Growing up, I was the only person in my family of four who was the first born. My mom, my dad, my brother– all the youngest. Say what you will about birth order, it is definitely a thing. Through no fault of their own, they just don’t fully get me.
Then I had my own family and we were all first borns. Except Nate. The tables had turned. But of course like many youngest siblings, this doesn’t bother Nate one bit. He just lives his life pushing buttons and giggling hysterically. The universe showers him in effortless abundance. Money falls from the sky. He’s always living his best life.
A number of years ago I started teasing him that pretty soon, I’d be the smallest cutest member of our family.
He’d just look at me and smile– a conspiratorial sparkle in his eye. I could see the wheels turning. He certainly wanted to be taller than me. But did he want to lose his pint-sized position of privilege?
Then the week he graduated from eighth grade, Nonna declared him taller than me. But there was dissent. Big hair obscured the results.
Then we went to Japan. And bathtubs of ramen, and counters of sushi, and mile high Japanese pancakes catapulted him ahead. We arrived home and he was visibly taller. Let it be recognized that as of June 20th, 2025, I am now officially the smallest cutest member of this family.
This past Thursday night I bolt upright at 2:30AM, awakened by the fire alarm. While I power through cardiac arrest, I check the upstairs and the downstairs and confirm it’s a false alarm. Spiders? Fog? Sleep demons? I diagnose the offending alarm as the one in my bedroom, which then calls all the other ones so they all go off and a robot man makes commanding statements so that in your disoriented state, you’ll never know which one to rip from the ceiling. I grab the step ladder and realize I can’t reach the alarm to pull out the battery or end its useful life. I can only wave a towel at it and climb back into my bed, cover my head, and pray it will stop.
I really thought being the smallest cutest member of this family was going to be better.
