In high school my sister and I used to take each other out to lunch to celebrate our birthdays. I remember we promised we would do it every year “no matter what.”
Umm…that didn’t exactly work out. And it’s my fault.
I moved away and never moved back.
This year, thanks to technology, a few people suspected I forgot Kelli’s birthday because I didn’t post on her Facebook wall. I called her, people! I sang Happy Birthday and everything!!!
There is a famous riddle: When does the first child come to terms with the birth of a sibling?
Answer: How long does it take to adjust? 6 months? A year? Two years? The answer starts with an n and ends with an r. That’s right – Never!
But, I lucked out. Even though I did try to give her away to our next-door neighbors when she was a newborn infant within a matter of months (not years) I was her biggest fan.
I even permitted my mother to dress us alike.
One of my favorite childhood memories are the mornings when Kelli and I woke up before anyone else. We’d pull our blankets off our beds (the floors and the rooms were still cold) and sit by the heat vent in the floor and talk about our futures.
This was a part storytelling and part memory exercise. It was a given that we’d both grow up and live in big houses on a farm (near each other, of course) and then we’d take turns naming the animals we were going to have.
The conversations went like this:
Angela: I’m going to live on a farm with 12 horses
Kelli: At my farm I will have 20 horses and 10 cows.
Angela: Ok, I want 21 horses and 15 cows and 3 pigs.
Kelli: I will have 30 horses, 20 cows and 50 pigs!
~ Statements like these called for my big-sisterly guidance ~
Angela: You can’t have 50 pigs. Pigs will stink up your whole farm and your horses and cows and cats will run away. Your farm will be nothing but pigs and rats.
Sometimes our farm animals included a bit of adventure – like lions and alligators
Or even elephants
But most of the time we just kept going… naming animals right down to mice, frogs, fish and hamsters. No farm is complete without a hamster collection, right?
What are some of your favorite childhood memories?
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That is so sweet. Happy birthday to your Kelli. Love that last picture.
ReplyDeleteSometimes my sister (older by 4 years) and I would lie awake late at night and play Twenty Questions. We'd get so silly we'd start to giggle and couldn't stop. At some point Mom would come in and tell us to stop as it was keeping her and Dad awake. She never got mad at us for giggling past midnight.
Bish,
ReplyDeleteI believe it. I bet she stayed outside your door and listened in sometimes too!