National Sibling Day

{Amy, Wendy, Joey}

Like any sibling can attest, no one can cause you such grief and then make you laugh until you cry like a sister can.  We complained in the car that She's looking out my window!  She's breathing my air!  Mom, Dad!  Make her stop.  Why'd you have to have three of us?!   

We played school.  We  hid Barbie's good high heels from each other.  We stole clothes.  We yelled to Get off the phone! when we were expecting a boy to call.  We were in each other's weddings.  We are aunts to each other's daughters.  We visit each other's houses.

I'm proud to call these lovely ladies my sisters.

My Mom and Dad learned they were expecting me on Amy's 4th birthday.

Maybe she was getting back at me for stealing her thunder when, years later, she would stuff socks in my mouth and plug my nose.

That might have been as mean as Amy ever was to me.

Amy is the oldest.  She looks out for her little sisters.

She drives me nuts when she asks me if I've gotten my oil changed.  Every week.

I once borrowed a pair of shoes and she had to show me how they buckled.  I was 25.

But That's our Amy, as our Mother will say.

Christmas morning was the one time of the year when Wendy and I would completely cede to Amy's structured, planned approach to life without squabbling.  Awake before dawn, we had hours to fill before our parents woke up so we could open presents.

          - Okay, first, we're going to have our pop-tarts and watch a movie.  (Wendy and I would nod.)  Then, we're going to organize our presents.  Then, Joey, at 5, you're going to go in and ask Mom and Dad to wake up.

          - Why me? 

          - They like you best.  

          - Oh, okay.  

Amy was in college when I was in high school, and, even though she could have slept until much later, she would wake up at 6 to curl my hair.

Once, when I was about 15, I woke up in the middle of the night and saw Amy, struggling to contain her laughter, hovering above my face, putting make up on me as I slept.

          - What are you doing?!

          - I couldn't sleep.

When she was 13, she could have spent her hard-earned baby-sitting money on herself, but instead she bought me a doll I desperately wanted for Christmas.

For as far back as I can remember, Amy does all she can to make sure her little sisters have the best of everything.

A friend will stand beside you when life is hard.  Wendy will stand beside you AND make dirty jokes.

When we were little, Wendy would push me down and call me names, but she'd be the first to snap to my defense if anyone else ever said a bad word about me.

Once, when I was 12, I was sitting on my bed reading a book when Wendy opened the door, walked right up to me, spit in my hair, smiled, and turned and walked out, never saying a word.

She would pick me up from middle school in the family's mini van.  The mini van with the "wood" paneling on the side.  A crowd of kids in my grade stood and laughed as Wendy pulled up honking, yelling my name through the open windows with a huge smile on her face.  Then she would inch forward just as I would move to open the door, pulling it out of reach.

  

          - Sorry!

          - OhmyGodWendystopityouaremortifyingme! I said under my breath.

          - What?!  I'm mortifying you?! She would yell back.  Well, then, get in the van!  And then she'd inch forward some more.

Eventually, she stopped doing those things to me.  Eventually, she let me in on the joke.

As a typical middle child, Wendy does everything first. 

She rode a bike first.

She got married first.

She had babies first.

She has the most open mind I have ever encountered.

If I showed up at her doorstep with a dead body, she would say nothing but Where do we dig?

When I was pregnant with Jane, Wendy would cry whenever she saw me; great big tears of happiness.

Just as kindly, she would hold them back because she knew she was freaking me out.

My Mom says she wanted three kids because she thought two would be boring.  As the youngest, I absolutely agree, three is a magic number.

Do you have a sibling who's made you laugh, made you cry, made you crazy, made you Cinnamon Pop-Tarts on Christmas morning?  Share your story.