Family, foibles & fun times



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I'm the eldest in a family of four. Growing up in a reasonably big family used to feel like a massive inconvenience. There was always some kind of argument going on. Someone was always getting blamed for what someone else did. There was never enough room, way too much sharing and food portions were always miserably small. Well I suppose I'm exaggerating, but in my memory being the eldest of four children felt at best slightly annoying and at worst completely and utterly suffocating.

These days I couldn't feel more thankful for having the three siblings that I do. All three are very different, but all three know who I am inside and out and I know them the same way. With siblings there is such a profound sense of commonality. Shared history, shared ways of thinking, shared parents, shared lives - it's great.

The banter between us always has me in hysterics. At Christmas we sat around and reminisced about our childhood, and the time we were caught running the streets in the school holidays when we should have been inside. We all scrambled for dear life trying to out run our Dad's car, praying he didn't see us (obviously he did), petrified of the punishment that lay in store. Or the time when my brother bit through his bottom lip after the armchair he was balanced on the back of toppled backwards and he went flying. I spent the whole evening trying to hide him from my Mum and when she finally caught up with us he had to be taken to hospital to get 6 stitches..... Or the time I jumped over the garden fence into our elderly next door neighbour's garden to retrieve a wayward ball. Only for the neighbour to catch me red handed and threaten to tell Dad that I had been trespassing. I was so scared of the repercussions. Looking back it all seems so trivial, at the time it felt like a life or death situation. The stories are endless and I love it. Memories are truly priceless.

I remember growing up my parents always used to tell us; 'These days are the best days of your life'. I always wondered what the heck they were talking about. I couldn't wait to be an adult, independent and living by my own rules. Now I understand that adulthood brings with it a whole new set of rules. How is it parents (mine in particular) ALWAYS know best?