Frema's Life in Pictures: Part One of ?

Luke normally sends me a link to his blog whenever he's added a new post, and upon seeing the title for this entry, my first thought was that he stole my idea to shamelessly display our family photographs online. But he didn't, so then I felt dumb, and also remembered that I didn't invent posting photographs on the Internet.

Anyway, without further adieu, I bring you Frema: The Early Years.

I was born on January 9, 1980. My mother was barely nineteen when she gave birth to me. At that age I was chasing shots of ten-dollar vodka with Hershey's syrup and being seduced with adult films like Hindfeld by small-town boys eager to show me their glow-in-the-dark pictures. What do you mean, there's no glow-in-the-dark picture? If there's no observing of the glow-in-the-dark picture, what on Earth do you want us to do?

Oh.

This is my first school picture, which puts me in kindergarten, possibly the only grade where children can pull off wearing cherries on their dress collar without bearing some sort of "dork" label. On my first day, my mother said I was inconsolable because we showed up for the morning session and my group was slated for the afternoon.

Notice how sleek and straight and shiny my hair is here? How the light hits the brown and gives it the illusion of exotic jet-blackness? Soak it up, my pretties. Soak it up.

The first thing you'll notice is the hair, because most of it's gone. This is partly due to lice and partly due to my scissor-happy grandma. The elementary school I attended had a terrible lice problem; at one point, my parents were receiving notices from administration every other day about how "a recent case" had been reported and what lice was and how to look for it and what to do when you found it. In the beginning, my mother was very diligent and spent hours checking every strand on our heads for signs of them before subjecting us and the house to a thorough purification with products like this and scalding hot water. However, it didn't take long before the mere sight of a typed letter was enough to send her stuffing our Wuzzles into garbage bags (where the bugs would die a slow and painful death via suffocation) and lathering our scalps with twelve-dollar shampoo that BURNED. My hair was the worst because my shade of brown was almost identical to the color of their shells, and it was very thick, so thick it took an entire bottle to de-lice me. My mom finally decided enough was enough and sent me to my dad's mother for a hair cut. Cut it she did. And I wept.

(You know, the only book I remember even mentioning lice was Starring Sally J. Freeman as Herself. Judy Blume deserves mad props, because if anybody in my class or Samantha's class had it, they never let on, and we were so embarassed, but someone had to have it or else why'd we keep getting those damn letters? It's not too late, people. Break the silence!)

The second thing long-time readers might notice is the necklace, because I hate necklaces so much I can barely tolerate seeing them on other people, let alone myself, but my mother thought my outfit needed "a little bit of color." We fought for fifteen minutes, and she won, and I wept yet again. The humanity! The pained smile! Just further proof of my defeat.

The day before Easter, 1989, coloring eggs and decorating my cousin Kenny's forehead with awesome star stickers. The Necklace Torture had escalated to unthinkable heights, as I was forced to wear a gold cross my great-grandmother had chosen especially for me in honor of my First Communion. The woman was seventy-five and only knew about twenty words of English, so she couldn't be expected to remember that the very thought of precious metal sent shivers of horror down my spine. However, Parental Management decided my wearing it was the polite thing to do, so I wore the necklace.

I hated wearing that necklace. The chain always tangled in the shower and pulled out chunks of the little hair I had left when I slept. There were no tears when the clasp broke three months later.

I think this picture was taken on the day my parents closed on the purchase of this apartment building; we lived on the second floor and my mom's mom and my auntie Donna took the first. Now, though, my gram has since passed away and my auntie Donna started her own family so now the remaining members have found ways to monopolize the entire space. There are pool rooms and ping-pong table rooms and personal offices and separate bedrooms for each kid. MTV should feature it on an episode of Cribs.

My dad's the one with baby Geo. My mom's lovin' her Reebok high-tops, I'm sporting Simpleton glasses and a questionable hot pink/beige color scheme, and Samantha's rocking the casbah in her neon green shorts and purple headbead. All while Ryan tackles daring experiments in skirt length and Auntie Donna guards my pre-pubescent, negative size-A breasts from the exploitive nature of the camera. All of us trendsetters WAY before our time.

Same day. I'm only including this so you can fully appreciate the Simpletonness of my spectacles. Vision problems didn't show up until third grade, so this was my first pair of glasses. My dad thought I was mature enough to pick my own frames. And really, after seeing the results, don't you agree?

It gets worse:

For some reason my eleven-year-old mind must have equated frame size with frame coolness; there's no other explanation as to why I would intentionally seek out lenses that swallowed both my cheekbones. My mother held back the urge to ask "WTF?" when she saw my latest fashion accessory but did request that I remove them for Picture Day. Whoops. Not helping matters is the red bow clip that seems to be hanging on only by grace of the Lord Himself.

This black-and-white dress (complete with trendy plastic belt!) is the same one I wore to my auntie Diane's wedding earlier that September, on a day that started out with me deciding there was no harm in yanking off the lid of a can of Purina when the can opener failed to make a clean cut. Turns out there was harm. And lots of blood. A five-hour trip to the emergency room and stitches for my left index finger and thumb. And yet I still made it to the wedding, because the last reception I went to had these really cool drinks called Kiddie Cocktails, and no way was I missing my chance to have some more of that, because even though it tasted just like 7 Up it came with a decorative cherry and little red mixing straw, and holy crap did I feel Adult ordering my drink from the bar like everyone else.

