Dear Readers,
I'd like to thank you for reading my blog since I started it a few months ago. It's encouraging to know that my writing is being enjoyed! But I would love to see some comments or "likes" on my blog posts. Having those small bits of encouragement directly on my blog really motivates me to keep going. Also, if you would "follow" my blog (you don't even need your own account!), that would be awesome too, just so I can know how many of you are reading it.
Thanks so much for all the support! You guys are great, and I would love to be able to go back to past blog posts to see who liked them and what I can keep writing about!
Enjoy your Thanksgiving, and keep reading!
Love,
Ingrid
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Sisters Are A Girl's Best Friend
When we were little, my sisters and I would parade around the house with a newly-finished cardboard toilet paper roll, holding hands and singing our made-up song: “Toilet Paper! Toilet Paper! Doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo! Toilet Paper! Toilet Paper! Doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo!” until we were completely exhausted.
We have a home video documenting a particular episode in which Kristina, my older sister, actively took the lead in the parade. I was in the middle, happily following along but not really paying much attention and Laura, the youngest (about one year old and still with no speaking abilities—I must say, she has made up for that by now), struggling to keep up on her stubby little baby legs. Laura had a peculiar habit of breaking away from my grasp to step on an old book—I believe it was Anne of Avonlea—that was lying on the floor of the blue-and-black tiled foyer (my parents have since replaced that unpleasing tile with a black and white checkered floor, a feat that took almost an entire year to complete). She would make sure to get both feet on the book, raptly staring at it, and then run off to find her older sisters again. At one point in the festivities, I nonchalantly swung Laura around the corner of the living room (luckily covered in a cushiony, light blue carpet) a bit too quickly, causing her to lose balance and fall over. It wasn’t until she cried out that I even realized it, and Kristina—ever the big sister—commanded, “You go first. I’ll hold Little’s hand,” becoming the new middleman between Laura and me.
The video ends there—I’m sure my dad could only take so much—but that five-minute clip is one of the earliest documentations of not just the relationship, but of the individual personalities of the Krecko sisters, which remain in full effect to this day.
We’ll start with Kristina. As the oldest sister, she takes the lead. She is the one who keeps Laura and me going around and around the house, never ceasing. When I came to college, Kristina was already a junior. She lead me in college life—helping me study, be motivated, and not be so alarmed when my exam scores weren’t as good as in high school. We went to the library together, ate together in the dining hall, and she let me stay over when I was having roommate problems. Her senior year, she cooked dinner for me (a generous gesture, considering she had to buy her own food AND actually cook it—something a college student rarely likes to do), let me hang out with her friends, helped me find research labs, and was constantly sending me emails and Facebook messages about different studies, labs, academic opportunities, and grad school information. Kristina guided me through college life, and without her, my grades and study habits wouldn’t be nearly as good.
Laura is two years my junior. She and I have a goofier relationship than I do with Kristina (Laura and I used to skip down the aisles of the grocery store near our Michigan summer house chanting “Beefaroni, Beefaroni shh!...Beefaroni Beefaroni shh!”—and this was at an embarrassingly old age). Now, I have replaced Kristina as the older sister in college, and Laura has taken my shoes as the wide-eyed freshman who has no clue what to do.
Well, that’s not entirely true. Her slightly obsessive need to step on the abandoned book in the middle of the floor foreshadowed her current desire to succeed—in everything. Like Kristina, Laura is an intense undergraduate who seems to be born with the ability to study ad nauseam. So when she came to college, my little sister did not need my advice on how to study (I needed hers!); she needed my guidance for how to have fun. I take her to parties, make sure she gets on the lists at frats, convince her that it is okay to go out despite an exam on Monday. Just how I bridged the gap between Kristina and Laura in our toilet paper extravaganza, I still come in between them to balance out the intensity. And I know that if there’s something I can’t help Laura with, before I send her careening to the floor, Kristina will tell me to get in front so she can take Little’s hand.
As for me? I’m still that typical middle child, the Type B between two Type A personalities. As different as I am from my two academically-oriented, science-loving, concentrated sisters, I get along with them better than I do with anyone else. My sisters are my best friends, as they have been since the days of our toilet paper parades, and they always will be.
We have a home video documenting a particular episode in which Kristina, my older sister, actively took the lead in the parade. I was in the middle, happily following along but not really paying much attention and Laura, the youngest (about one year old and still with no speaking abilities—I must say, she has made up for that by now), struggling to keep up on her stubby little baby legs. Laura had a peculiar habit of breaking away from my grasp to step on an old book—I believe it was Anne of Avonlea—that was lying on the floor of the blue-and-black tiled foyer (my parents have since replaced that unpleasing tile with a black and white checkered floor, a feat that took almost an entire year to complete). She would make sure to get both feet on the book, raptly staring at it, and then run off to find her older sisters again. At one point in the festivities, I nonchalantly swung Laura around the corner of the living room (luckily covered in a cushiony, light blue carpet) a bit too quickly, causing her to lose balance and fall over. It wasn’t until she cried out that I even realized it, and Kristina—ever the big sister—commanded, “You go first. I’ll hold Little’s hand,” becoming the new middleman between Laura and me.
The video ends there—I’m sure my dad could only take so much—but that five-minute clip is one of the earliest documentations of not just the relationship, but of the individual personalities of the Krecko sisters, which remain in full effect to this day.
We’ll start with Kristina. As the oldest sister, she takes the lead. She is the one who keeps Laura and me going around and around the house, never ceasing. When I came to college, Kristina was already a junior. She lead me in college life—helping me study, be motivated, and not be so alarmed when my exam scores weren’t as good as in high school. We went to the library together, ate together in the dining hall, and she let me stay over when I was having roommate problems. Her senior year, she cooked dinner for me (a generous gesture, considering she had to buy her own food AND actually cook it—something a college student rarely likes to do), let me hang out with her friends, helped me find research labs, and was constantly sending me emails and Facebook messages about different studies, labs, academic opportunities, and grad school information. Kristina guided me through college life, and without her, my grades and study habits wouldn’t be nearly as good.
Laura is two years my junior. She and I have a goofier relationship than I do with Kristina (Laura and I used to skip down the aisles of the grocery store near our Michigan summer house chanting “Beefaroni, Beefaroni shh!...Beefaroni Beefaroni shh!”—and this was at an embarrassingly old age). Now, I have replaced Kristina as the older sister in college, and Laura has taken my shoes as the wide-eyed freshman who has no clue what to do.
Well, that’s not entirely true. Her slightly obsessive need to step on the abandoned book in the middle of the floor foreshadowed her current desire to succeed—in everything. Like Kristina, Laura is an intense undergraduate who seems to be born with the ability to study ad nauseam. So when she came to college, my little sister did not need my advice on how to study (I needed hers!); she needed my guidance for how to have fun. I take her to parties, make sure she gets on the lists at frats, convince her that it is okay to go out despite an exam on Monday. Just how I bridged the gap between Kristina and Laura in our toilet paper extravaganza, I still come in between them to balance out the intensity. And I know that if there’s something I can’t help Laura with, before I send her careening to the floor, Kristina will tell me to get in front so she can take Little’s hand.
As for me? I’m still that typical middle child, the Type B between two Type A personalities. As different as I am from my two academically-oriented, science-loving, concentrated sisters, I get along with them better than I do with anyone else. My sisters are my best friends, as they have been since the days of our toilet paper parades, and they always will be.
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