(Myself, Christopher, and Susannah, Winter of 2012. Beauts.)
I was six when my mom and dad asked me
to come into the kitchen for a quick talk. I couldn't figure out what I was
about to get in trouble for this time. Racking my brains to remember what I
thought I had gotten away with but was surely about to be busted for, I dragged
my feet slowly to the kitchen table. My parents were both sitting with their
traditional stone faces of secrecy, refusing to give me any kind of hint to
what terrible punishment was in store for me. If only I could read their minds.
(I probably don't ever want to read their minds actually.) I stood before them
on guard, ready to flee at any moment (as if I could escape being grounded). I
was not expecting what came next.
If there was any kind of preamble to
this, I don't remember it. (I don’t think I was really listening.) All I recall
is my mother saying, "Sarah, we're having another baby."
I stood still for a second waiting for
a, “GOTCHA!” Alas, it never came, so I laughed and said, "Good one, Mom!
Okay, see ya." I quickly began a retreat, but was called back by my
father.
"Sarah Catherine, we're serious.
Mom is pregnant. You're going to have another sister or a brother," he
said in a serious voice (unusual for him at the time).
I was three when my sister, Susannah,
was born. I don't remember being told Mom was pregnant (probably because I was
two), but I sure remember the day Susannah was born. Mom decided we would go
down to North Carolina to stay with my Aunt Melissa, Uncle Chris, and cousins,
Alex and Dylan, for New Years. My grandmother also came down with us, but Dad
had to stay home for work. Mom wasn't due to have Susannah for two more weeks,
so she was probably hoping to squeeze one more little trip in before she
potentially had two of me, her dramatic, needy, attention-hungry first born.
How she and Dad decided having more kids after me was a good idea, I will never
understand.
On New Year’s Eve, Mom and I were
sharing a bed. I was feeling pretty clingy as we prepared for the new baby.
Something I saw on TV had totally freaked me out before bed and I had a vivid
nightmare that my mother and beloved unborn baby sister were abducted by
aliens. I woke early in the morning to find that I was alone in the bed; MOM
WAS ACTUALLY GONE. Panic ensued. I searched the house for her in the dark,
quietly weeping. Eventually, my Uncle Chris found me. When I wailed out to him
that my mom had been abducted by aliens, he gave me one of those pity laughs
adults give kids when they're distressed over ridiculous things and told me no,
Mom had just gone into labor, and was at the hospital.
I was overcome with joy! At last my
baby sister, future best friend, and playmate of my dreams was coming out of
Mommy's tummy! I had been waiting for this day for what felt like my entire
life (and honestly it was a good chunk of it at that young age). I was loaded
into the car with my family and whisked to the hospital to meet my angelic
sister.
Rewind to my Mom's experience during
this time. Mom went into labor right around the time we went to bed. While I
drifted off to sleep, Mom was trying to convince herself there was no way these
were contractions she was feeling. After I fell soundly asleep, she got up and
paced around the house for a while until, five hours after labor started, she
could ignore it no longer. She woke my grandmother up and said, "Mama, I'm
in labor!"
Mom boarded an ambulance in the wee
hours of the morning in Duck, North Carolina. It was a dark and foggy morning
and somehow the ambulance got lost in the fog. My mother ended up at a hospital
in Chesapeake, Virginia an hour and a half away from her starting point. She
swears that by the time they got there, she was holding the baby in trying not
to give birth in the ambulance. Mom got off the ambulance at 8:32 and four
minutes later, Susannah was born.
ENTER SARAH! The party got started
when I walked in of course. How little I knew of siblings then, so fresh faced
and young, so excited. I was thrilled to see my mother safe and not in the
clammy hands of aliens, and even better, holding my precious new partner in
crime. I was desperate to hold her and also to get attention from mom. (I
needed to establish my dominance with that kid ASAP.) Hesitantly, Mom allowed
me to get on the bed and placed Susannah tenderly in my arms. Some of you may
not believe what happened next, but I swear it is true. Peaceful, newborn
Susannah opened her eyes to me and I beamed down at her. She took me in for a
moment, then, just for a second, flashed me the snarkiest smirk I have ever
seen, opened her trap, and started screaming bloody murder.
