We’re not eight anymore, but…

Ah, the days of childhood past, filled with activities and all around wonderfulness that is fundamentally lacking in our teenage years. We have jointly decided to reminisce and reflect on a few of the things that we miss and think should come back. These may be juvenile, but oh well…

Blowing Bubbles: What first grader doesn’t love blowing bubbles? Be it classic (with a plastic stick and a cheap bottle of bubble solution) or homemade (dish soap and water with a bent wire hanger for a stick), it’s just downright fun! Contests with your siblings over who can make the biggest bubble, watching the soap swirl on the surface of the shiny see-through orb, and of course trying to pop as many as possible were just the beginning of the bubble joys!

Holding Hands with Your Best Friend: Looking back on early elementary school days, we recall anxiously crowding the door of my classroom, everyone clamoring to be line-leader. As we walked through the halls, I would step out of the line, catch up to my best friend, and grab his hand with a smile (not that we prefer walking the halls in lines, but oh how we wish that we could hold hands in high school without the constant speculations of: “Ohmygosh, are they dating? Since when?!”). Ah, the days of youthful childhood innocence, when no one cared if you held hands with more than one person…

Stickers, Glitter, and Glittery Stickers: Don’t you miss the days of smiley face stickers on the tops of your papers, smearing gluesticks on construction paper to make the glitter that you sprinkle over it stick, and the shiny stickers adorning your 100 percent A+ projects? The squeals of delight over the construction paper projects and motivational stickers rang through the classrooms! Well, maybe we just have short attention spans, but sparkly things are fascinating. It’s juvenile, but we believe that the small act of putting stickers on papers again would elicit a surprising amount of smiles even from teenagers.

Saturday Morning Cartoons: Lazy, lazy Saturdays with nothing to do…so what did we do? We watched mindless cartoons, of course! Some are classics that withstand to this day (Tom and Jerry, Looney Tunes, Scooby-Doo) and some aren’t really around anymore (Dexter’s Laboratory, The Powerpuff Girls, Recess, Pokémon, Sailor Moon), but they were all legitimately great time-wasters!

Disney Movies: Ah, the oh-so-illogical but oh-so-wonderful world of princesses, frogs, and knights in shining armor. Looking back on it, it may seem stupid, but we adored all of those classically animated Disney movies. There was Cinderella and her glass slippers, Snow White and her eccentric dwarves, Ariel and her lovable fish friends, Alice from Wonderland and the often partially invisible Cheshire Cat, and Belle and her ultimately endearing beast. All seemed so real in our little-girl minds. That imagination was a crucial part of our lives back then, and though maybe not quite as prominent, it’s still hiding somewhere.

Class Parties: Oh, the parties! Every holiday, the elementary parties were the highlight of everyone’s day. There were cupcakes frosted with the holiday color of choice, sugar cookies in cute shapes, every type of candy you could imagine, fruit punch in plastic cups, holiday-appropriate arts and crafts, and even treat bags to take home. And then there were those things specific to one holiday: dozens of valentines on St. Valentine’s Day, edible ornaments on Christmas, popcorn balls on Halloween, plastic eggs on Easter.

Plastic Jewelry: Chunky beaded bracelets and stretchy necklaces never go out of style. It’s been said that diamonds are a girl’s best friend. I beg to differ. A girl’s real best friend knows that a trip to the mall must include exploring that familiar accessories store, Claire’s, on the hunt for plastic jewelry. No matter what age, I will stand by the statement that neither gold nor silver can come even close to delivering the satisfaction that takes place upon hearing rainbow colored bracelets slap against each other each time I raise my wrist to wave to a friend in the hall.

Hopscotch: It seems like activities have gotten progressively more complicated as we get older. What was once a game you played with the neighborhood kids after dinner turns into endless practices and hours spent conditioning as we move on to high school. Whatever happened to simple games like hopscotch? Picture dirty hightop sneakers bounding from square to square. The only requirements are a piece of chalk and a blacktop, and maybe a rock if you want to get fancy.

Coloring: What little kid doesn’t enjoy the glide of waxy crayons across images thickly outlined on the pages of a worn coloring book? Everyone had those Picasso moments. You know the kind. You would flip choosily through a dinosaur coloring book, gazing upon each picture before selecting a stegosaurus to fill in with yellows and blues and reds. You would concentrate as hard as your short attention span would allow, frowning when that ornery crayon strayed outside the lines, but once again smiling contently when your masterpiece was complete.

Pop Music: Even at the age of 16, I have no problem admitting that I blast Aaron Carter in my car. Remember how fun and full of life and puppy love old radio music used to be? The days of boy bands and bubblegum pop may be gone, but they are not forgotten. My iPod is chock full of the classics (no, not Beethoven and Mozart) like the Backstreet Boys, the epitome of inspiration for spastic fangirldom; *NSYNC before Justin Timberlake went solo; Hilary Duff, Disney’s original TV-star-turned-singer; Play, a textbook girl band; Christina Aguilera, granting wishes as a genie in a bottle; and Britney Spears in her “…Baby One More Time” days. Don’t deny that you still know all the words.