An Old but Funny Story

Ok, this is an old story about my little sister and brother. Fellow blogger Becky conjured up memories of this story, so I felt compelled to share! I think it's hilarious looking back, you however may find yourself thinking that my sister was a demented 4 year old, but I assure you she was simply an actress from the day she was born.

For a little background, my sister is 9 years and a few months younger than me and my brother is 10 and 1/2 years younger. Which if you do the math makes them 15 months apart. Talk about chaos, once these two came along life was a whirlwind of motion. My sister was the ring-leader and Joe followed her beck and call. He was bashful and an angel. She was sinister and loud Together they got into a whole lot of everything. It's funny because in retrospect, it makes sense that they had the types of personalities that they had.

Jessica came into the world fighting. She was born premature, 6 weeks early and weighing in at only 4 lbs and a few ounces- not a big deal now, but 22 years ago this was somewhat of a feat. She had even stopped breathing and my mother had an emergency C-section, Jessica was flown via helicopter to a neighboring hospital. On the other hand, my brother Joey took his time arriving, he made my mom wait until far into her 9th month, through the dead of summer and into an Indian one. I remember how big and miserable mom was while she was pregnant with him. It was as if he didn't want to go anywhere. He had no rush, he was content. I also remember the car ride to the hospital and her pleas to hurry because she was in so much pain. She had anticipated delivering him via VBAC, however he was in a half breech presentation (he wasn't sideways but his head wasn't straight and the doctor told my mother that this and with the combination of his head being way too big she would need a C-section. So that was that and he was delivered repeat C-section, weighing in at over 9 lbs and practically cooing as he arrived. He was no where near the fragile darling Jessica was, he was a healthy teddy bear.

Fast forward a few years to when Jessica was 4 and Joe was 3 years old. Double trouble. One was nicknamed Wild Child and the other was Crazy Kid. My stepfather had decided to buy a motorized riding Jeep for my brother's birthday, Jessica had a Barbie car and so my stepfather felt this evened the playing field. Yet, he didn't realize their competitiveness (or should I say my sister's that is).

Anyhow, it was a couple of years after the first Batman was in the movie theaters - Jessica and Joe always dressed up as their favorite characters, whatever was big at the moment movie wise or someone from their favorite book or cartoon.

On one particular day, as they were playing Batman, Joe was in his jeep in the kitchen. (yeah I'm not for sure why it was in there either, but it was). Joe was Batman and I believe Jessica was playing Princess or the sidekick Robin or maybe even the Little Mermaid. At this point it appeared she was tired of playing the second fiddle because she all of a sudden decided that she wanted to drive the 'getaway' car - (a.k.a. the Jeep) so she preceded to try and knock Joey out of the Jeep. She was slightly pushing him and telling him that he had been caught and now it was her turn. Joey seemed both unphased and unamused. He simply kept driving the jeep, telling her to 'catch' him again. Irritated that her plan didn't work, they continued playing and all seemed well.

That's when it happened. Out of the blue, Jessica walks ever so slowly over to Joe, gives him a big shove and yells "Die Batman, Die!"

Needless to say, at those words time out was enforced and we tried to explain to Jessica why that type of behavior wasn't an appropriate way to treat her brother. I'm not for sure we ever really convinced her on that one, but she's much nicer to Joe now and on her way to becoming a full-fledged actress to boot.

So, I guess all that 'pretending' paid off. Oh and for the record, Joe is still as sweet as ever.