friday's blast from the past: age order.

i grew up on a farm in kansas, the second of six children. as if that wasn't novelty enough, we were all born in approximately two-year increments, so the span of our ages was only eleven years. my mother loved nothing more than to dress us alike and make us stand in something she called AGE ORDER (mainly for the purpose of photos) where the eldest stood on the photographer's left and everyone lined up to the right in accordance to their age. while we were growing children, this resulted in another phenomenon that my mother called STAIR STEPS because our decreasing heights from left to right resembled stairs (please refer to photo).if someone so much as mentioned the words 'camera' or 'picture', my mom would fly into action, shouting AGE ORDER! STAIR STEPS! AGE ORDER! i should mention that my mother had her sixth child at the ripe old age of 29. i'm 30 (with zero children), and finally able to understand that all of her nutty behavior was likely due to the fact that being a mother to six, especially at such a young age, will make you do crazy things.

with regard to the photo, i would like to point out that yours truly is second from the left. ever the fashionable one of the bunch, i am sporting blue socks (trendsetting), a beautiful necklace and pinch-rolled pants. you can tell from my stance that i've clearly been studying red carpet poses. due to the large number of mullets in this photo, i think it's safe to say we were between hairstyles.