Pluto's Birthday

Yes, today is my little sister's birthday. Someone please explain to me how I could possibly have a little sister who's 42 years old. I remember her more like this (the pic on the left).

Now, she's married, 3 kids, drives a mini-van, and will probably kill me for writing those details about her. She's taken up running over the past two years and I'm waiting for her to break all my PRs. It should happen soon at the rate she's going.

So let's see - Pluto trivia. 1) Where did the nickname Pluto come from? She was the littlest member of our family. When she was about 5 or 6, she was SUPER tiny and my mom desperately tried to get her to drink milk, eat veggies (none of us would do that given how she steamed the poor things beyond recognition), eat ice cream, consume anything to grow/gain weight. In retaliation to all the forced feeding, Pluto would pull up her shirt, suck in her stomach and parade around with protruding ribs that brought to mind horrible images from Life magazine and made my mom absolutely crazy.

For a little sister, she never drove me crazy. At least not to the point where I was hoping she'd disappear. When we shared a bedroom in our apartment in NYC (she was around 1, me 4) I would have to move her crib away from the wall because she'd flick the light switch on/off until she fell asleep. The floor in our bedroom was hardwood, the crib had wheels, and she'd just rock the crib so it scooted back over to where she could reach the light switch and attempt to trigger epileptic seizures in me.




I don't remember ever wanting to avoid her or not hang out with her. I did want to steal her hair. I couldn't believe I got the brown, curly hair gene and she got the silky, straight, blonde hair gene. It's still not fair! I also was not happy that she got the I-hate-food-gene combined with being naturally thin. Eating her leftovers was never a hardship for me. It was a happy day in my world the day I gave her a pair of hand-me down pants that were too small for her. Only took me 38 years. ;-)

On the flip side, I know I haven't been the best big sister. One of my favorite pasttimes was scaring the living daylights out of her. I still get tons of grief for the time I hid in her closet with pantyhose on my head. When she found me in there, she screamed so loud and so real that it made me scream because I thought Michael Myers must be standing right behind me with a bloody, dripping knife. Geez! Give me a break already! It was a joke! ;-)

There are tons more stories which will be saved for next year's birthday post. Happy Birthday, Pluto! Hope you're having a fabulous day (and make sure you check your closet before you go to bed!) ;-)