When The Sister and I go shopping and I bring one of the gremlins, it's not because I'm a sucker for punishment.
When she chases Spawnling around the house with a shoe of his in each hand, enacts a perfect wrestling hold to put his coat on, hastily chases him outside and stuffs him unceremoniously into his car seat as he cackles evilly, she's not doing it because I'm too busy deciding what purse would go best with my shoes.
When she hovers around him in a mall, bribes him to get into the stroller by buying him a lollipop, navigates carefully around store racks that have clothing he could stain with his sticky little hands, all while attempting to buy things, I'm not off getting myself a bagel and a coffee because I feel like it.
When she's trying to negotiate a movie in the van for him to watch, changing it because he decides ten seconds in that he hates that one, reaching haphazardly behind her to pick up his dropped lollipop, contorting her body into uncomfortably painful positions to tickle him when he gets grumpy, I don't ignore the entire kerfuffle and instead belt out Weezer tunes because I'm being insensitive.
See, The Sister - AKA Photo Lush - has no little spawns of her own yet. And given that it took five years of dating before her and Chemgineer moved in together, I'll probably be throwing her first baby shower about the time we enter the next ice age. In the meantime I have three gremlins at nearly all stages of development for her to sink her future parenting teeth into.
Thanks to me, she can learn to steer through the ferocious storms of toddler tantrums, attempt to focus on her daily tasks while simultaneously processing a six-year-old's incessant monologues, and delicately, oh so very delicately, tiptoe around a preteen's precarious mood swings.
By the time she has her own children she will be nothing short of a parenting goddess, and people will bow at her feet for she has knowledge they only wish they, too, possessed. She'll know why we say "because I said so" and that it's okay to yell "STOP YELLING!" in certain situations. She'll understand how important shopping lists are when your mind is on telling the kids they can't have every damn thing in the store, and why you should never, ever leave your box of tampons where someone can reach it ("Look, mom! Nose plugs!")
When my sister becomes a mother she will already know that you can't watch a movie from start to finish without pausing it. That spit-up stains can be covered up with a nice scarf. That rock music trumps Raffi after you've given birth to your second child.
***
As she was struggling to get Spawnling into his car seat today while avoiding his sticky lollipop hands, I loaded the shopping bags into the trunk and sat in the front seat eating Peanut M&Ms with my free hands - all two of them.
Why? Because I love my sister enough to let her get sticky hands all over her hair, that's why.
(Photo: My sister as a baby. Sooo cute!)