There it is, the pink cow cake!
I think it was the picture my best friend posted to my Facebook wall a few days ago that got me thinking about this topic. She had just turned 2 and I was 2 1/2 and we were leaning over her birthday cake shaped to look like a pink cow, blowing out her birthday candles. We grew up only a few houses apart but the differences in our personalities spanned a much broader distance. Her unruly blond curls spoke much to her spontaneous personality whereas my perfectly straight, predictably brown hair gave away much of the same details about my own.
In elementary school, I would often get teased for using big words and acting like a “mini adult.” I was fiercely independent and business-minded from as far back as I could remember. While I dreamed about opening a retail shop from my treehouse many years prior, the first business I started that I can actually provide proof for was in 4th grade. I sold pencils and erasers that came in all sorts of colors, shapes, and trendy designs to classmates at recess.
My parents, though skeptical at times, were always very supportive of my business ventures. In fact, my mom was my first capital investor, allowing me to pick out $30 worth of inventory from the Oriental Trading magazine I would scour every month. Ultimately, I tripled my mom’s investment in my company in just a few weeks, but like most 4th graders, I lost interest and was on to the next new trend.
I don’t know if it was my upbringing or my inherent personality that made me who I am today. I suppose I could blame my parents for the small amount of teasing I endured in elementary school for acting like a “mini adult,” but looking at where it brought me to today–I think I owe them an awful large thank you instead.
