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Prenatal Development & Birth
I was born to my happy high school sweetheart parents, Charlie and Kim on September 15, 1991 at 12:21 in the afternoon. I weighed six pounds, ten ounces and was 19 inches long. My poor mother was in a long labor of natural birth for just about 34 long hours. -
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The First Two Years
Biosocial-
Cognitive-
Psychosocial- -
Biosocial Development
As a baby I was very chipper, happy, and cooperative. I was good about going to sleep when it was time to nap and I didn’t seem to cry very often. My mother said that I tried to start walking at about eight months and was scooting around the house by 12 months. -
Cognitive Development
In my first two years of life, my parents said that I would always make many silly faces that would mock whatever they were doing. I was told that I already had a strong and funny personality even being so young. Both my mother and father told me that they did not often “baby talk” me because they believed my speech would be better formulated in the future. -
Psychosocial Development
Though I was a happy baby, I only was comfortable around familiar faces. I loved being held and swayed back in fourth in a rocking chair, preferably by my mother, father, or grandmother. Playing peek-a-boo was one of my favorite things to do, it could keep me entertained for hours at a time. -
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The Play Years
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Biosocial Develpoment
Around this time, I was beginning to look like my father’s twin. I became very attached to him and was his “Daddy’s Girl”. I could not do anything alone, dad had to be there. -
Cognitive Development
During this time my parents became separated.I didn’t fully understand what was going on with the separation, my parents just said that they argued too often when I wasn’t around and didn’t want to anymore. I didn’t mind the new arrangement because I was a kid with two of everything and still got to see each parent all the time, just not together. -
Psychosocial Development
I constantly wanted to be entertained. I always needed somebody to play with and rarely wanted to entertain myself. I did not mind if it was a family member or another child, I just needed to be doing something at every moment. My mother signed me up for a ballet class. When dad would take me, I would scream and cry if I could not hold on to his leg inside of the class. He was my world. -
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Middle Childhood
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Biosocial Development
Believe it or not, I was into fashion at an extremely young age. I was already making my mother pick out perfectly matching outfits and nice tight hairstyles so that they wouldn’t fall out while I was playing. Dad was good at picking things out and doing my hair too, I thought...until later years. I wanted to shower, brush my teeth, and put my clothes on all on my own. -
Cognitive Development
Learning to ride a bike with training wheels was my biggest accomplishment. After I mastered the training wheels, I was ready to ride like a big girl, or so I thought. At this age I began getting ahead of myself and trying to advance in whatever I was doing at the time. During this time, I was not the best or quickest at reading. -
Psychosocial Development
I loved going to school and enjoyed playing with my friends at this age. At about seven, my mom signed me up for the city cheer team and I was ecstatic. I loved the friends that I made, the uniforms we wore, and the cheers we got to shout! -
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Adolescence
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Biosocial Development
Around this time I was experiencing many growing pains when going to sleep at night. I started losing my baby fat and had a growth spurt or two. I began feeling awkward and noticed I was quite a bit moody at times around age 12. At almost 13 I began my first menstrual period and was sad at the time because I did not want to grow up. I became conscious of my body image and started worrying about what others thought of me. -
Cognitive Developmemt
I was very nervous to start middle school, older kids scared me for some reason. When I began, I liked it but all the girl talk and drama started to bother me, I just ignored it. I did very well in all subjects and was known for being very well organized by my teachers. I took the bus daily to middle school and back home but I strongly disliked it, I thought it was loud and dirty. I was shy and kept to myself while the older kids sat in the back yelling and laughing. -
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Emerging Adulthood
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Psychosocial Development
During ages 8-13 I was definitely trying to “find myself” and understand who I am. I was always thinking about my future and what my plans were going to be, I knew I wanted to be successful but that was about it. At 13 I started to argue with my mother a lot about stupid nothings, we were just very close and got on each other’s nerves. -
Cognitive Development
I finally became much better at managing my time and worked on organizing my priorities. I was very open-minded and not stereotypical, I gave everybody the benefit of doubt. I quickly learned that you cannot trust everyone that you think you can, you can only trust yourself. -
