EPT_______________________________________________
Here's how it all started:
It was a long time ago, and I was tired of being an only child. I remember telling my parents that I wanted a brother or a sister because it was so lonely. I remember they seriously considered the idea.
Next thing I know, my mother is in the hospital and my dad has to cook dinner. That sucks. But, the good thing was that I can watch as much TV as I want because my mom usually tells me to stop watching TV and start my homework. My grandma was there to fill in for my mom, but she actually liked watching TV with me.
I remember going on visits to the hospital like every week. I saw my mom sleeping on a bed and she told us how the hospital food was terrible but she liked the midnight snacks because my dad was strict and no one could eat anything after 11 PM in our house.
And then, out of nowhere, I remember I was watching a hockey game on TV. It was dark and cold and windy outside. My grandma was sleeping in the bedroom. My dad says he needs to run to the hospital, but what ends up happening is he stays there the whole night and I fall sleep on the couch.
The next day my grandma tells me I have a baby brother, but I don't really believe her. She usually tells the truth but she likes to pull my leg sometimes too, so she isn't trustworthy. She asks me how it feels to be an older brother, and I say it feels hungry. Because I don't think I had anything to eat last night except microwaveable potatoes and old cupcakes.
So I hear later on that my brother is born premature. I don't know what that means, but my dad shows me a photo of him with a nurse's hand next to his head. And they look about the same size. There's also a picture of a turkey next to his head because he was born on Thanksgiving. My dad says my brother has to stay at the hospital for a week because he's too tiny now and if we bring him home we might lose him in between the furniture. That sounds scary so I stop asking him when my brother's going to be home after that.
So finally he comes home, and he's so wrapped up in blankets that it looks like he suffocated and died, and my parents and grandma gather around him to see if he's doing anything. But then he opens one of his eyes and that makes everyone happy, except me of course. I say that his big bald head would make a nice chair. That makes my parents upset and they say I should love my brother. But really I'm just jealous that he's the center of attention.
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So that night, I'm laying in bed with my brother next to me, and he's sleeping and snoring. And then in his sleep, I can see him smiling. I ask my grandma why babies smile when they're sleeping, and she says that maybe he's flying with Santa Claus on the sleigh, and they're flying right through the clouds and it's snowing.
My brother doesn't do much except sleep and eat and cry, and look around. He likes to sit around in diapers with his bellybutton poking through his shirt. When my mom gives him a bath he looks like he's drowning. Eventually he learns to crawl, then walk a few wobbly steps and fall down like a drunk person, then walk like a normal person. I remember his first birthday. My dad holding my brother in his arms, in front of a big cake with balloons everywhere, people clapping, and my brother looking around nervously with a scared look on his face.
I remember seeing my brother in his carseat, and I always used to try to take it off because I thought the belt was hurting him. I remember coming home from 5th grade and my brother would hand me a toy, and I usually threw it behind the TV. I would always trying touching his puffy cheeks. At some point I would feel my brain starting to melt from watching too much Teletubbies, Barney, Blue's Clues, Franklin, and Rugrats. Sometimes he would wear sunglasses to look cool.
I remember him spitting on me whenever he got mad, and throwing things at me. And drawing on the wall with crayons.
Fast forward to 9/11. My dad worked in the World Trade Center building, and the whole day I was in school I thought I had lost my father. Someone told me that two planes hit the World Trade Center, but it sounded like something out of a Spiderman movie. I imagined my dad being dead and my whole life falling down in front of my eyes. But he was late for work that day, and the police stopped him from going in the building because the first one had already been hit. He saw the second plane go into the building he used to work, standing right at the bottom of the building. He lost his coworkers and his boss who all died that day. He didn't have a job for almost a year.
While this was going on, my mom caught sight of the news of 9/11, but my brother was watching Dora the Explorer, and he hated being interrupted. So what happened was my mom trying to frantically call everyone and my brother rolling around on the floor crying because he wanted to watch Dora.
I remember going with my family to waterparks and stuff, and one time my brother was being dragged into the deeper part of a pool, but I took him on top of my shoulder and carried him out of there. And him telling his friends how he had a cool older brother who knew about everything. I remember playing video games with him, and him crying whenever I didn't let him win, and playing soccer with him on the grass.
But anyway, I really feel like I watched my brother grow up in front of my eyes. And it's a pretty amazing feeling seeing a baby transform into a child into a teenager. Now he's 13 and I'm 21, and he really changed a lot. But I can always say that of course he's my brother, but he's also like a son to me. If a speeding car was coming his way, I would jump in front of the car to save his life. And even though I don't have the guts to say it in his face, he means a lot to me.
