On the eve of my Bubby’s birthday, I decided to write about how horrible awesome of a brother I have. No, really. I do have an awesome relationship with my Bubby and one I would not change in the world. It is quite amazing that we are so close since we are 11 years apart. Yup. 11 years apart and we are close. My Mom was always afraid that I would not be close to either my Bubby or my seester (she is 13 years younger) since I am so much older than them, but I am glad to say they are two of my most favorite people in the whole world. However, this was not always the case.
When I was 10, I came home and my Mom said the dreaded of words of “I need to talk to you.” Of course, I assumed I was in trouble for something and racked my brain to figure out what I had done that she could have figured out. Did she know I ate that slice of pie? Did she figure out I was the one who left the hose running and flooded the whole yard even though I blamed it on the neighbor? Nope…it was much worse. Suddenly, my brain figured it out and I looked at my Mom suspiciously and said “Oh Geez Mom. Are you pregnant?” I was pretty disgusted. At age 10, the thought of your Mom being pregnant is not that appealing, especially when you have been a spoiled rotten only child your whole life. Needless to say, I met this news with hostility and disgust. Totally not what my Mom was hoping. Things got rougher from there, I must admit. I believe the words “You can take your stupid baby and leave me and my Daddy alone” came out of my mouth in the months to follow. Let’s just say I had some adjustment issues to being a big sister. My Mom, at her wit’s end, finally took me to an ultrasound appointment to try to get me to turn around on the thought and I was able to see the baby move, have the hiccups and even suck its thumb. I grudgingly said to her after this that it “better be a boy or I am not going to be happy” and then tried to look forward to the addition to our family.
After he was born, I adjusted relatively well except for the one incident that might have seriously done some damage to my poor innocent infant Bubby. You see, we lived in a house in Iowa that had a laundry chute to the basement where the washer and dryer was kept. One day, my Mom was doing laundry and I was upstairs with my Bubby who started screaming. He was probably a few weeks to months old at this point and I did not know what to do. He honestly would not stop screaming! I knew I should take him to my Mom, but was afraid to walk down the stairs with him in my arms. I was such a clutz that I regularly tripped down those stairs. So I did the next best thing. I wrapped up the screaming Bubby in his blanket, opened up the cabinet in the bathroom and stuffed him down the chute to my Mom. Yeah. You read that right. I sent the screaming infant down a laundry chute. What? He wouldn’t stop screaming and I was quite done with him. Pretty sure I am lucky that A) there was still laundry in the basket at the end of the chute and B) that I still have skin left on my ass after the whooping I got for it. Since, he is just fine now, I have come to the conclusion that the trip down the laundry chute didn’t hurt him at all and he should thank me for not tripping down the stairs with him in my arms. Seriously. He should thank me for toughing him up, right?
Despite all the things my Bubby had to endure from his big Sissy, I do have to say that I am thankful for having such a wonderful caring and funny guy in my life. My Bubby survived the trip down the laundry chute, the hanging upside down when I was annoyed with him, the dangling of spit over his face while I sat on him, and the locking him out of the house when he was super-duper annoying to a teenager. Through it all, he still managed to become my favorite guy to hang out with, laugh with, talk to, and even cry with. Thanks for being my little Bubby and always taking care of your Sissy even when I didn’t know I needed it.
Oh yeah. I didn’t die today. My Bubby almost died when he was a baby thanks to me and I almost died from the can of whoop ass my Dad opened on me but I didn’t die. I am fat girl stuffing her Bubby down the laundry chute running. The experiment continues….
This is great. Spock ears!
Pretty sure he still has them….I love him despite his Spock ears!
Oh, Stann….. I think I need hernia surgery. And my downstairs neighbor probably wants to know what in the hell I am laughing at.
This beats my brother locking me in the toy box when I was 3, and then sitting on it telling my parents that he had no idea where I was – he was 5. Of course, my Grandpa Snooks started that whole ordeal several years prior when I was in utero. There was a Magnavox television commercial on that had a monkey sitting on top of the TV. My grandpa told my brother that monkey was his new little brother. Danny was pretty POd when Momma and Daddy brought me home from the hospital, and I was neither a monkey nor a brother. I think he may still harbor dreams of me growing a tail and hanging upside down from it, but otherwise he is pretty decent to his non-monkey, non-brother.