PAUL YATES
From the day that I was born, I was a good boy. I was good to my brothers and sister, and I always tried to do what Mommy and Daddy asked.
I liked to cuddle. When Mommy or Daddy would hold me, I would put my head on their shoulder and hug them.
When I was little, Mommy had satin pajamas, and I liked to run my hand across the smooth, cool fabric. Later, she gave me a special blanket with satin trim that I really liked.
Whenever I heard music, I started dancing. I didn’t think about it much, I would just start bobbing up and down. I’d even start dancing when I heard the song, “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star”. Everyone got a kick out of that.
I liked to pretend I was a fireman. We visited a fire station twice, and I got to see the fire trucks and firemen. Grandma gave me a videotape about a fire house that I watched over and over. I also had a fire hat that I liked to wear.
I liked rockets. Mommy made me a rocket cake for my third birthday. Sometimes, we would watch a Shuttle launch on TV. My brothers liked Cartoon Network, and I liked the NASA channel!
My favorite animal was the bull moose (“bull-moo”). I started liking bull moose when Mommy read me a book called, The Caboose That Got Loose. Sometimes, I would watch Rocky and Bullwinkle. Daddy framed a picture of a bull moose for me, and Mommy gave me a shirt with a bull moose on it. It was my favorite shirt—I tried to wear it every day!
For Christmas, I got a grocery cart for a gift. Sometimes I would take it to the grocery store and follow Mommy, shopping just like her!
Sometimes I would pick flowers in the yard and give them to Mommy. She really liked that.
I also helped Mommy to train our dog Blackie to “sit”, “stay”, and “come”.
Sometimes, I would get on the floor and pretend to be a pig. I would crawl around really fast while snorting. It made my brothers laugh!
I liked to play with tools. I had plastic construction hat and tools that I played with a lot. Sometimes, I would get to use real tools when helping Daddy in the garage.
We all had chores to do. My chore was to empty the smaller trash cans into the big trash can in the kitchen.
Sometimes when Daddy would sing my name to me and say, “Paul Paul Bull Moose, Firefighter, Pig Snout, Rocket Man, Tool Man, Trash Man Abraham Yates”.
Mommy made a memory game (Concentration) for us by putting pairs of stickers on the back of milk jug tops. Noah played a lot. He always beat Mommy and John. One day Noah and I played the game, and I beat him. He didn’t want to play any more after that.
I was a kind, caring, loving boy. Mommy and Daddy called me “Perfect Paul”. They think that I would have been a good student and really gone on to help people one day.