Her sister
When I was a kid, I got along with my sisters. We played for hours and hours. Hide and seek…barbies…talent show…radio show…whatever it was we all played it together. Something happened when we got older. Our personalities started to really develop and all 3 of us became totally different kinds of people. The closeness we had disappeared. Back in those days I was ok with that. I had my own life and I was busy and I had a lot of friends. I didn’t miss being close to my sisters. After I got married and had Hannah that changed. When she was a few years old we knew she needed a sibling. We didn’t want her to be an only child. And then I got to thinking about my relationship with my sisters and how yes, when we were kids we had eachother. But as adults, we didn’t. And we still don’t really. My youngest sister is 7 years younger. We get along but the age gap was always there growing up so we never really bonded and got to know eachother. The middle sister who’s a year and 1/2 younger than me…we’re just SO different and differ on SO many opinions. We argue A LOT. I love them both though. It’s hard to sometimes, but I do. So I’m constantly wishing we were closer. All of us.
For Hannah it started when she told us that she wanted a baby sister and prayed a lot of nights looking up to the sky through a window for a sister. It HAD to be a girl. We got pregnant. And the baby was a girl. Hannah was SO excited. She was going to be a big sister. And she was going to have a little sister. In her world, her dreams had come true.
Shortly after that Livie was born. Words can’t express how proud Hannah was. I will never forget her face while she held Livie.
And that was the start of something between them. Their age difference is 6 years. That’s pretty significant. And yet, they’ve seemed to make it work just fine.
I’ve watched these two together for the past 15 months. I’ve smiled and cried at how they are. Sure, Livie bugs Hannah. She takes her toys and runs off with them and I can hear Hannah yell “LIVIE!!!!” after her. And nothing breaks my heart more than when Hannah goes to pick her up and she squawls and I hear Hannah say “She hates me.” Then I have to remind her that she’s just a baby and she does NOT hate her. She wants to be like her.
I tell her that she’ll spend her life looking up to her and she has to be nice to her…to be an example of what a good sister is so that her baby sis will follow.
And when I tell her that an immediate pang of guilt sweeps across my gut. I’m constantly complaining about my relationship with my sisters. Granted, I’ve put effort in before and I’ve always regretted it. I’ve been shot down…offended…but still. I’m the oldest. I’m THE big sister. If I want there to be a change, I have to do just a little bit more. Over the phone, it’s hard. I get annoyed. I get impatient. We lead different lives and it’s especially difficult with the middle sister as she doesn’t have any kids…isn’t married. Her talking about her latest bar adventure isn’t exactly what I care to hear about as I’m changing a poopy diaper and doing homework with Hannah. Just like she could care less about my busy evenings running back and forth to dance and bath time and bed time. But maybe, just maybe, if I put in the time and effort to care about those things…ONE DAY she’ll care about what I care about. We’ve tried it before. We failed before. I want to try again because I want that for my girls. I want my girls to always get along. I want Hannah to ALWAYS try even when it’s hard. I don’t know if they’ll be alike personality wise or not. But they will ALWAYS be sisters with a history of good times..with a history of love.
Just like we are.
7 Responses to Her sister
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I remember my mom telling us that someday she and my dad would gone and my sister, brother and I would be all that we had left of our original family. It seemed like an important responsibility to maintain our bond.
We are all close, but we are all in different place in our lives. I am single and trying to live a fabulous single life. My brother is recently divorced and busy being a dad. My sister is in grad school and starting her career. But we do take time to touch base and share in one another’s life. I am sure my bar adventures aren’t super important to my brother and potty training isn’t exactly my favorite topic, but we care about each other and want to be apart of eachother’s life.
Karen´s last blog ..Like Jello
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I have two brothers. One I never talk about, because I’ll never see him again. It just is what it is. He choose drugs over family. I can’t change that.
My other brother and I have always been close. It’s takes two people to make a relationship work. No matter what type of relationship it is. All you can do is try, but you can’t force it to happen. Not with you and your sisters, nor with your girls.
What I’m finding with mine…is that they are close some days and others not. My job? Is to help them learn to respect their similarities and differences. To respect each other and be nice to each other even on days they don’t like each other. In the end, them being friends is up to them, but I can help them understand each other better, in hopes that they’ll stay friends.
Issa´s last blog ..Introducing
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I love this post, just love it. Your girls will always have each other. I have 4 brothers. I love them all dearly, we all get along, but it isn’t always easy. I can’t wait to one day give Maya a little sister or brother.
Lisa´s last blog ..It’s Hot Out There
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LOVE the pic of the 3 of you!!!!!
and also, i’ve played barbies with your sisters too. and guess who
and then there’s the time we took barbies and played our own way!
my sis and i are 7 years apart. we shared a room. it was hard! but now we are closer than ever. since she had her first baby. maybe when mean sis has a kid, she’ll get it. she’ll realize what you see…
maura´s last blog ..cleveland rocks
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Becky Reply:
May 27th, 2010 at 3:56 pm
I keep hoping that’ll be the case. I’m def closer to the youngest one now that she’s got a kid. We can relate to eachother on a diff level now. Guess we’ll see.
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Becky, I love everything about this post.
Honestly? In the end, if you end up close or not, as long as you gave it your all, tried your best? That’s the important lesson.
avasmommy´s last blog ..Not Goodbye
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Sam and I are seven years apart. We fought like cats and dogs growing up. Weird thing was, I could be a jerk to her, but if anyone else looked at her sideways I went all mama bear on them. haha
When she was being wild and crazy and having babies way to young I was also being wild and crazy, but I was also judging her choices and decisions.
Now that she is somewhat settled and her family functions somewhat normally, I look at what I have and see that maybe she had it right all along and those times I judged her “poor decisions” were wrong.
I don’t really know how this pertains to you, or what you just said lol. I guess it just made me think of Sam and where we are and where I want to be. You’re right. I am the big sister and I need to work at it.
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