Happy Birthday Little Girl.

This is my baby sister when she was 2. She turned 14 yesterday (20 minutes ago...but the date's october 10th. Go figure?). Why do they have to grow up so fast? In 8th grade, I had to write a speech about an influential person in my life, and I wrote it about Jenna. Before I left for college, and even though there are enough bedrooms for each of us to have our own room and even though Rachel's room was empty cause she was in college, Jenna slept in my room most of the year. Every morning, I would wake up to shower and then when I'd come back into my room to dry my hair, Jenna would get off the futon and climb into my bed. Since Jenna never really liked brushing her teeth or showering, I'd make a game out of it--we'd brush our teeth at the same time, brushing the same spots in our mouth at the same time. We'd also race to see who could shower fastest (although, that probably wasn't a good idea since she probably ended up less clean that way). I remember when she was just about big enough to go on the big kid rides at Disneyland, and in efforts to help her be courageous and try the scarier rides, we made a deal that if she didn't cry all day (since she had a tendency to cry a lot) and if she went on at least TWO scary rides, I'd buy her a souvenir at the end of the day. I remember laughing so incredibly hard when my parents came home from Jenna's kindergarten open house because in an art project, she decided that her dream job would be flying a helicopter over Australia, picking up garbage. I remember when she was just as crazy as me about Disneyland and our stuffed animals. I remember when offering a piggy back ride was incentive to getting out of bed in the morning to eat breakfast. I remember when she equated me leaving for college as me dying because she thought she could never talk to me again. I took one of the Moo-cows to school with me so that we could always talk as long as we each had a Moo-cow. I miss the times when she would talk your ear off about a tv episode she just watched. I miss playing board games with her and helping each other out when the other was running low of money in monopoly.

I'm glad we still get to do stuff together now, even though it's a bit different. Anyways. Happy birthday Jenna.