Graduation

Last Friday night my sister, Leslie, walked across the stage at her graduation ceremony from Wylie High School. We're all really proud of her for finishing strong and even getting scholarships and awards for her efforts. In celebration of her achievements as an adult, I thought I would share some of my favorite memories of little Leslie when she was younger. Enjoy!

When Leslie was in about 2nd grade, she was "helping" my mom in the kitchen as mom made dinner. I think mom was making Chicken Tetrazinni or something similar. When mom started to add the chopped mushrooms to the casserole, my sister panicked and started yelling, "No! No! No!" Mom stopped what she was doing and asked, "Leslie, what is the matter?" Leslie responded in an incredulous manner, "Mom! Mushrooms are poisonous!"

When I was about 5 my parents decided to build a house in a cul-de-sac in Abilene. Unfortunately, the cul-de-sac was very near to a busy street in town, and Leslie was so drawn to that busy road that my mom wore herself out trying to watch Leslie every second, because if she took her eyes off of her for more than a second, Leslie would be crawling/toddling toward that road. After a few terrifying instances of finding Leslie dangerously close to the street, my parents decided to move. By that time, Leslie was about 4 years old, and though the house was further from danger, we were still upset one day that we couldn't find Leslie. We started searching inside the house, but once we found that she was not in the house, we got really worried. Mom and Dad started searching the streets for her on foot and in the car, when suddenly one of our new neighbors came outside her house and said, "Are you looking for Leslie? She's in here with me. We're having tea." Leslie had been going door-to-door all down our new street with a notepad and pen, ringing each person's doorbell and saying, "I'm Leslie Oglesby and I just moved in, will you write down your name and address so we can be friends?"

At about this same time (when Leslie was around 4 years old) she began wearing bright red or bright pink lipstick daily. We partially blame Cathy Potts, who encouraged this behavior, but eventually we had nothing to blame but the fact that the girl loves makeup! Luckily in her "old age" she has toned down the lipstick to more demure colors.

Leslie, being a free spirit, always wanted to dress herself. Many children like to dress themselves, but how many do you know who think that cowboy boots and a ballet tutu go together? I know one. Little Leslie. She wore those cowboy boots and that ballet tutu almost every day (except for the days that she wore the tutu with roller blades).

One other favorite memory of ours comes from lots of long car rides with the family. My mom always thought that it would be a good idea to have sing-alongs in the car to keep everyone from killing each other (which was a great idea when we were 7, not as good of an idea when we were 15+attitudes). Anyway, one of the favorite songs is a silly one where you sing: Willaby wallaby wauren, an elephant sat on Lauren, williaby wallaby wenny, an elephant sat on Jenny, and so on and so on. Leslie loved this song. Sometimes we had to really stretch to come up with new verses (like willaby wallaby wour war, an elephant sat on our car), but we always made sure to go through each family member's name at least once. Leslie would laugh and laugh and laugh at all the others, but when we got to the part where an elephant would sit on Leslie, she would yell, "NO!!!" and start crying. Every time.

As I mentioned before, Mom and Dad built the house we lived in right after Leslie was born. When she was just an infant, the whole family went over to check on how the house was doing. The contractor asked Mom and Dad to come look at some things at the back of the house while the kids stayed in the unfinished living room. Mom asked me to hold Leslie (which I had done often by myself, even at the age of five), but unfortunately this time I must have forgotten and stood up, because I dropped Leslie on the ground. Of course she cried, but she wasn't hurt besides the surprise of falling. About five years later, Leslie got really mad at me and yelled as an insult, "And my head still hurts from when you dropped me!"

Leslie has always been a sweet, artistic, free-spirited, beautiful girl, and we can't wait for all the memories that are yet to be made! Congratulations, graduate.