Yes, Mojo's Favorite Younger Sister, aka "Da Wezl" for her lifelong penchant of weaselling out of things, turns FORTY today. Which makes Mojo feel old. It's not as bad as when she turned thirty, for some reason. Perhaps because Mojo has been promised Deliciousness today, so she can look forward to that instead of the gaping maw of the Eternal Void.

But all this has brought me to reminiscing, which is always dangerous in Mojoland, for I was in first grade when the FYS was born, and hence remember much of it quite well. And the rest, well, I'll just make it up as I go along. It is also one of the earliest memories of what have been SEVERAL memories of the man who is my Favorite Father. Who dearly loves children, by the way, and he also happens to be very very smart and very very funny, but extremely DRY to the point that I don't often tell Favorite Father anecdotes because, um, well, certain well-meaning Feminist Friends when I was a young adult would occasionally hear them, misinterpret the intent, and sadly inform me that Mojo has clearly suffered and Abusive Childhood. In vain I have pointed out that our family is mostly Irish, and hence we tend to express love through verbal abuse and ruthless teasing. Eventually I learned to Just Shut Up and Not Talk About It. Which is too bad, because my beloved Favorite Father is a veritable font of some of the funniest anecdotes EVER.

I don't remember the actual birth itself, or my Favorite Mother being rushed to the hospital. All I remember was, my maternal grandparents came to live with us for a while, my Favorite Grandfather, of course, and my Favorite Maternal Grandmother, who is not my Favorite Grandmother because this is one of those rare occurences in Mojo's otherwise simple life where she actually has TWO grandmothers (no paternal grandfather, actually--well, okay, obviously there WAS one, but I never met him, and I think the only Mojo Sibling who DID meet him was today's Dirfday Girl, who met him briefly at my paternal grandmother's funeral in the mid eighties. To which I asked, "Oh, yeah? What's he like?" and she shrugged and replied, "Eh", which is a typical teenaged girl's reaction to meeting an eighty-something elderly man for the first time for three minutes total.) Anyway, to be brutally honest I suspect my Favorite Grandmother would probably NOT be my maternal grandmother anyway, for she was of good patrician stock and hence not as fun-loving as my beer-drinking card-playing Irish-born grandmother on my Favorite Father's side. But once more I digress.

Anyway, I have two vivid memories of my FYS's birth. One being after she was born, and we all went to the hospital to see my mother. But this being the draconian child-hating year of 1970, for some reason we kids were not allowed to actually ENTER the hospital to SEE our mother. And these were also the days when mothers were allowed to lounge about and rest after giving birth, taking a vacation from the three little hellions left behind, and not having to worry about the hospital measuring their bed for the next patient while it was still being occupied. So we kids stood outside on the curb with our grandparents, and my Favorite Father went in, and eventually a tiny ant that looked vaguely like my Favorite Mother came to one of the windows on a WALL of windows and we all waved and screamed at her and she and my Favorite Father silently waved back. Thus began the Era of Neglect and Deprivation that commenced once our beloved Mojo ceased to be the Youngest in the Family. But again, I digress. This whole sad tableau pales in comparison to the cruel, cruel trick our Favorite Father was to play on us wee innocent little kidlings, as we shall now see.

So my Favorite Mother was away for a good long while, and we little darlings were probably a handful for our poor elderly grandparents, who were both in their early seventies. I was in first grade, so my Favorte Brother would be in third and my Favorite Older Sister would be all grown up in fifth grade. We were all hell on wheels, I'm sure. But there came The Day when--gasp--MOM WAS COMING HOME. And the three of us were just SO excited! I remember telling my first grade teacher--Miss S; gosh, I sure hope you found a different career, because it was painfully obvious to me at six years old you didn't care much for teaching, you poor thing you---that my mother was coming home today and she was bringing my baby sister and I couldn't wait for mommy to come home and blah blah blah. Mojo has a sad tendency to turn many people to drink, and I'm sure dealing with me that day did NOT endear Miss S to the entire Teaching Profession. I like to think I was cute as a button, being all six years old and so excited and all, but perhaps not when one is dealing with twenty others simultaneously. Anyway, I wish Miss S well whatever she wound up doing, for she wasn't MEAN or anything, but gosh, she sure as heck wasn't really cut out to be a teacher.

As as SPECIAL TREAT that day instead of having to walk home my Favorite Father was picking us up in the car, which was DOUBLY fun since we usually didn't see him during the day. So we all piled into the car, all bubbly and excited, and probably all three of us shrieking about how much we missed Mom and how much we looked forward to seeing her again.

Whereupon my Favorite Father, who is a veritable master of the deadpan, finally broke in and said, "Oh, yeah. About your mother."

What about her? What about her? we shrieked.

"Uh, ummmm.... she'll be home tomorrow."

There was a pause, and then the shrieking redoubled, now with that shrill heartbroken aspect. For we were PROMISED our Favorite Mother would be home TODAY, and HOW could they DO this to us, and it JUST WASN'T FAIR, and WHY WHY WHY? To which my Favorite Father would just patiently repeat, "Your mother will be home tomorrow."

So we're all shrieking and screaming at once, and I was young enough to think that I would have to go to school tomorrow and Miss S would ask me, and I would have to tell her that it DIDN'T HAPPEN. And Miss S would then claim I was LYING, which was the WORST THING IMAGINABLE when you're six. At least back then it was. So in addition to the trauma of not seeing my mother, I had the additional crush of LYING TO MY TEACHER, and I could not imagine the punishment I would receive for THAT.

About a minute or two into this mobile soap opera, my Favorite Brother, who I suppose is the smart one of the group, finally reasoned out, "Hey, wait a minute. Just because Mom will be home tomorrow it doesn't mean she's not already home today." Whereupon my Favorite Father started smirking. Whereupon all of us started screaming "DADDY!" and shrieking questions anew about whether or not Mom would be home TODAY. Eventually we got him to admit that yes, she was home, which got us shrieking and laughing anew.

I'm sure in retrospect that's just what my Favorite Mother needed, him getting the kids all worked up just before letting them loose on her. And my new baby sister proved to be rather less than interesting, for she was asleep in the crib and just pretty much LAY there. After about five minutes of wonderment I was off playing or something.

So if you ever wonder why Mojo is the way she is....well, sure, I suppose I *could* take responsibility for my life. Or I can just blame horrible little jokes like THAT I endured throughout childhood. And remember fondly to this day.

Mojo