O say can you Little One

Little One and I are seven years apart. Growing up, this meant that I couldn't do anything fun because a) she'd either ruin it, or b) want to copy me, end up sucking, cry, wipe her snot on me. This also meant that at an age where I wanted to explore my inner child, we couldn't have sugary drinks that turned your tongue purple for fear of her bouncing off the walls and cracking her skull open, or bring home a pet for fear of her riding it. The absolute worst thing about our age difference, though, was being told, "don't get her excited before bed" every time Little One rested her moppy head.

For reasons unknown to anyone, RIGHT before Little One's bedtime is when I get the crazies. Symptoms include jumping jacks, pokes, putting every sentence to music, and making a general fool out of myself, all the while having Little One, and often our mother, refrain from rolling their eyes back too hard out of fear that they'll stay that way.

Tonight, as Little One was getting into bed, I did the following:

1. Throw four shirts and three pairs of jeans at the foot of her bed, one by one, and hang them back up in the closet at a painstakingly slow pace.

2. Rip the sheet and comforter off of my bed and violently thrown them onto her, and say, "What? It's messy."

3. Mutter "nose pickers are deaf" under my breath as our mom walked out of the room.

4. Rub in the fact that Coco loves me more than her by recounting the number of times she's slept on my bed this week.

Oops. Good luck waking up in exactly 6 hours, sucker!

*Also, and consider this my public service announcement to you, the Internet: If anyone lures you into their home under the pretense of watching He's Just Not That Into You, THEY WANT TO KILL YOU. Consider yourselves warned. Don't say I never gave you nothing.