The Joys of Having Siblings That are MUCH Younger Than You

When my parents decided to have another child, when I was almost 16, I was thrilled. You see, we had just recently moved from Podunk, Indiana to Wilmington, Delaware. Difference in population: about a million, difference in crime: unmeasurable. Basically, I was on a leash that was about 2 foot long. Of course, this probably wasn't really a bad thing, now that I am older and can reflect on it. But, at the time, I thought my life was a living hell.

So, Stan was born. YAY!!! He was sooo cute, and cuddly, and all. AND basically mom and dad must have decided it was ok if I was out and about more, cause they had a back-up...lol SO, I went from never going anywhere, to going basically anywhere I wanted. Of course, 90% of the time, I had a newborn with me, but still, he was easy to hide being as small as he was. Cruising in Newark, stop to talk to cute guy. Him: "what is that in the back seat?" Me: "oh, just some dirty laundry." Him: "it smells like baby shit!" Me: "Yeah, new brother at home, all he does is poop!" (crap, gonna have to find somewhere with a semi-flat surface to change the little stinker!) Him: "did your laundry just cry???" Me: "no, I ran over a cat." Him: "you are sitting in a parking lot, you know." Me: "GEEZ you ask a lot of questions for someone I just randomly met!"

Then, Stan got to that cute baby age, around 6 months or so.. this was when my friend Becca and I discovered that by feeding him random condiments, we could get him to make the funniest faces! Lemon juice was our favorite, but could be substituted by mustard, olives, pickles, you get the idea. BOY did we have fun! For the record, I loved/love him to death. I took him everywhere, including school.

A couple years later, along came Jessi, my sister, shortly followed by my daughter Kasey 7 months later. Around the time they all became toddlers, I discovered that they thought I was GOD. I could tell them anything, and they would believe it. NO MATTER HOW CRAZY IT WAS!
This was awesome, and the source of endless hours of entertainment on my part.

Examples:

1) they were convinced that my car was a helicoptor, and when I turned the flashers on, we were off the ground, flying. I usually did this as we were going up a hill, so they could see the treetops out the windows... This was great, until one day Stan asked me what the little lever on the seatbelt was (the thing you use to adjust the height of the shoulder strap). Going along with the flying mantra, I told him it was a seat ejector. All three kids screamed when I tried to touch it....

2) I convinced them once that the reason they had tailbones(because Jessi asked...) was because they were all born with tails, but for cosmetic reasons, we had them removed.

3) Jessi has a small mole on the inside of the arch of her foot. She asked me one day what it was. I told her it was a mole. She said "what is a mole?" ...... So I told her it wasn't anything to worry about right now, that eventually she would have to have a special shoe made as it grew, but that would take a couple years. She really didn't say too much else about it. Later that night tho, after she went home to mom, she very innocently pointed to the mole and said "mommy, what is this?" to which my mom replied "its a mole" . I got a very ANGRY call from my mother because Jessi immediately went in to hysterics when mom confirmed that she had a mole.... (backfire)

4) This one wasn't just me. My brother Rob was involved. We convinced Stan that he had a disease called Gizzards, that he contracted from eating chicken... There were several remedies to this disease, none of which were nice, some of which may or may not have bordered on abuse (please don't report me, it was all ROB I swear). Stan has since forgiven ME, but maybe not Rob so much...

I cannot think of others off the top of my head, but Jess, Stan, Kase, feel free to leave other examples in the comments. Just make sure you don't incriminate me...

This all-in-fun sibling/child teasing has backfired a couple times. For example, one time Jessi came to visit me at work when I was working in Pediatrics. There was a little boy in an oxygen tent. She wanted to give him a toy car. I explained to her that he couldn't have anything that could cause a sparkm because the oxygen could catch on fire. Mom told me later that Jessi went ON AND ON about how she didn't believe me, that I was pulling her leg. Luckily, she does believe Mom, so we have been able to avoid oxygen related explosions.

Another time, when I was pregnant with Matthew, Stan made the comment that I was having three babies. (kasey had somehow gotten this idea from that stupid pencil test, that said I was going to have a girl and two boys) I explained to Stan that I only had one baby. He said "No, you have three. Here, here, and here. (pointing to my stomach, and then each of my rather pregnantly induced large breasts. I told him , no, just one, in my stomach. He said "then why are THEY so big?" I told him that my body was making milk, and that was how I was going to feed the baby when it was born. His response? "YEAH RIGHT". After I finally convinced him that I wasn't lying to him, he had three questions. One: why did HE have boobs then? Two: were his going to get as big as mine? Three: (My personal favorite) "Well, after you get done feeding the baby with them, what good are they????" I responded to this last one that one day he would understand what they were good for. He was 9 when this conversation took place. He is 20 now, and still hasn't figured out what they are good for... ( I love you Stan!)

marci