For My Other Sister aka Fun With Aging

I finally caught up with my ultra-busy sister on the phone today. We’re closer in age and definitely aging. Between the two of us we have some hard-won experience behind us that has given us a resilient sense of humor—especially about that topic that women hate the most—aging.


I never would have guessed many years ago when we were children roller-skating around the basement and memorizing the lines to “Zorro, The Gay Blade” (we thought gay meant happy back then) that we’d be talking about varicose veins (mine, not hers) and push-up bras (hers, not mine.) But those seem to be hot button topics for us these days. We also swap favorites in the fun and fancy world of makeup primers, under-eye circle removers and spray-on pantyhose. Thanks to some unfortunate genes we received from my father who looked like Kenny Rogers at the ripe age of 30, we’re also ridiculously experienced at dying our hair. Between the two of us we’ve been every hair color in the book, but my sister was the one who sported the truly creative dos including lavender highlights and black and white striped hair. Rest assured she is a responsible adult these days with normal colored hair. I’m the one that went a little tipsy with the red hair color this time, embarrassing as it may be.

Despite our efforts to push back the clock—at least on our faces and bodies—we’ve both acknowledged that our biological clocks are broken and we’re not really sad about it. We’re both astonished that we’re still chasing small children around when we could easily injure ourselves in the process. At least I’m done with diapers—she’s not so I get the last laugh. We’re the picture perfect older moms. When our kids throw fits, we pretend that we don’t know them and we walk away. When they’re cranky and demanding we turn off the lights and wander off to bed—at least that’s what I do. We’re bad about discipline because it’s a big fat pain. If I ground my teenager then I’m also grounding the babysitter that lets me grocery shop without being followed by whiny kids who dump bags of Doritos into my cart when they think I’m not looking. When she puts her boy in time out, then she’s the one that has to keep taking him back into the room after he tries to escape. Kids in time out are like prisoners in Alcatraz—they’ll use a spoon to dig out if they have to. There is one advantage to the broken biological clock, though, we never get baby hungry. Sure, they look cute from afar but I have no desire to walk around with spit-up running down the back of my blazer and I will spare you the stories about other bodily fluids that have covered my clothes thanks to that cute chubby baby. When my friends bring their babies to the house, I think they’re adorable and I’m so glad that they’re not spending the night with me. I can’t even remember three years of my life because I was so sleep deprived from being up with children all night.

Just for fun I told my husband that I was thinking about having another baby. He took it pretty well, all things considered, but he banned sex until I’m safely through menopause.