The Sweet Girls

There are three girls in the Sweet family - Corinne being the oldest, Annie in the middle, and Jessie the youngest. We're all two years apart and as great as we get along now, things didn't always go so smoothly growing up. Three is a volatile number to begin with - one of us was always left out. I hardly have any memories of the three of us playing nicely together, but I do recollect lots of games that ended in screaming, crying, and whining. Annie swears that as a 5 year old she got tricked into playing a "game" with Corinne. The basic rules were as follows.

1) Corinne was to stand in the middle of the game area holding a large hula hoop perpendicular to the ground.

2) Annie was to drive her Bigwheel in circles around Corinne, and

3) Each time Annie passed through the hula hoop, she had to give Corinne one of her toys.

It took Annie a couple of rounds to realize it wasn't a very fun way to pass the time. You can imagine how vehemently Corinne denies ever inventing such a game. But knowing Corinne, I kind of believe Annie. Sorry!

Another one of Corinne's favorite activities was playing off my extreme fear of bees. Actually, Annie joined in on this one too. I have no idea why I had such a fear (I've never been stung, even to this day) but if I even so much as imagined I saw a bee flying across the yard, I'd sprint away shrieking and bobbing and weaving and flailing my over-long arms in every direction. There were many occasions that I'd walk outside to join my sisters, only to be greeted with "JUSSKUH! There's a HUGE BEE on you! Ewwww it just crawled into your hair! EWWW it's LAYING EGGS IN YOUR HAIR! Egg-head, egg-head!" ...and the aforementioned reaction would take hold. Please note that this was a regular occurrence. Always the same wording, too. A huge bee, a huge bee was laying eggs in my hair....and so on, and so forth.

One time we were at the barn with one of Annie's horrible friends, Christina Hulbert. My mom was off doing manual barn-labor somewhere and we were taking a little grey pony named Sugar out to pasture. We weren't allowed to ever ride without a helmet, but Corinne convinced me to get on this stupid pony bareback while Christina led her along. So someone gave me a leg-up, and away we went. Well, Corinne whispers something to Annie's horrible friend, and the next thing I know she's tugging at the stupid pony to get it to trot. Keep in mind that I had no saddle and this pony had THE choppiest trot on earth. After about two seconds I've slid underneath its belly and am now tangled up around its feet. My body was literally wrapped around its legs, I don't know how, but it was. Mention this story to my sister and TO THIS DAY she will pee her pants laughing. According to her, Sugar was so irritated by this little body caught between it's hooves, that it was stepping gingerly and trying to kick me loose. The only time I've ever seen Corinne laugh so hard was when we were playing on the zip line at a park in Alaska. We were taking turns pushing each other, but I wanted to go faster so I told Corinne to give me a good shove. Next thing I know she's hit me with the momentum built up as a result of a running start. I'm flying along at 40 miles an hour until the slider hits the end of the rail. My pace then slowed to 30 miles an hour as I flipped through the air. I don't remember landing, just waking up with Corinne doubled over in laughter over top of me. And I specifically remember not being able to breath for the first few seconds. The only time I've ever had the wind knocked out of me.

Anyway, Corinne was worried when I first mentioned wanting to add a post like this, so I've got to add a note here. Of course none of this was funny when it happened, but I've seriously got sore abs and tears rolling down my face thinking back on it. No one gets along with their siblings growing up, do they? It's too bad that by the time you can stand each other, you hardly ever see each other anymore. Actually...now that I think about it, I'm sure the distance IS the reason why we can finally get along now. And I get to see them for Christmas in only two weeks! Hooray!