guilty pleasures

my nephew, in the tv zone...

You know the scene. You are sitting alone on the couch with remote in hand, finger on the 'previous channel' button. The show blaring on the screen is one that you shouldn't be watching but you can't break the spell it has on you. You sit with bated breath, ready to hit the button that instantly takes you back to the previous, 'safe,' channel as soon as you hear someone within 10 feet of the room.

This is how i spent my childhood. I wasn't watching racy shows (unless you consider Barney racy...), just ones that i knew would lead to endless shaming by my older siblings.

The Wonder Years Season 2, Episode 8--Hiroshima, Mon Frere

Recently i was talking to my dear sister jenny, and she brought up the fact that us Davises have one major flaw: We love to ruthlessly make fun of each other. This might not seem that unusual or detrimental, and you might be thinking, 'Every family makes fun of each other. That is what makes the love-hate relationship between siblings fun!' You might think that is why siblings are fun, but it turns out they are fun because you do bad things together that you never told your parents. Indeed, they are your partners in crime. They are not fun when they are in “Hamster Patrol” mode (if you don't get that reference you NEED more of “The Wonder Years“ in your life). My siblings never sucked up my hamster with a vacuum — most likely only due to the fact that when you don't have a hamster it’s pretty hard to suck one up, and my other furry pet, a cat, was too big for the vacuum — but they did like to taunt me and each other about everything from pets to music to clothing to television viewing habits. And if taunting didn't stop you from engaging in the subpar activity they would take it upon themselves to physically stop you, like when my siblings hid my Joy School (pre-preschool) tapes in my underwear drawer so they could have days of peace from the rhyming rhythms (i didn't like to change my clothes or shower apparently as a toddler).

who could hide such a cute girl's tapes?! Joy School graduation

The funny thing is that i feel like i spent most of my childhood foolishly hiding things i shouldn't have and flamboyantly showing things that truly were in bad taste or odd and were very much worthy of all the flack i got from all of my siblings.


For example, i didn't feel the need to hide:

• Knitting in movie theaters: Not only do my siblings know that dirty little secret but so do a whole lot of other innocent moviegoers.

• Singing show tunes at the top of my lungs in the shower: I'm sure half of the neighborhood could sing all the words to “Honey Bun” because of my frequent exploits.

• My love of infomercials: no explanation needed.

• Thinking a bowl cut was a good idea.




• Having my favorite television event be Nick at Nite instead of TGIF: By the time i was 10 i'm pretty sure i not only had seen every “I Love Lucy” and “Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour,” but i even had a giant coffee table book that i would frequent to brush up on the back stories of the episodes.

• Using all my babysitting money to rent classics from Hastings: What other kid was arguing with the
rental store that a not-rated film produced before 1960 wasn't going to have things inappropriate for a 9-year-old to watch?

• The fact that i not only was a mascot but campaigned for our school to get one.

• My extensive homemade doll collection: It was creepy and mostly held together with Pintrest-worthy amounts of hot glue and the occasional staple.

• That i liked gold, so naturally i thought gold braces were a brilliant idea. Why was i so surprised when my siblings started singing “Ghetto Superstar” to me all the time?

• Lifetime movies: They are all about cheating husbands that get murdered by their wives and yet whenever the entire house sneaks off for the usual sunday nap i gravitate toward the terrible acting of Lifetime. Angels in heaven probably weep for my soul every sunday this happens. (did i say sunday, because they definitely have an iPad app so now it can happen anytime, anywhere!)


Yet i did hide such normal things as:

i hid who i liked cleverly under things like taped down valentine's in my journal

• The fact that i was a girl and heaven forbid actually liked girly things.

• That boys are cute and sometimes i had/have crushes on them.

• Dancing. I might be a horrible dancer but being inept seems pretty universal.

• Writing. Did you know that it took me until college to willingly let people peer review my school papers and i was terrified to start a blog?

• Singing (not show tunes, just the regular type). At my dad's funeral in 2009 i had the first solo in a song that all the girls in the family sang. One of my sisters mentioned afterward that she didn't know that i could sing like that. Even weirder was the fact that most of my sisters are musical but i still never sang solos, especially around my family.

hard to believe she was the ultimate tomboy

• My love for crappy teenage music: Everyone goes through a phase liking something that is popular, but i felt like i had to keep it all secret. And with that i will admit that most of the time i spent on a bus on my way to ski team i was listening to Savage Garden on my Discman.


