Today my baby brother turns

Today my baby brother turns 22. Happy birthday, baby brother! One of my first memories is of my dad taking me to the hospital after his birth and my mom giving me a red canvas crayon-shaped pencil case. My thought at the time was simply, “Hmm, crayon bag. Okay.” I guess I wasn't exactly the eagle-eyed observer I am today, because I really have no other recollection from then. Note to parents expecting a second child: give first-born a red object on birth day and child will create color-based memory.

We have to fast forward many years before I start remembering us sharing a room when were a bit older. This didn’t work so much as it was a total disaster. I would stake claim to my side of the room by carefully setting up a dividing line made of blocks. He thoughtfully challenged my territory by kicking the blocks across the room and tramping over all my stuff.

This was to begin a long history of me reasoning with my brother and him countering with belligerent displays of disregard. For instance, when my friends were over and he began annoying us, we would tell him to leave us alone. He would think about the request, and more often then not return ten minutes later to streak us.

When we were older, there was the time he locked me out of the house. I will admit that I was potentially acting in a manner that was less than calm and collected when I began beating on the glass window with the heel of my hand, demanding that he unlock the door. Which he did. About 30 seconds after I put my hand through the glass. I got a few cuts, but nothing big. This somehow got chalked up to an episode that my brother won.

That and the time when he hit my face lightly in a fight and my nose (as it was prone to do) started bleeding. He remembers that episode as the time he made my nose bleed. He is proud of this in a little-brother-besting-big-sister kind of way.

We look alike. We look a lot alike. In fact, we’re one of those weird families that all kind of look like each other. People like to tell us that. So it’s easy for me to catch glimpses of myself in him, in the way his eyes shift to the left when you’re talking to him, in the way tenses up when you’re trying to preach at him by disguising the preaching as a good-natured talk, the way he starts flipping the channel when you join him to watch TV even when you went to join him because you knew he was watching the Simpsons.

I’m jealous that he learned to drive standard, that he knows how to mow the lawn, that he has not only learned the secret family toffee recipe before me, but improved it.

I mean, out of all the people in the whole world, he is the only one that was also raised by my parents in the same homes as me. So as far as worldviews go, he and I have the same starting point. I think that’s great.

Hugs and kisses and Happy Birthday, baby brother!

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