We arrived at my folks house just south of Chicago the Wednesday before Thanksgiving after driving straight through. My three sibling and their kids were all available for the first time in a long while so we collectively decided we'd make the effort to get together for the holiday weekend. I think that was about all any of us could take. My folks place was way too small for a group this big, 18 people in all. It was chaos; there was luggage and cribs and personal belongings everywhere. I'm use to that sort of thing, coming from this chaos but it's hard for my husband because he was the only boy in his small family and so always had a space for himself. He says "I love your family Jenn but I can only take so much 'together' time. He'll often just head out in the car and run errands simply to get away for some peace and quiet. Fortunately my mom was aware of how he felt and made sure we had a private bedroom to ourselves at the far end of the house.
I was most excited to see my older sister Emily because she and her husband David had been out of the country for several years doing mission work. They are quite a religious couple. She surprised us all about 3 months ago by writing that they were finally pregnant for the first time. It was the reason they came back to the States. It will be fun for me because I was pregnant as well with child #3. My older sister and I always had a weird dynamic. Of course being 3 years older she was the 'know it all' when we were growing up, mostly from actually knowing more. Now it will be me who is the expert at something having done it twice before.
My mom walked into the kitchen while Emily and I were at the sink doing dishes, like we often did as kids.
"Look at you girls all grown up and working so nicely together."
"Now mom, we weren't that bad when we were kids," said Emily.
But we were like oil and water. I think there was a competitiveness between us, at least by her towards me. She was older and smarter, and in my mind much prettier. But I always got more attention when we were together and it bothered her. She once said guys took to me because I had a button nose 'which studies showed people associate with infant faces; so they feel more protective towards you.' It's just science!
But in reality she was just so much more serious and it was obvious almost immediately to most people that I was going to be more fun than her. My sister, while prettier, was more intimidating I think. She was also so very earnest.
And then puberty hit me in a different way than it had hit her. She got the same breeder hips as me but it stopped there. I got the boobs. She just thought it was ridiculous that a couple extra pounds of adipose tissue trumped her beauty and intelligence when it came to a certain kind of attention.
My mom said "Look at that beautiful, shiny hair my girls have! That's the pregnancy hormones. You know from the back you girls look almost identical now." It was true, we had a laugh when we first saw each other because we both had the exact same haircut and color now. I stopped coloring mine and returned to a natural brunette. Of course Emily would never have seen the point of going blonde in the first place.
And even from the front, she at 7 month had the same sized belly as me at 4. "Yeah but Jenny still wins the boob category" Emily said. Hers were nicely plump now but mine were just ridiculous.
"I'm not sure I'd consider not being able to see ones toes a victory. Yours are perfect now, David must be thrilled with those." She turned red. Em was never comfortable talking about anything sexual, unlike my mom and me.
My husband admitted he always got weirdly horny when we visit my old hometown. I think there might be part of him that's turned on by thinking about my past sexual experiences and most of them would have taken place back here. But also we use sex talk to keep ourselves occupied on long boring car trips. By the time we've spent 16 hours on and off with that foreplay we both get pretty revved up. Unfortunately there wasn't any privacy in this place.
He wants to sneak off and do it somewhere that I've actually done it before. I think that's weird because he's possessive of me in general. But he says its like when our dog goes around the yard re-peeing in places the neighbors dog peed. I expressed how very romantic that example was.
Anyway, just to tease him in passing I pointed into the room my sister and David were staying in and said "Did it in there."
