I come from a family of party starters. Whenever three or more of us gather, merriment is sure to follow. We had one such an impromptu celebration the other day.
My mother showed up announced, but very welcome, and soon after, my sister followed suit. As usual we ended up making merry.
Our jovial mood was clearly infectious, because Thing 1 spent a significant period of time playing with Thing 2, who I believe considers herself her big sister’s no.1 fan, whereas Thing 1 probably sees her more as a stalker.
Thing 1 is half a decade older than Thing 2, so she does not find her to be a worthy playmate. She is more like a toy she gets bored with pretty quickly. At most she’ll play with her for about 5 minutes before she hollers at me to come get her.
Thing 2 is even banned from her big sister’s room. Though she flouts this ban with impunity. Her motto is “I crawl where I like.”
Mostly she crawls to Thing 1’s room, whose walls are adorned with magical murals of Disney fairies and princesses, rich with colourful books she can tear, devour, regurgitate and devour again, and lots of teeny tiny toys to choke on. In short it is baby heaven.
On this particular Friday night, Thing 1 was really enjoying Thing 2’s company. The sisterly love was flowing so strongly that Thing 1 felt that Thing 2 deserved a visit to her hallowed bedroom.
She picked up her sister and off they shakily trotted to Thing 1’s room. The baby had her chubby arms tightly wrapped around her big sister and her face buried in Thing 1’s neck. They looked so sweet.
It was a quintessential “aaaaaaawwwwwww” moment, until Thing 1 let out a blood-curdling scream. We all looked up to find Thing 2 firmly attached to Thing 1’s cheek by her quartet of freshly sprouted teeth.
That pretty much ended the festivities. The young cannibal’s bite was so intense it left indentations on Thing 1’s rapidly swelling cheek. We explained to a traumatised Thing 1 that her sister did not bite her because she is evil, or a grossocious beast as she referred to her, but in fact it was just the opposite.
She had too much love coursing through her inexperienced body and when that happens you usually just want to eat the person right up. There is a reason the saying “I could just eat you up” exists.
Fortunately for the people we adore, most of us have far better impulse control than a 9-month-old.
Thing 1 recovered much better than expected from the incident. I suspect that it was well worth the near bloodshed, as she absolutely loves Thing 2’s new, well deserved, nickname – The Biter.
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