To my sister, on her birthday

So today is my sisters birthday. Steph and I are separated by nine years, which might seem like a yawning gap but was actually a lovely number growing up. She was old enough to have sufficient perspective on what I was going through, yet close enough in time to understand why I might be weeping over, say, my mother not allowing me to go to prom. "Jen," she would say as I howled into the phone about the unfairness of it all, "it might seem catastrophic now, but at least you're not going to be pressured into putting out for some loser with pimples and have pictures of you in what I'm going to assume is a hideous dress." She had a point. It was the early 90's, after all, and grunge was at its peak. Thanks, mom!

Regardless, she was my voice of reason through childhood, and I like to think that I prepared her to be a mom, since she had me constantly tugging at her sleeve going "Where are you going NOW? Can I come TOO?" And often, she WOULD let me and my brother Steve tag along. When she was dating her now husband, Tim, I can't count the number of nights that they took us out to dinner first, I think allowing us to escape the difficulties that our parents were going through. She shielded us through a lot of that while trying to navigate the tricky waters of high school and then life during her college years. She was an excellent older sister - I highly recommend getting one yourself.

She continues to be a great sister and an amazing friend. I stand in awe of her, watching her raise her three children with so much grace and order. I know "order" seems like a weird thing to throw in there, but anyone who can work, run a household, home school, and run after her two year old, and get her two daughters to and from all of their social engagements and always have a house in PRISTINE condition is worth hating just a teeny tiny bit. I get overwhelmed by having to go grocery shopping. She's clearly more German than I am.

So, I love you Steph. I hope this year is filled with a myriad of blessings and joy and a lot of time together. And margaritas! Remember the ones I made at that birthday party years ago? Where we couldn't remember much the next day? Here's to many of those in 2009!