When i was talking to my sisters about what they hid as children, they mentioned things like riding their bike around the neighborhood with a Walkman so they could listen to Men Without Hats in peace and being total tomboys because 'girl things were stupid.' (For the record, the most tomboy girl out of our family — the one that made me feel ashamed to like girly things — didn't have anyone above her that said girly things were stupid but singlehandedly created this intense anxiety in both of us for no apparent reason. Oh and now both of us work in the cosmetics industry.) Especially when it came to music they got it — some music would be considered subpar and therefore warrant days of torture.

They understood what to hide and why. Apparently i did get that i shouldn't let my siblings know all of my silly habits, but i didn't get the memo of which ones.

tales from the tithing child

i couldn't keep simple things, like how many siblings i had, straight when i was a kid, why do i assume i can remember things accurately? there are 16 heads in this photo, my family only had 12 if you count my parents...

The other day i was with my mom and brother and commented about something i remembered as a child. Without even taking 7.3 seconds to comprehend what i said, Levi goes, "there is no way you remember that..." I stopped to think about it and realized, damn, he might be right.

Turns out that i am a bit hazy about the details of my life prior to 1998 or so. 

am i looking at the camera or the guy to to your right? YOU'LL NEVER KNOW! mawhaha

As i thought about my childhood i realized that a lot of my 'memories' are in third person--i see things happening to me as if i am a bystander. I'm no psychologist but i think that might indicate that i am making them up. Example--i have a distint memory of being pinned down by nurses and having eye drops forced into my eyes. I know this possible because i have been going to the eye doctor since i was a wee babe (its not hard to tell that your kid needs to go to the eye doctor when they are only really paying attention to you with one eye...) and getting my eyes dilated. But i didn't know until i was at least in high school that i had eye surgery when i was two and that is why i have gray streaks in the whites of my eyes, turns out they are scars. So did i make up the memory? Since when i think of 'that time' the room is pitch black with a spot light shinning on the poor cross-eyed girl that is being pinned down in the giant brown leather chair, i would say yes. My eye doctor's office was only 80% that creepy in real life with his crazy animatronic dog in the corner--AND he didn't have nurses.

mallory and i fight? never.

Then there was that time that Mallory and i got in squabble over where we sat at the dinner table. Everyone agreed with Mallory--my chair was across from the one i was claiming. But i didn't let that stop me! I was positive that i was right (and still am to this day, more so i am just so confused i don't know what to think)! Our fight was so dramatic that my mom left the table and her dinner and told us we could eat on the floor for all she cared.

Or how about the fact that i am 90% sure i once got all of my fingers--minus my thumbs--shut in the car hood, yet my brother who i swear was working on the car can't remember? I would think that if you accidentally shut your 5 year old sister in the car you would remember. BUT i remember that in first person, so did it really happen?!

my life is a mess. or so i think it is?

But here are a few things I KNOW happened when i was a kid.

he looks so innocent and loving. just like wayne before he became the infamous Hamster Patrol...

Levi once locked me in the car after church because he is an older brother and that is the type of thing they do according to all television shows namely the Wonder Years. I was a 'dumb kid' (according to levi of course) and couldn't figure out the super high tech pull this thing the size of a screw up and it will release the door lock thing. Needless to say, i had to pee super bad and wet my pants all over the backseat--and i highly doubt i sat in one place like a sane person would, more like let's spread pee all over the seat in a panic! Once one of my nicer siblings, most likely a sister, let me out of the car and assessed the wet mess, Levi was summoned to clean it up. Karma, she's a--... you know the rest.

I really liked to run away as a kid. Most of the time i was kind enough to leave a map--though it was rarely accurate in topography or where i actually was--usually it was to my preschool. I would grab my favorite doll, Baby Beth (which ironically is not mine but a doll i swiped from my sister Sarah), a small hot pink plastic suitcase, a set of Baby Beth's cloths and a can of green beans. I would then haul all of this and a small wooden chair out my front door, down the yard, and into the ditch bank. I would sit under our driveway which was a bridge and contemplate the finer things in life--the color pink, dolls and green beans. 

The first time my mom left my alone I was probably no older than 5, she ran to a neighbors or something and wasn't gone more than five minutes (so that none of you assume she was a terrible parent). I watched her leave and as soon as she was in her car I sprinted to the basement where i helped myself onto the play table where i proceeded to dance. Apparently, out of all the forbidden things in the Davis household that i instantly had access to, dancing on the table tops was my top priority. You would think that i would have grown up to be a seductive party girl instead of the loner introvert. 

