Sisters

So, I was shootin' the breeze with Madame 3-yr-old the other day and we had this conversation:

Madame: Who's your mommy, Aunt?

MBC: Grandma is my mommy.

Madame: Oh, Aunt! That's Mommy's mommy!

Sister: That's because Aunt and I are sisters. Did you know that?

Now, this may seem like an ordinary exchange with a 3-year-old, but I was a little shocked that Madame didn't already know about this whole sister thing. My sister started indoctrinating Madame 4-yr-old with Sisters LOVE one another and are always good and kind to one another like Aunt and I are kind to one another because we're SISTERS so STOP POUNDING THAT BABY almost as soon as Madame 3-yr-old came home from the hospital and got her first smack to the head from her waiting sister.

It was not uncommon for me to have this conversation with Madame 4-yr-old and my sister in the early days of Madame 3-yr-old's existence.

Sister: Madame, ask Aunt if I was ever mean to her and took her toys.

Madame (sweetly and sincerely): Did Mommy take your toys?

MBC: She never did. She was only nice to me. She always shared with me. Because we're SISTERS.

Of course, actually, she never took my toys because she didn't want them. There's a great big age gap between the two of us and when I was playing with My Little Ponies, my sister was studying calculus. She's proven to be a most satisfactory sister over the years, so I'm willing to give her the benefit of the doubt that she wouldn't have been a toy-stealer or a pounder-of-the-younger-sibling, if we'd been closer in age. I'm nice like that.