For this week’s blog post, I began writing an essay about children. But it’s not ready. (Spoiler alert: neither am I.)

In my effort to explore and research the “kid issue” I decided to sort through all of my old masterpieces kept at my parents’ house in Lafayette. Most of them were just awful—crayon scribbles all over the place, stick figures with disproportionately large heads and unintended tails, journal entries made of words with too many consonants and not enough vowels—but a few felt worthy of sharing.

So, because it’s Thursday, and it’s Thanksgiving, and I have nothing else prepared, I’m going to keep rocking with the “Throwback Thursday” theme I capitalized on last week. (Although, I still don’t really get it.)

Here are some of the creations from my first and second grade selves with as little interjection or correction from my perfectionist 24-year-old self as possible.

Note: I’ve been a lousy speller since day one. If you don’t recognize a word, sound it out and add a few random vowels; you’ll get it.

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A Letter to Grandma

It’s somewhat comforting to know that I’ve always faced writer’s block head on (with careful procrastination), but I must admit that I’m a bit disappointed with my letter writing skills.

Dear Grandma,

I thought about a time I had a problem and just had to tell you about it. See, I had to do a story by the next day and I had not even started. So, first, I did my homework. Then I though about ideas. Then, I made my story and asked for obinyens. Last I turd it in.

Love,

Michelle

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Do Not Feed the Murkeys!

At first it was unclear to me if I meant to call them “murkeys” in an effort to be funny or if I just was that bad at sounding things out. The first mention says “murkeys” in quotation marks suggesting something playful is happening, but the last mention of the animal is spelled monkeys. This, at the least, is inconsistent. But now, after inspecting the drawing of the animal, I think I was actually being quite clever, blending turkey and monkey. (See the caption of the murkey close-up.)

Also, this is a fictional story. It didn’t actually happen. I never caused the untimely death of a murkey by inducing murkey-itis.

I’ve gone all week thinking this was a misspelled. BUT, now I’m taking a close look at this “Murkey.” Check out those tail feathers. Could I have combined Monkey and Turkey? It seems like something I’d do…

One day, my mom asked if I wanted to go to the zoo. I thought a minute and said, “sure!!” So me and my mom drove 5 miles to the zoo and had a lot of fun. We ate lunch there, we saw birds there, and we saw my favorite animal, the “murkey!” “he was so cute!!” but we kind of go in trouble.

See the sigh said, “do not feed” but there was a food despencer right there and I could not help my self. So I said mom, “I have a quarter and the sign says (while I was covering the do not part) feed. So she said okay, go ahead, but hurry up. So I quickly put my quarter in the mashine, got some food, and trew it in the cage and ran to catch up with mom, but the secoundI put the food in the cage, the murkey went crazy and five minutes later it got murkey-idis and died.

The zoo keeper was so mad! We had to pay a 100 dollar fine and were band from the zoo. I haven’t been to any zoo since but today we are going to the zoo that is 20 minutes away and believe me I won’t feed the monkeys!

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Self-Portrait of a First Grader

All in all, this is not the worst I’ve looked.

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The Halloween Mystery

This one had an alternate ending on an attached piece of loose leaf. See end of story.

Once upon a time there was an old skeleton that loved to haunt goblins in they’re houses. He would go into they’re attic and rattle old, rusty chains. The goblins thought that the noises were ghosts that were mad and going to hurt them. One day the goblins called a vampire inspecter. The inspecter came right when the old skeleton started rattling the old rusty chains.

The gobblins were filled with frieght for the inspector and as the inspeter went up stairs the golins asked the inspecter “are you scared?” “No” he said. “I’ve dealed with much more scary things than this. I’ve had to fight live corpses with blood coming out of their mouths and I’ve had to walk through a creepy graveyard with pumpkins covered with cobwebs and spiders. So my answer to your question is no, I am not scared.”

Then the inspecter slowly went up the stairs, as they creeked the skeleton grew scared from the noise and hid behind some old costumes. When the inspeter got into the attic he tripped over a couple of things, but they he got to the light switch and flipped it on. When the gobblins saw the light they asked, “Do you see anything?”

“No,” he said. “Perhaps they are hidden” called back the goblins. As all of this was going on the skeleton escaped and was never seen again and the goblins lived happily ever after.

The End.

Alternate Ending: “Perhaps they are hiding” said the goblins. As all this was going on, the old skeleton found a secret passage, exscaped, and was nere seen again and as if for the goblins the inspecter put ghost posin and the goblins thought that was what happened to the rattling. I guess the only person who really knows what really happened was the old skeleton.

The Alternate End.

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How it All Began (Sorta)

And finally, a Thanksgiving Poem

How it All Began (Poem)

One day the Indians saw a big boat hid,

and ready to pull their bows

The Pilgrims on the Mayflower of course

landed on Plymouth Rock

The Indians got scard and hollard

the Pilgrims pulled out their guns and fired

Then they made Peace and had a feast.

And that’s how that celebration called Thanksgiving began.

Thanks everyone for reading and I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving with your loved ones. I’m thankful, as always, for your time and support.

–Michelle