Cheri-Berry-Butt

Today I am thankful for my sister, Cheri. With Joel gone and with my dubious vehicle situation (a story for another day), she and her husband, Herbie have been a godsend. But this post is about Cheri and reconnecting as sisters.

Though she only lives 3 miles away, we had fallen into the habit of rarely connecting except on special occasions. During the last year and a half we've made an improvement by meeting for our monthly book club thanks to our other sister, Katie for starting it--but I've still had the urge to hook-up with Cheri alone, just to talk and laugh like old times.

We're 3 years apart and have very different personalities, but we were always close growing up. Our brother and sister didn't come along until 7 and 9 years after Cheri's day of birth, so we were Two for most of our young childhoods. We used to play for hours at a time. One of our favortie made-up games, and likely our most inane, was...do you know that I don't think we ever gave it a name...? (thinking, thinking...) No, I'm sure we didn't. That's how truly idiotic it was. It was a game we only played at night when we were supposed to be sleeping. It's a game that now, as adults, every five to seven years or so, when the mood is right, one of us will assume the position on the floor of whomever's house we're at; henceforth, sending the other one of us into fits of laughter as we commence playing our bumble-headed game while the rest of our family looks on in confounded curiosity or with regretful knowledge.

It went like this:

As we lay in our beds at night, one of us would raise all 4 limbs toward the ceiling like...a dead bug. Not like the yoga dead bug pose (aka happy baby pose) where you grasp your toes, but with our arms and legs sticking straight up. The object was for the other person to get all 4 limbs to stay down at the same time. (And I do have 2 college degrees with honors...but I didn't then.) So if Cheri had all 4 limbs up, I would start by pressing her arm down, then maybe a leg, then another arm, but at that point, Cheri might pop one or both of her arms back up and I would have to essentially start over. Sometimes we would use brute force by laying atop the playee to hold all 3 limbs down while grasping and pulling to get that last arm or leg to cooperate.

We had fun anyway.

So now, with Joel gone and with both of our oldest sons on the high shcool swim team (mine is in 9th grade, hers is in 10th), we've been seeing each other a LOT. And I love it. And again, I am so grateful to my sister and her husband for handling way more than half of the driving. The boys swim 6 days/week; having a 6 year old who would have nothing to do with any of her brother's swim meets or practices if given the choice, does not make any of it easy. But Cheri and Herbie do. (Jen is my other godsend, but to be told on another day.) And, incidentally, I shouldn't be so hard on my daughter; she's been great at the meets that she's forced to attend, it's the moaning and groaning about it beforehand that she needs to work on. But back to Cheri: she drives us both to every away meet which gives us more sisterly bonding time and saves me from having to use "The Jeep", our gas-guzzling family hand-me-down (see note above). My only wish is that we get together one day, no swimming or book club involved, just to talk and have lunch or something. So that's what I'll do. I'll invite her to pick a day for us to go out. I've been saying that to myself for at least a year, but now that I have this blog to put it out there, I know I will do it.

Thanks and good-night.