Day 5 - Siblings. Or home grown best friends.

I was raised in a blended family. It was a 'yours, mine and ours' situation. My siblings and I have gone through a lot together. Growing up, we put the fun in dysfunctional. We moved around A LOT as kids and sometimes the only friends we had were each other. Our parents worked graveyard for a good chunk of our childhood and we used to sneak out of the house to go to 7-11 in our pajamas, watch rated R movies (Dirty Dancing and Stand by Me!) and search for Christmas present hiding spots. I'm close with all of my sisters and brother, some closer than others, but that's normal right?

These are my siblings in age order.

Stace, aka Tia, aka Teesie

She and I spent our summers together playing taxi with our paddle boat for hours at a time, paddling back and forth, back and forth from one dock to the another, making seaweed salads, and eating way too much junk food. During our teenage years she would cover for me when I got into...mischief. She is a rockstar single Mom, raising two kids, working part time and going to school full time.  She was my labor coach during childbirth, (except for a brief moment when she was kicked out of the room by a nurse). She's now going to school to be a Doula, I like to think I trained her for the role. I'm also glad I got to use her services for free.

Jimmy

 My only brother. We were close growing up, he was very protective of his sisters. He was my little brother until I was about 15, then he shot up in height and I decided I better be nice to him. He always took longer than I did to get ready in the mornings, his hair had to be perfect. I wonder if he's still like that? I have 2 sons now and when they do something that I find weird or something only boys do, I find myself thinking back to my childhood and I'll ask myself 'Did my brother used to do that? Is this normal?'.
He's a proud Daddy and just recently had a baby boy whom I haven't met yet. I can't wait to go back home for my sister's wedding so I can meet my newest nephew!

Lin

Lin is 7 years younger than me. She's (in my mind anyway) the ultimate in coolness. She's chic, fashionable, beautiful with a shaved head, tattooed, funny, a solid rock in any crisis and one of the hardest workers I've ever met. She's basically everything I want to be when I grow up. She has Sbux running through her veins, she's a fellow Star Wars nerd, and has brilliant ideas floating around in her petite little head that one day will make a big difference in our world.

Chelsey aka Bug

I could probably let the photos speak for themselves with this one. Take a moment to look through them, she's a goon. I was 12 when she was born. The story goes that my mom had to steal her from me to be able to feed her. I was a little Mama to her. She's funny and wacky, and beautiful and I'm about to be the matron-of-honor in her WEDDING! It's hard to believe that she's getting married. Sometimes I still see her as a 3 year old twirling in her frilly dress, wearing lace gloves and cowgirl boots.

Kesha

The youngest. She's 18 and getting ready to leave for boot camp this summer. She's a talented chef and a proud Tia to all her nieces and nephews. She was only 3 when my oldest daughter was born so they grew up together and are very close.

My husband and I and our kids moved across the country almost a year ago and away from everything familiar, all our friends and both sides of our family.  While I learned the valuable lesson that my immediate family includes my husband and kids and they are my priority,  not being able to see my sisters almost daily has been the hardest thing to deal with. We all lived close in proximity and many times per week, one of us would drop by the others home or meet for lunch or coffee. With my oldest sister being a single parent and myself being a technical single parent because of my husbands job, we could almost always count on each other or another sister to lend a hand or step in and drive a kid to an appointment or event. It's been really hard to not have that support system anymore.

These days I am so thankful for Skype and Facebook.

If you live close to your family be thankful and give your sibling a hug today.