Ethan – “The Photobook”

On one hot summer day, the room is as quiet as a mouse, I stumbled across a photo of me holding my newborn brother for the first time. The photograph still looked new, shiny, and perfectly preserved. I was wearing one of my favorite shirts at the time, my orange Julius J r shirt. My brother, barely a day old, was wrapped in a white blanket. My four-year-old self was looking at the camera, my smile frozen in time. Whenever I see this photo, I can't help but smile. One of my favorite things to do when I’m bored is to look at the photo book. Decades of photos have been added to its collection, some of them being from my parents' time. It's very interesting to see their experiences and memories of when I was too little to remember. A lot of the photos are my most precious memories, such as my first day of kindergarten, trips to Hawaii, Christmas's, birthdays, and many more memories.

However, one of my fondest memories is when my brother was born. When my mom was in the hospital having my brother, my grandma stayed and watched over me. This was one of the first times that I was separated longer than a day from my mom. Having my grandma take care of me didn’t feel the same as my mom caring for me. She ate differently, cooked different food, and didn’t speak English as well as my mom. When we walked into the room where my mom was in, my mom was laying on a hospital bed, cradling my newborn brother. The stillness of the air caught my attention. He looked so delicate and small compared to my mom. Happiness and joy flooded me like a river. I will never be alone from now on, I thought. I could now play games with someone else! I sat down on a seat inside of the room and was handed my brother. I wrapped my arms around him, feeling the presence of another life. holding him carefully like an egg. Just holding him brought a surge of happiness and serenity. Smile, my dad said as he took the photo.

I kept flipping through the memories of my past and came across a photo of my first day in preschool. I remember not wanting to leave my mom. I remember being very scared, but eventually coming out of my shell and making new friends. I remember the floods of emotions that I had as I was dropped off into the class. The tension in the classroom, that everyone dared not to break. That first step into the classroom was a big step into my life. I now go to school, not stay at home, I thought. Just as everyone arrived, my teacher was reading the kissing hand, a story about a raccoon's first day of school and how he was scared of his first day too. I was sitting on a rainbow colored carpet along with my other classmates. Everyone felt scared and nervous, I thought. Slowly, my confidence replaced the nervousness inside me. As my mom left, I tried to make friends with my classmates. I was able to make friends and realized that school isn’t as bad as I thought. I played and had fun with them. From meeting my newborn brother for the first time, to my first day of school, I was satisfied with the progress I made. 9