Personal Childhood Web

My step-dad is the top of my list of people from my childhood.  My parents split up when I was about a year old and he has been around since not long after that.  He has four girls, between 1 and 4 years older than me, but he always treated me the same.  Looking from the outside, no one would ever know I wasn't one of his girls.  I very distinctly remember when I started Kindergarten, it was only half day and I would spend the morning with just him and I and we would have tuna fish sandwiches and watch Scrabble on TV before he walked me to school. I didn't realize at the time how much it meant to me to have the same relationship with him as the other girls.  When I got married, I had him and my "real" dad walk me down the aisle together.
The second person I want to add to my list is my grandmother, on my mom's side.  When I was very young, my mom had to have surgery and I spent a week with her and my grandfather in Ohio.  After that, I spent a week every summer with them.  Coming from a large family, with 5 kids all together, it meant a lot for me to be able to spend that time alone with adults, to be able to talk and be heard.  It was those visits that I really learned  how to communicate with adults, and how much it meant to have someone's undivided attention.
The third person I would add to my list is someone I don't remember, but have heard about a lot, and that is my day care provider.  When I was a toddler, I went to a baby sitter's house and my mom always tells me how much I adored her.  I very faintly remember walking up the stairs to a red barn-like house carrying a bag of dry cheerios.  My mom tells me how that was the only way I ate my cereal, and my baby sitter knew that.  Dot was her name.  I think she contributed to who I am today because it made for a smooth childhood and transition in to school because I had such a good experience in day care and preschool.  It made me a well-adjusted child.
The fourth person I would like to add to my list is my girl scout leader.  Her name was Karen.  I remember having a sleepover at our church for girl scouts and right when my mom dropped me off, I slammed my hand in the door.  It blew up pretty big, but I wanted to stay at the sleepover. Karen put ice on it and checked on me all night long to make sure I was okay.  She was like that every time we had a meeting, she always made me feel like I was the only little girl.  I appreciated that because, again, coming from a family of 5 girls, it wasn't often I got that feeling.
The fifth person I want to add to my list is my "real" dad.  I have to put quotations on that because I never liked the phrase or the "step" phrase for my step-dad...but I can't find any other way to make the distinction between the two.  With my dad, he and my mom split up when I was a baby and I never lived with him after that...my mom always had full custody of me.  My dad moved a lot, and often I only saw hime twice or three times a year and talked to me once a month or so.  But, even now, I never doubted that he loves me and that he cared about me as a child.  I am still daddy's little girl, and will go to him for problems I have and advice.  I seek advice from him and my step dad because they both mean so much to me and I value their opinions.