Forever

*Written on Sunday evening

After Adam finished his triathlon yesterday he laid down to rest while I went out to the swimming pool to enjoy the warmth I've missed all winter. While I was there I started chatting with some men in town for mountain biking. They were funny and teased me for stealing their pool chair, even though there were plenty to go around. They asked me questions like where I was from, what my husband did for work, how I liked teaching. . . basic stuff. They also asked how big of a family I had. It came up naturally in conversation, but I can't remember exactly how. I said, "I'm the oldest of 6 kids." So they went on to say how unfair it is when oldest children are expected to be a good example and the pressure can be too intense and how much oldest children are expected to help out with younger siblings. I admitted that it was true, I did help a lot with Kenny and Hannah, but that I didn't mind. It was a lot better than other things I could be doing as a teenager. But it got me thinking, people always assume that helping out with younger siblings is such a drag, but really if you love them it isn't so bad.

Then this morning as I got ready to head back home, packing up the hotel room and doing my hair, I got a song stuck in my head. I really have no idea where it came from, I hadn't thought of this song for a long time. It was a song from Pooh's Grand Adventure, I think its called Forever. Pooh is singing to Christopher Robin about how they are going to be friends forever. When I was a high school student, my younger siblings were on a different school schedule than me and so Andrew and Rob and Kellie would all be in school, but baby Kenny and I would not. We spent a lot of time watching Pooh's Grand Adventure and I remember writing down all the words of the song Forever. Then I would sing it to Kenny, pausing at smaller words and he would fill them in. It went a little like this:
Kim: Forever and ever is a very long time. . .
Kenny: . . . Pooh.
Forever isn't long at all when I'm with. . .
. . . you.
I wanna call your name
Forever
You will always answer
My name (the actual word was forever, but Kenny always got it wrong, which was actually cuter than getting it right)
And we will just be we, forever you and me, forever and. . .
Ever.

Maybe I didn't have an ordinary teenager experience. I think I had an extraordinary teenage experience. And I wouldn't change it for anything!