One of our favorite pass times in the summer was playing on our amazing wooden playground. We only had it until i was 7 so i am a bit hazy on its actual size because well, to me it was HUGE! I do know that the slide was long enough to merit levi hauling his bmx up it to ride down so huge is probably fairly accurate. Anyway, seeing as our father should have been in the circus and we were all able to walk on our hands as children, it is no surprise that we would grab the thick braided rope from the farside of the playground and throw it up to the person perched on the slide. We would then leap off the side of the slide and swing back and forth. I however remember doing this but missing the open space i was aiming for and slamming straight into the support beam where it proceeded to break my glasses and bounce me backwards into a pile of the dreaded sticker weeds. Luckily Jenny was kind enough to get tweezers and de-sticker my palms.

like this only cooler

I also remember the amazing three horse carrousel that my family had. It was on our back patio, was white with primary colors and had a light switch on the box instead of a coin slot so we could ride to our little hearts content. I also remember embracing the Davis, or daredevil--they are sometime interchangeable--in me and climbing onto the horses back, up the mane, grabbing onto the inside lip of the roof while i balanced my feet on the handles coming out of the horses head, and then climbing onto the roof. Then i remember falling off. Or do i? Is this where my problems began? Trauma to the head?                                                   

maybe i did remember being born, i look like i was pretty traumatized from the experience...

I called Mallory to ask her if she had input on this. Without thinking, just like Levi, she said, "when you were little you used to tell us you remembered being born, that you remembered the doctor slapping your butt or something..."

and i guess that proves it, i have the best-worst memory around.

But i will always stick to the story that i remember laying on the shag carpet in the family room of our house with my pants off and diaper open. I then remember at least two of my older siblings, i think Mike and Katie, coming in, seeing the poopy diaper and turning away because they didn't want to change it. If you know mike and katie or any teenagers you should be able to see the truth in this one...

the mommy closet

I have a confession.

I can't wait until i have kids.

This may come as a surprise to some, i generally like to stay in the mommy closet and don't admit that i want to have a litter of those snotty nose creatures crawling all over me like a jungle gym one day. But, just because i say i want kids, don't get this confused with being 'baby hungry' which implies to the hopes to be impregnated in the near future.

best nanny ever, can't you tell?

In high school i thought that one day i would have maybe two kids, and not for a very, very, verrrry long time. This was probably due to the fact that at seventeen i gave up the normal ruckus that comes with being a high school student to become a single mother of three at times. I was a live-in nanny for my older sister, though i didn't have her kids 24/7, i did have entire weekends, and the occasional week, where the kids were all mine. Those things that most women get accustomed to once they birth a child, you know, the gross stuff, i am already too familiar with. I have cleaned up my share of peed on carpets, blown out diapers, and the occasional-worst fear-liquid pooh that drips down your own leg because you made the fatal mistake of trying to carry the poor sick child to the bathroom. You know you have cleaned up too many messes when your favorite pastime becomes washing and folding laundry, it smells fantastic and doesn't whine or yell. The laundry room became my sanctuary.

It took me a few years after this to realize that yes, i do want my own kids. Not that i didn't love my niece and nephews, i did and still do for that matter. There is just something different when you realize that one day you will have your own kids that will be part crazy just like you.

Three and Five from Bethany Davis on Vimeo.

I am pretty sure that part of my recent fascination with offspring is due to this video that i recently shot and edited. I am in a beginning film class and was supposed to make a video with a story. As i was getting ready to travel to the east coast i decided that i might as well shoot some of the most adorable kids that i know in hopes that i could get something that could become a short film. I followed Simon and Ada around for a day and let them do what they do best, be kids. When i went to class yesterday my professor asked me why i created the video, my response was about how i wanted to create a 'home video' of sorts that i wished i had. My goal was to capture an average day instead of the generic holiday program or birthday party.

It's the normal days like this, caught on film, that make me want kids. I am excited to be able to mold little minds and play all sorts of random make believe games that I don't understand. I am ready to get away with: cutting the crust off sandwiches, tickle baby backs, have an excuse to buy the amazingly scented Johnson's Baby shampoo-that i may or may not use myself, coach soccer-teach that you can simply step on the other side of the ball instead of taking the entire field's width to go the other direction, watch Arthur on PBS, induct a children's section into my library, eat M&Ms out of measuring cups, and basically just be awesome.

my newborn photo, or  'i look like benjamin button' photo or  'lobster claw baby' photo.

One day i will be that crazy lady down the street that builds forts in her front room with her kids so intense, that she has to crawl through the tunnel of sheets just to open the front door. Until then, i will just keep winning the hearts of my many nieces and nephews as their favorite Aunt Bethy.

Let's just hope that i marry a super attractive fellow so my kids can take after him as a wee babe...

Maybe in the meantime i will also start writing a series of children's books. Have you seen some of them lately? Seriously, they suck. I could do this. I WILL do this. Jenny Kimball, get ready to become by business partner.