Psychosocial Development
I have learned that it is better to have a few close trustworthy friends rather than to have plenty of people whom are just acquaintances. Though it took quite a while to cope with my high school break up, I was able to move on and find Independence. -
Biosocial Development
Having been in a long-term relationship at a young age made the final break up devastating. I still made some time for friends but I was in a deep depression and slept every day for months. I ended up getting help from a doctor and began feeling better about life. I enrolled in college and was doing very well in my classes. I very much enjoyed all of them and liked that there was more challenging bookwork. I began working a lot and eating more healthily. -
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Adulthood
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Biosocial Development
I am not looking forward to noticeably aging or mentally aging, it actually frightens me to an extent. Living with my father, I have watched him go from having amazing and perfect vision to holding articles two feet away from his face just to see the text clearly. Witnessing ageing seems like it is easier than having it happen to you.A part of adulthood that I am not looking forward to is experiencing the phases of menopause. I am scared to grow old I just hope to stay healthy through my life. -
Psychosocial Development
Parenting and caregiving will hopefully be a second nature to me. Having experience from babysitting and taking care of family members will help me perfect being the perfect care giver. From experiences my personality will most likely be even more outgoing and carefree. I will probably speak even more of my mind at times and also hold back more often when necessary. I am excited to be settled in with my life and career and be comfortably living. -
Psychosocial Development Continued...
I realize that having a husband and children will take up much time and I will not be able to be very selfish, but that is just part of growing up and creating your own family. When this time comes in my life, I want to be sure that I am ready. When I do have a family of my own, I cannot wait to have my brother and sisters over to play with my kids and spend time. Having generations together with my own family is something that I am looking forward to as I grow older -
Cognitive Development
I am sure that I will keep my brain going as I grow older by reading many books because learning and reading are things that I greatly enjoy. It is important to challenge the brain through out our whole lives to stay mentally healthy. By this time I will be graduated from college with a couple different degrees and will be more intelligent than I had ever been. I will hopefully be running a Radiology department and loving the job that I have. -
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Late Adulthood
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Biosocial Development
After living through many of life's experiences I know I will have strong beliefs that will then be resistant to change. I hope that as I grow older I will not turn into a stubborn and grumpy old woman. However, due to the world around me and the things I will have been through, I will be shaped into the person that I become. I know for a fact that when I am old, I will not want to be babied. I can see myself being an independent and stable woman, not someone who is weak and dependant. -
Cognitive Development
When I am elderly I know that it will take me a bit longer to process information, the brain tends to slow down as we age. This scares me because I cannot imagine these things happening to me. I pray and pray that I will not have to live depending on my children or caregivers. I am beyond afraid of my brain aging and losing memory, I believe that memories are the most precious gift of life. All of the diseases that affect the brain with age seem awful to have to live through. -
Psychosocial Development
When I am elderly I know that objects and places will hold much more value to me than they do now in my 20’s. I know I will have many sacred objects that are precious only to me because of personal meaning. Losing my sense of self is also something I am extremely frightened of. I hope to never feel lost, alone, or depressed, losing sense of self damages how a person functions. Hopefully I will be in a very long term, happy, healthy marriage with successful childchildren and young grandchildren. -
Death & Dying
I hope that when it is my time to leave the earth that I am ready, peaceful, and content with my life. I hope that I will have experienced everything that I ever aspired doing in my lifetime and that I will have achieved all of my goals. As of now I am completely frightened of death, this may be because I do not quite understand dying and also because I have not yet completed even close to half of the things that I dream to still accomplish. -
Death & Dying Continued...
When the time does come for me to go, I most likely will have found a higher power to believe in and will accept what I have done and where I’ve been in my life and also where I am going when I am gone. Living through a disease that slowly and painfully causes death is something I hope and pray to never have. I do not want to experience the end of my life in pain and wishing that I would die every day that I wake.
