What do you remember the most about your childhood?

I grew up with my cousins, all 12 of us are very close. We would spend weekends together, since my family lived in the city, while my cousins lived in our province. I usually play with them, riding our bikes, playing tag, climbing trees, playing with sand or hay, and run away from my grandma who would force us to take an afternoon nap. Heehee.

Eldest to youngest:
Pauline Grace, Paula Faye, Bob Jansel, Paul Vincent, Paula Louise, Marc Jaye, Hollie Marie, John Michael, Mary Anne, Louis Raphael, Denisse Anne, Mary Elisha.

Hahahaha! Did you count how many of us have PAUL in our names? We got it from my grandma, who was named Paulina. LOL.

I grew close to Pauline, who I fondly call "Ate" meaning big sister, and to Pau. We all had 2 year age differences from each other, meaning there was not a huge age gap between all of us, so we get along pretty well.

I remember running away from my grandma because
1. she wants us to go take an afternoon nap, or siesta
2 she found out we were fighting, so we need to be spanked (not in a good way LOL)
3. she was holding a thick bamboo stick to slap out butts with.

I had a fun childhood, had my own share of scars (from riding the bike, running, tripping, etc). HAHAHAHA! Whenever my mom comes to pick me up and she finds out that I have a new wound, she would freak out. She would scold me every time I had scrapes on my knee because she said it will make my legs ugly. WAHAHAHAH!

I remember sleeping over at my cousin's house. During breaks, I would stay there for weeks, my parents would just go see me during weekends with my brother in tow. I was the kid who wouldnt go look for her mommy whenever she wakes up in the middle of the night. I was the independent kid. Hahahaha!

This is one of my favorite memories:

I would be woken up by my youngest cousin, Meryl, every weekend to have breakfast with them. All my cousins would go to our house early morning to eat breakfast. My mom would cook hot breakfast for all of us. They come to our house just to eat hot breakfast--- because their maids cook their breakfast early for their dads, and by the time they're up, the food is cold already. Then they found out that every time they would pop in our place, my mom would start cooking. Eventually, they all came to our house to have breakfast, all meaning even my aunts and uncles. Our house became the breakfast place.

Our house in the province is inside our family compound, all our houses are a few steps away from each other. We used to joke that if ever we run away from home, our parents will easily find us, because we would go to other houses inside the compound. We used to run around the place, play ball, play badminton, etc. We have a huge space to play with whenever the cars or trucks werent parked.

We grew up having swimming trips every year. My family would go to other places to go swimming, and we would usually take Ate Apple and Bob along with us, since our other cousins were still very young or have not yet been conceived. I had dark skin when I was young because of those swimming trips. I would only get out of the water to eat lunch, then go back and stay there until late afternoon. I didnt mind getting pruned. Hahahaha! It wasnt fun getting sunburned and it was too darn uncomfortable to sleep. But the next day, I would jump into the water again. WAHAHAHA! I am sort of a water baby. I love being surrounded by water! Heehee.

We would spent Christmas and New Year with my cousins in the province. We would hang stockings that "Santa" would stash money in. We put stockings in every house, knowing that there is a different santa. WAHAHAHAHA!! Then go to mass and spend the first hours of Christmas together, eating sweet ham and bread and drinking hot chocolate. During New Year's Eve, we would spend it together with all my cousins, and have our own fireworks display. We would play with sparklers then eat together, which is the best part. FUN TIMES.

Eating with my cousins are the best. We would all gather up in one house and just chat. We are not actually few, and we can occupy the house and sound like a hundred people are inside. Counting everyone, we could easily be 30 people. Some of our other relatives would go there and have lunch with us sometimes. This is where I learned to eat fast. If you dont eat fast, you're gonna starve. WAHAHAHA. Food disappears pretty fast, so you need to eat fast if you want another serving. We also tried eating in batches, but the last batch would always have little food left so they just scrapped the whole batch thing. LOL.

When we were back in the city, I took up ballet and piano classes. I remember getting on top of our long wooden dining table and practice my ballet there. I would move from end to end just practicing. FUN times. I also remember sliding down the steps using my butt from the 3rd floor down. WAHAHAHAHA! Playing hide and seek was fun too!

If there was something I didnt enjoy back then, it was the time when I had to leave my cousins every Sunday afternoon. Even though we had a house on the compound, we didnt live there because my brother and I studied in the city. It was sad to leave them and know that they will have fun again playing around the whole week while Im stuck inside the house. But nevertheless, my childhood was fun and I wouldnt trade it for anything else.