No Early Years photo essay would be complete without at least one picture of Donna Lyn, the youngest of us five, born to my mother at the age of thirty-two. This was about a week after her first and last C-section, and she let me skip school on the account of officially Becoming a Woman that very morning, and the cramps, woman, my God, the CRAMPS! Actually, it was less about the cramping and more about the attention I wanted to shower on my latest sister, and my mom didn't mind the extra help because in her midst was a brand-spankin' newborn and a four-year-old boy waiting patiently for his invitation to join the world's Most Fearsome Fighting Team. It's likely that the root of my Baby Fever is traceable to this very moment. See how natural Donna looks in my arms? Why I didn't become a teenage mother I'll never know.

I'm only one year older than I was in the last picture, but already my hair has taken a turn for the worse: thick, frizzy bangs and a layer that crowned around the top of my earlobes, a layer I thought I could cleverly disguise by pushing it back with a headband. But I also thought pink glasses were cool, so is anyone surprised my middle-school nickname was Shredder?

I didn't think so.

Comments

[Luke]

And you just remember that your dad let you pick out WHATEVER frames you wanted when our kids need glasses.

But don't worry, there might be a few pictures of my past that still exist, and if you look hard enough for a one of me in high school, you might find a mullet.

[PaintingChef]

Please for the love of GOD will someone explain to me why it is that only children too young to know that they have fabulous and perfect hair are the ones bleesed with said hair? Its JUST. NOT. RIGHT.

[PaintingChef]

and that would be BLESSED, not bleesed...anyone know what bleesed means?

[Liz]

I enjoyed looking at your pictures! I think your dad looks kind of like John Travolta in that family shot. :)

[verniciousknids]

That was an enjoyable post - 80s fashion is so distinctive!

[Isabel]

This post and the pictures made me laugh so hard. Not really AT you, but at the time period.

I love your glasses. They are huge! But you have nobody but yourself to blame since you picked them out. That's the best part.

And am I a dork because I love the little dress with the cherry on the collar. It's precious!

[Anonymous]

I bet if Luke looks real hard he can find one or two pictures of himself in those cute UNDEROOS...... Spiderman or Superman...all the craze back in the 70's -80's.
Aunt Ruthie

[Lost a Sock]

Ha! That was great! Love the pictures, LOVE the narration! I bet your mother would have kept you home that whole WEEK had you just held Donna while she recovered. ;O)

And I also noticed that there's a striking resemblence in this picture of Donna to a few pictures I have of baby Jack. Maybe we are related. (Come hold my baby.)

:o)

[Daddy D]

I love the early life pictures. It is a joy to have you coming into the Dunscombe family name.

[Sambo V.]

I have no shame in this game. I too have had the awful experience of having lice. I always felt worse for you though because it DID take the WHOLE bottle and a very long time. Just the other day I had to send a student home for a possible lice case...it sent shivers down my spine and automatically made me scratch my head the rest of the day.

I love these pictures! Your glasses are priceless! Think how far you've come with Prada! ;)

I LOVE YOU BREE!

[molly]

Frema is forever beautiful including the pictures with the lovely necklace and the fashionable glasses.

When I first wore glasses, I selected large frames because I thought that would help my vision.

[molly]

Another thought... Look at Frema in the first baby picture. Now, look at the present day Frema in the "About Me" section. That is same happy, jovial girl. That's our Frema.

[LotionBarBunny]

Thanks for sharing your pictures! I think you look beautiful, so stop poking fun at yourself. ;)

[butterflygirl]

Thanks for sharing the pictures. You look absolutely adorable!

[Officer Badass]

very cute pictures!

[auntie betty]

those frames were cool at that time.

[Number Twelve]

Hey, Frema! I've visited your site to look at just the first picture so many times I can't count! And if you reproduce children 1/2 as cute (sorry, Luke, not implying anything here) that first picture? OMG, no wonder you're baby crazy. And, I'm obsessing over what was that photographer doing to get you to giggle and show those dimples so wonderful and perfect because I've got THREE girls and have not scored SUCH a great shot. And the rest of the photos make me want to join the family so I can live in that whacky apartment building y'all got going on.

Outstanding, entry Frema! Makes me want to encourage the baby fever, but I believe you don't need encouragement in that area. And, also, makes me want to meet your mother. Amazing. :)

[A Light in the Attic]

Loved the narrations and pictures Frema! I too had face-eating glasses... I loved them so much, I picked the identical pair a second time- spending a total of four years with magnified acne on my cheeks. A+. And those were my early teen years! You know what I always say though, God always presents a window of opportunity for change- I just never thought they would be on my face.

[Twins x two]

Awesome entry...Love the pictures.

[Anonymous]

Guess what, your little Cousin Christian at 11 years old just found out he has to wear glasses and I WAS going to let him pick them out but...guess which ones he wanted? yep you guessed it-the BIG ones-they are making a come back-thank you Mary-Kate and Ashley!
We opted for more Potteresk ones.
I'm sure we'll laugh later too!
Love Auntie Di

[Fraulein N]

You were such a cutie! (Still are, of course.) Love the pictures and the commentary. I'm thinking there should be a PSA warning parents against letting kids pick out their own glasses. You will all regret it later on!