If you missed the first installment of this one regarding the older three kids, click here.
HeartBreaker (my fourth brother)
By the time HB rolled around, I was getting sick of brothers, and babies. Being the only girl, the business of taking care of the babies often fell to me, and living life as the outnumbered gender...well, it sucked.
Still, HB and I had a good relationship. At this point, I was so much older that we were not exactly peers, but I wasn't the parent either.
HB grew up gorgeous - he looked like a male model, complete with the lazy smile and the long eyelashes. He and my dad clashed even worse than I did, and home wasn't the easiest life for him. When I moved out, we lost touch a little bit.
My current favorite memory of his is as an adult. My father passed away last year, and the whole family gathered for the funeral. We stayed at his house, back in the woods, and I had some time to talk with him again sitting on his front porch in the evening dusk, as well as getting to know his two boys a little bit. Catching up was a very nice thing, and seeing how good a father he is, and how well his boys are growing up felt very satisfying.
Plus, the rarity of having all the kids together again in one place really added to the experience...and nobody got bombed the next day! (Which is another story for another time...)
TomGurl (my one and only sister)
Finally, my wishes for a little sister ended up in the right heavenly department, and TG came along. There was a ten-year difference between us, but still I hoped we could finally talk ribbons and hair and twirling and all the girl things I wanted to have around that no one else appreciated.
What'd I get? A total tomboy, who never wore dressed, wanted her hair cut short, and ran with all the boys.
Still, she got better as she got older.
My favorite memory of her was when I was an adult, and she was still coming on teenager. We shared a room at one point, and slept in the same bed. Somehow, one night, we ended up in a poke-war, and couldn't stop laughing about it.
Weird, I know. It was more fun than it sounds.
StuckOnYou (my fifth and final brother)
This poor kid didn't stand a chance. I was more mother than sister to this one, and what he wanted, more than anything in the world...was someone to pay attention to him.
He followed us around. He got into everything. I felt bad for pushing him away so much, and tried to play with him whenever I could, but baby stuff just wasn't that interesting to a boy-crazed 12-year-old.
My favorite story about SOY (and I have to admit, this one might be over-told, but I still love it) was the day he disappeared, and nobody noticed.
We were going about our business, when our neighbor pulls up to our house in his truck, and brings us SOY, who's wearing nothing but a diaper and very unhappy.
Turns out no one would take him to the store, so he set off himself. About three years old, with a nickel in his hand for the ice cream cones that cost a quarter at the time, and dressed in nothing but his diaper. Our neighbor found him and fortunately recognized him, and brought him back home without his ice cream.
The incident scared my mother (and me) at the time, but I admired his gumption, and to this day, I still think he might have made it if he weren't intercepted. We were free-range kids to the core.
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