Stuck

I went to school and told everyone about my new little sister. I thought it was pretty cool, which makes my initial reaction even stranger. However cool I thought it was, I still couldn't figure out what good she was for.
I could talk to her, but she didn't respond to me with words (well, at least in a language that I knew), she drank this white, nasty smelling stuff that I heard Mom call "formula", she would spit this stuff up and it smelled even worse. She had gas most of the time, and I learned real quick that the funny face that she made and her face turning red wasn't her just being goofy, it meant that she was making a REAL STINKY mess in her diaper. Often times I had to leave the room... The smell and the sight of it all was just a little much for me, even at that age. She just seemed to lay around and leak a lot.
I really wasn't understanding that a baby couldn't do anything but lay around and leak all over the place.
There were many late nights when Jenni was first born. Most of the time Mom would come into my room in the middle of the night to change Jenni's diaper. One of those nights will be one that I will always remember.
I woke to my bedroom light being turned on, Mom carrying Jenni, who was fussing and squirming around. I squinted my eyes against the glare.
I moved over in my small bed to make room for Mom and Jenni. She laid Jenni down to change her diaper. I kept blinking my eyes, trying to get used to the bright light. Mom was yakking (like usual) and I was laying there listening to her. I don't remember what she was saying. I was laying there with my eyes closed, listening and suddenly there was this horrendous pain in the side of my thigh. I screamed and came flying up in that bed. Mom jumped back and Jenni started crying. Mom looked at me and started cracking up laughing. "Why are you laughing? What was that? That hurt!" I said.
There were practically tears in her eyes, she was laughing so hard. Finally, through the uncontrollable laughter, Mom says that what she thought was just a wad of blankets was actually my leg under the covers and when she took out the pins of Jenni's diaper, she stuck one of them in the blanket, not knowing she was jamming the diaper pin into my leg.
God knows, it was probably laden with all kinds of germs and Mom rammed them into my blood stream. Nice, Mom, real nice!
Maybe it was then that I got the feeling that having a sibling was going to be a challenge. And staying away from Mom in the middle of the night would be a good idea.


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