That pretty much sums up the first
several years of our lives together. If I had something she wanted, she would
scream at me until I gave it to her. If I was getting too much attention for
her liking, she would scream it all away from me. She did not turn out to be
the obedient, Sarah-worshiping angel I had anticipated, and it would be many
years before we became close. (We actually are best friends now.)
Given my prior experience with babies
being born, I was naturally skeptical of another coming into my life. I fought
back tears of horror as my parents insisted it was true that Mom was pregnant
and stared at me completely dumbfounded at my insistence they must be joking.
After a few days, the idea of it was starting to settle down into my mind
garden. I began praying for a baby brother thinking maybe a boy would be the
obedient servant I had hoped for. I also started to wonder how the heck these
kids kept getting into my mom's stomach and encroaching on my turf. I started
asking a lot of questions, very specific questions, questions my mother could
not just ignore.
Unable to escape my curiosity, my mom
went to my elementary school guidance counselor to borrow some illustrated
books to aid her presentation on how babies were made. One Saturday afternoon,
she called me back into the kitchen. She bravely read through a book that
explained sex on a child's level complete with pictures of blank faced women on
their backs as blank faced men lay on top of them under pea green blankets, detailed
diagrams of uteri, sperm and eggs, fetuses growing through different stages of
a pregnancy, and a very unrealistic illustration of a woman giving birth (no
one is that calm looking at such an event). At the end of the book I stood in
utter disgust, wearing my parent’s traditional stone face until my mother could
take the suspense no longer.
"Well?"
I looked her dead in the eye and
harrumphed, saying, "I must have been asleep when y'all were doing
THAT."
I left my baffled mother to make a phone call
to my friend Naia so that I could tell them the scandalous details of how our
moms and dads were putting their "peepee places together”. I distinctly
recall taking a vow: "I am never doing THAT!" Dream on, little Sarah.
In spite of the disgusting way he was
conceived, I was ecstatic when my Mom went into labor. I remember seeing her
and Dad off at the front door that December all full of pep and excitement
(much more than my Mom which I didn't understand at the time. I figured it out
after I had given birth to my own kid, let me tell you. Talk about a double
edged sword.) My poor grandmother and Auntie were left with the unpleasant job
of watching my sister and me. I can't really remember what Susannah was up to,
but knowing what a good kid she was, she was probably just quietly playing with
her dollies. I was absolutely bouncing off the walls.
By 9 o'clock that night, Christopher
had been born. My exhausted sounding mother's voice came over the phone to me
to deliver the words I was dying to hear: "Sarah, you have a baby
brother." I hurled the phone into my grandmother's stomach (Sorry, Nan),
let out a victory cry, and ran through the house screaming in triumph for
several minutes. It must have been hell trying to put me to bed that night.
The next morning, Susannah and I were
taken to see Christopher and Mom at the hospital before school. Christopher was
seriously the most beautiful newborn baby I have ever seen. His chubby white
face was home to the biggest, rosiest cheeks, the shiniest pink lips, and the
roundest, bluest eyes and was topped off with a thick tuft of pure white hair.
He was basically the Snow White of boys with inverted hair color. I was allowed
to pass out blue "It's a Boy!" lollipops to my classmates and FYI
they were super delicious. It was pretty much an awesome day.
There you have the stories of my
siblings (at least my side of it). They both grew into two really kick ass
individuals. I have watched my sister grow from a little girl throwing her arms
into the air and screaming, "SUPER ZANNAH!" as she tackled my
gigantic father to the ground, to a graceful young woman flawlessly dancing as
the Sugar Plum Fairy in her final Nutcracker before graduating high school, to
a plucky dame of a woman who won't let anyone hold her back as she pursues a
life that's good. I have watched as my brother has gone from a beautiful little
boy saying "frucks" instead of "trucks", to a lady slaying middle schooler with girls falling all over him,
to a surprisingly mature young man working hard at his first job and
desperately trying to score his own car. (He ended up inheriting my old Subaru
recently. I am thrilled that it went to him.) We have fought, we have cried, we
have screamed, we have invaded each other's privacy, and we have taught each
other forgiveness. That's the beauty of having a sibling; to have one is to
have a lifelong friend that you can always count on even after you tell their
really embarrassing penis stories.
(Myself, Christopher, and Susannah. Summer of 2000.)
No comments:
Post a Comment