TheBanyanTree: Today's Post: About My Brother

[Laura]

On 29 Jan 2009 at 11:45, Monique Colver wrote:

> I was 13 when Jeff was born, a fine age to take care of a baby

My oldest brother was 13 when I was born.  My youngest brother was 12.  My sister was 9.  
(and yet, to this day, my mother swears I was not an accident.  however, my dad got a 
vasectomy within months of my birth.  you figure it out...)

Every day the three of them would race home after school to see who got to take Baby 
Laura out in the stroller for a walk.  I was the bestest toy Mom ever brought them.

My brothers played with me constantly.  I don't mean "played with" as in "let's play a game 
together", I mean "played with" as in "here, catch the baby!"  I was frequently a football.  
Yeah - still have the scar on my eyebrow from the two stitches *that* required.

One of our favorite games was pillow.  I dunno if we called it that, but that's how I remember 
it.  I would stand at one end of the room, and my brothers would sit at the other end.  I would 
try to run across the room and jump on one of them.  If I successfully tackled either one of 
them, I won.  Sounds easy, right?  No.  We had these big ol' floor pillows that were at least 
two and a half feet square, and five inches thick.  Solid foam, covered with a blue and green 
plaid.  I think we had three of them, but maybe there were only two.  Anyway, the 
complicated part of the game was that as I was trying to run across the room, they were 
zinging the pillows at my knees.  I'm not sure I ever won.  I know I ended up, more often 
than not, face down on one of those pillows.  The would take me out just below the knees, 
and I would flop forward right in the middle of the pillow.  Great fun!

Great fun until a pillow only hit one leg, or hit too high, and I fell sideways onto the concrete 
floor, or flopped over backwards onto the hearth.  Granted, the floor was covered with 
carpet, but it was that old 1970's 'indoor-outdoor' carpet that was about 1/8 of an inch thick.  
It hardly qualified as padding.

Sometimes I'd pop right back up, shake it off, and we'd continue playing.  Sometimes I'd 
cry.  The boys have since commented that "the game always ended with Laura crying".  It's 
funny, I don't remember the crying part, but I remember how fun the games were.

My Mom finally gave up worrying.  I think she went all Nietzsche on us.  "What doesn't kill 
her, makes her stronger."  She was right.  :)

-- 
Laura
wolfljsh at gmail.com
http://wolfsinger.wordpress.com