When your “little” brother grows up

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October 7, 2016 by breanneeck

I remember the day like it was yesterday … being told I was going to have a little brother! My cousin already lived with me and she was the same age as me so we were going to be big sisters! He was so excited to meet us that he came 6 and half weeks early. All the nurses in the nursery nick named him the prince; he was already the size of a full grown baby at 6 lbs 11 oz. Nothing has changed from that day util now, he still towers over most his age at 6′ 4. (By the time I’m done writing this he will probably be 6′ 5)

I was weeks away from turning 12 when he was born so I was the perfect age to feed, change and babysit. Okay let’s be honest … Codie did most of the feeding and changing; I was more of the “lets see if he’ll eat this cat food” type of sister. He was dressed up in everything from training bras to eventually trying to make him walk in my heels. He was like a life size baby doll that reacted to your crazy ideas!

As we all grew up he went from my life sized “baby doll” to my annoying little brother that outed me to my father when I got my first tattoo, to this young boy struggling with his homework and tricking me into just doing it for him, to this mature young adult with a heart bigger than anyone I have ever met. Watching him grow up and being there for every second of the ride has been my favorite life experience. He shows me every single day just how pure his heart is. He loves his family more than anything and he values his friendships. He is the biggest clown I know and can get me laughing more than anyone else ever can.

I always hear about “sibling rivalry” and brothers and sisters just simply being miserable to each other growing up. While there were a few incidents where he may have gotten smacked or I may have gotten speared through a movie rack (we don’t really play monopoly anymore…), I never had that feeling towards him. He was always my baby brother and he still is.

I can always see it in his face now when I tell him to be careful and I worry about him riding his bike home (he lives like 5 minutes from me). When i look at him it’s so hard to see this 6’4 – 16 year old in front of me. No matter how big he gets I still see that little boy cuddled up in bed with me watching movies for hours.

Having siblings is so special, but having one so much younger than you is even more amazing. You get to (try to) teach them all about life and hope they learn from your mistakes. You get to be an ear for them to vent and somewhere for them to turn when they need something or someone. They will (hopefully) learn that you will never judge them and know that you probably went through the same thing not so long ago. You even get to take them to their first Eminem concert and rap all the words right along side of them because you both grew up listening to him.

When you have a brother so much younger than you all you can hope is that they don’t make the same mistakes you made. And then when they do (because let’s face it, they will) they know that you’ll be there to help them.