusable. Lamb Chops, as you probably know, is a show with real people and a sock puppet known as Lamb Chops. The forth graders would come in and watch it with us, and I would ALWAYS terrorize this one forth grader. I'd sit on his lap and make him sing along. I do believe he hated me for it. This is the song that never ends. Yes it goes on and on my friends. Some people started singing it not knowing what it was, and they'll just keep on singing forever just because this is the song that never ends. Yes it goe ... I'll stop ^_^;. Finally there was my birthday. On my birthday, I was forced to wear this stupid little paper crown that I absolutely hated. I hided from everyone that day.

After pre-school, I went to kindergarten. In kindergarten, I made a new friend named Travis. Travis was a very passive kid, so he would always take the blame for something I did. For instance, I cut up my bluejeans one day knowing he'd take the blame for it. We thought it was hilarious! At any rate, my mother saw right through that one and nailed me for it. *sigh* Damn her! My mother always knew where I was whenever recess was in session. All she'd have to do is look for the tallest kid on the play ground, and that would be me. I've always been tall.

Our music teacher at Washington Elementary was named Mrs. Vrizen. I always loved her! She was such a cool teacher, and EVERYONE loved her! When she left teaching there mid-year, we were all upset, and I thought I'd never see her again. Little did I know she'd come back into my life 13 years later as a senior in high school.

When school would get our for kindergarten and lunch for the grade-school students, Laury's daughty Jamie would walk the bunch of us back to Laury's house just a few blocks down the road. I never really liked Jaime back then because she was an older girl who wanted nothing to do with kindergarten kids. I always thought she was ages older than me, but it turned out she was only three years older than me. This would come back as a wake up call for me and a lot of people I knew early in my freshman year of high school.

To me, it seemed like I had spent my entire life at Laury's house. I mean, up until the time I left, I had spent my entire speaking years in her daycare program, and I knew of no other life. But after my mother's marriage to Dean Godding, I would quickly find myself moving to the other side of town, never again to go to Laury's daycare program. With this I would also be separated from Matt and Jake.

To this day, I have never seen Jake since then. Matt is another story. I met with Matt again back in eigth grade and then again throughout high school. Kayla I would also meet again my sophomore year in high school. We ended up in the same social studies class, she being a year behind me. We never spoke. Brittany I have seen only once since. A girl I became friends with in elementary school was her cousin, by some chance, and I saw her again at this girl's birthday party.

My time of bliss was over. With Dean in my life, things would drastically change. But how they would change, I never had any clue.

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