Irish Twins in Elementary School

Missing 30 days of school in one year.
Sleeping in rooms of a Barbie Doll house.
Staying up late giggling.
Pretending to be mermaids when it was time to get ready for school.
Drawing house plans.
Thinking of company ideas.
Rollerskating on dining room hardwood floors.

These were just some of the things Lexia and I did when we were little. Every morning, we would get up and play, and our parents would yell at us to get ready. So we slowly got ready in the middle of playing mermaids or whatever else our imaginations could think up. Then we would walk to school because we only lived 2 blocks away (looking back, it feels like it was much longer).

I remember once that Lexia was sick or had a school project she had to finish up, and so I had to walk by myself. But Lexi stood at the driveway and waved goodbye to me. I would turn around about every minute, and we would wave to each other again. She was still there by the time I got to the end of the block, and when it was time to turn the corner, I didn't. We both just stood a block apart from each other and waved and made silly faces and probably did stupid dances or something. I remember being late for school that day.

If Lexi was sick, sometimes my mom let me stay home from school, and if I was sick, Lexi stayed home. Sometimes we just stayed home because our parents couldn't make us get ready. But I know that neither of us is the lesser for it. We started so many projects all the time. We painted and drew and built things. We would drape our mom's fabric onto her sewing model and have contests to see who could make the prettiest dress in a minute's time. We dressed up in mom's clothes, too -- our favorite shoes to play with were a pair of tall, high-heeled black boots and red pumps with purple lining. (I remember growing out of those at an unusually early age.) We would cut out the models in mom's pattern books for paper dolls. We rearranged our miniature dollhouse furniture. We watched tons of TV together. We had pretend gymnastics and ice skating competitions.

Despite these lovely memories, it was not all peaches 'n' cream. Lexi and I played "school," "bank," and "store." Being the oldest, she always got the fun roles of teacher, banker, and cashier. We would play for hours. When I would finally say, "It's my turn to be the banker now," she would cooly say, "I don't want to play anymore."

If only I had stuck up for myself! But such is the pull of the older Irish Twin. It's one that I probably won't ever get away from. That's okay, though, because I think it's done me more good than harm. Because ultimately, Lexi had my back. She was the mediator for me and our older brother Blake. Blake teased me a lot, so Lexi would step in and take some of the heat sometimes.

Once Lexi and I got in a fight (which happened quite frequently, but didn't ever last long), and one of us slammed our bedroom door (Yes, we shared a room -- complete with a canopy bed, a built-in window seat that doubled as a toy trunk, and a tea table.). When the fight ended, I tried to leave our room, but found that the old and rusty doorknob was stuck. The door wouldn't open! We yelled at our mom to help us out. Nobody could open it, though, and it turns out that my mom had to call the fire department. The firemen hoisted their ladders up to our second-story windows to get us out that way, but the windows wouldn't budge either. Somebody finally had the bright idea of drilling off the old doorknob, but until then -- and contrary to popular Snow belief that we were scared -- Lexi and I just found some kind of game to play.

It was actually kind of fun, being stuck in a roomful of toys with my best friend. That's kind of the general memory I have about my childhood. Not so bad, eh?

Now, what are Lexi's memories?

Thing I'm thankful for: being able to walk to school. It was fun, really.