Being the eldest child in the family had its advantages and disadvantages. With our rationed 'TV time', we often had the same hour slotted when we three would sit in front the telly, and however older I grew, my genre was still restricted to minimal growth because the younger ones could not watch what would have been deemed 'tween' appropriate, while still toddlerish themselves. So while my own cohorts were watching Saved by the Bell and all the other cool shows with real kids I was relagated to sticking to watching, what we called, 'baby shows'.
When I think about it, I couldn't even put a finger on how they were called this -- it just seemed the natural nomenclature that we just always called children shows. And in calling them 'baby shows' we didn't even really distinguish the two words; to our minds, it was one word, the label itself, that was the descriptor; we didn't pause to think it was really two independent words, 'baby' and 'shows' and moreoever, the first meaning we were...babies. It was just 'babyshows' and that meant the cartoons and puppety-type children programs we grew up watching.
Likewise, as the original leader - by default of age (advantage)- of us siblings, I had cultivated a whole sibling vocabulary that was totally exclusive to only us. And remembering and ruminating on their origins also totally amuses and mystifies me. For example, high heels were only known to us as 'cracking shoes'. And bras, to our innocuous minds yet to be filled with universal labels and names, were declared to be called 'booby patches'!
I have to admit, I look back at my younger self with great amusement, but lots of pride. I am constantly amazed at my capacity for random creativity and ingenuity at such a young age. When I think of that younger me, I almost can't recognize her as the same me who is I right now, it's almost like this little bundle of imagination who is another child altogether, and a child I feel total love and protectiveness and a sort of internal craving to have a child of my own just like her.
