Tuesday 8 January 2013

Sisters


Growing up, I had always dreamed of having either an older sister or a younger sister. There were times when I’d even beg my parents to give me a sister. I wasn’t naïve, I knew all about the birds and the bees (as Americans so aptly put it), but I was willing to cope with having the gross image of my parents burned into my brain for eternity if it meant that I would get a sister. Out of all the birthdays I’ve had, I remember my tenth the most. After all the guests at my party had left, I remember my dad sitting me down and telling me that my mum was pregnant. The first thing out of my mouth wasn’t a delightful scream (as one would expect), it was “Couldn’t you have waited until tomorrow to tell me this? Are you trying to ruin my birthday?!” My mum was too tired to react, but my dad sure as hell did! I was sent to my room and not allowed to have a party bag from my own party. Eventually I got used to it and my baby brother was born in the summer of 2000. Oddly enough, I spent a lot of my time babying my brother and spoiling him rotten – all the things I had planned to do with my sister (if I ever got one). It wasn’t until I was seventeen, my older brother was twenty-one, and my baby brother was seven that we finally welcomed a baby girl into the family. When my mum told me she was pregnant this time around, her and my dad were convinced it was going to be another boy however I had my suspicions that this time round, my dream of having a baby sister was going to come true. When I received the phone call from my dad to tell me that my mum had delivered, my suspicions were confirmed. I was ecstatic! I remember receiving the phone call from my dad telling me it was a girl, and me punching my fist in the air whilst shouting “I knew it!” Naturally when my mum came home with my sister, I spent all day holding her and gazing at her just to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. I did all of this before very stylishly rubbing it in my mum’s face that I was right and that her and my dad were wrong. Everything was going perfectly until my sister learnt how to talk. By the age of three, she was talking fluently and had developed the habit of speaking her mind. She became exceptionally rude and didn’t respect anyone apart from my older brother. She even began to tell everyone to “shut up”. She would even say “whatever” to my parents if told off. I found myself wondering “what happened to my cute, sweet baby sister? The sister who couldn’t pronounce words or letters properly?” I finally came to the conclusion that she didn’t exist anymore.