Someone like Me

Two years and two months ago, my mom decided to stop using birth control because she figured that having four kids and being forty-eight years old was probably enough to shrink her ovaries forever or something more scientifically accurate along those lines. Two years, one month and twenty-nine days ago, my mom became pregnant with our fifth sibling, solidifying the fact that my mom might be literally the most fertile woman on this planet; oh, and that my parents might be the oldest couple in existence that still love each other like that. Being the worst-case-scenario type, I reacted instinctively by crying, not because I realized my parents were still having sex, but because I was sure she was going to die. Because she was old. Albeit still very beautiful and a great cook and a great mother to the four kids she already had.

But by God's grace, she didn't die, and I now have a one year and four month old baby sister named Zoey. 

Cute huh? ^That was a lucky shot: the rest of the photo shoot (and the rest of our trip) was more along the lines of:

From the beginning, I proved to be one of the worst sisters Zoey could have asked for. To be fair, I never had a thing for cute things that are supposed to be cute. Like puppies or cats that fit into teacups or babies.When affronted by some super dog-lover shoving their super loved dog in my face expecting me to hold it or something completely outrageous like that, I would just kind of smile and in a voice way higher than normal, say something along the lines of, "Oh, how....lovely," and then awkwardly fold my arms across my chest to indicate that no, I am not a fellow super dog lover, I am actually not a normal human being, thanks for asking. Same goes for babies. Not even the ones that are ACTUALLY cute, like this one: 

which I'm guessing it supposed to be cute since I googled "cute baby" and this little fellah popped up. He'll do, since he's wearing a Santa hat, and let's be timely and festive here. But anyway, they never appealed to me. They just seemed kind of drooly and poopy, and just took up resources that fully functioning members of society could have used, people who actually, you know, contribute something to the world. But I guess I assumed that the black hole in my heart that is supposed to code for love of cute things would have been magically filled when Zoey popped out, but much to my surprise, and chagrin, it didn't. 

For the first couple of months, she just seemed like this thing that took up space, and cried at inappropriate hours of the night, and took my room, and pooped every ten minutes, and then ate mush, and then pooped some more, and then slept in my room, and woke up ten minutes later. And I wanted to love her, God knows I did. She has this toothy, grandpa smile and when she wants to be affectionate, she is the cuddliest thing in the wide world. Though to be perfectly honest, most of the time, my initial reaction to hearing her cry or scream to have her diaper changed or to feed her would be:

But then, a couple of months ago, when her personality started to roll in, it became clear to me that I could not love her the way I wanted to, and even more clear that she was starting to look and act a lot like me. 

NOT a good thing. If you want living proof that humans are sinful by nature, Zoey is my exhibit A. (Baby Josephine would have been exhibit B. Toddler Josephine exhibit C. Preschool Josephine exhibit D. etc. etc.) If you feed Zoey something she doesn't like, she'll just throw it on the ground. Like, literally, this could be the theme song to her life:

Oh, and this would be the meme to her life:

If you try to play with her or read to her or amuse in her a way that is not worthy of Her Excellency, she will again, throw the book/toy/finger puppet on the ground. (Play aforementioned song ^ to complete visual imagery). After ten minutes of trying, because we share the same DNA, I in turn react like this:

(but obviously without the sharp blade. obviously.)

And when you try to teach her anything, she demands to do it herself. Like when I tried to teach her how to feed herself with the spoon the other day; she demanded to hold it herself and cried while yanking it out of my hand, only to choke on it while playing with it in her mouth, and consequently puking out her breakfast all over her clothes and her high chair, and then looking at me like it's my fault and that I'm supposed to clean it up. Baby, please. 

And I guess the biggest woopy doo of this whole thing is that she is the mini-me to my Doctor Evil. 1) She looks likes me: we both have eyes that take up less than 1% of the total surface area of our face, so it's amazing we don't run into things more often. 2) She is likewise stubborn: she will run (or more like quickly wobble) fast and hard, fall down, get up, repeat and then keep running at the same speed and wobble angle even when it has obviously proved fatal. 3) We have violent tendencies: she likes to throw things that don't amuse her, I like to throw things that don't work. 4) We are selfish: we know what we want, and want what we want, and don't want it any other way. 5) We both think we're so independent but we're not: Zoey will scream and shout to do it all by herself, but there is nothing that she can actually do without our help. In the same way, I have been able to do nothing in this life without grace from God and the support of my family and friends, and yet I think I'm able to do things on my own. 

Case in point:

When we first started to teach her stuff, my parents would always say, "Ni ji ji (fill in the blank with verb)" to tell her to do it herself. When I asked them why they didn't say the correct pronunciation, "Ni Zi Ji," which literally means "you, on your own," my mom answered that it was because when I was growing up, and they tried to help me do something, I would grab it myself and declare "Wo ji ji!" (wo meaning me in Chinese.) But because I couldn't say Zi as a toddler, I reverted to say Ji Ji, which unbeknownst to baby me, means penis in Chinese. So basically, to be blunt, whenever my parents tried to teach me how to hold a spoon, I would yell, "My penis!" When they tried to teach me how to put on a jacket, "My Penis!" How to put on my shoes: "MY PENIS!" (So how can you blame me for being crude now when my parents did nothing to prevent my exclamation of profanities when I was a baby, and are now even teaching it to Zoey?!) 

What most of my childhood looked like:

But don't get me wrong: she's not just a screaming, angry little running monster. She has parts of her that I can't help but love, like how she always wants to learn from us. When we talk on the phone, she also grabs a cell phone nearby and holds it next to her ear and chats away. When I do my workout videos, she stands next to me and starts squatting. When we are ordering from a menu, she also looks at the waiter and points at it. And she's adorably curious: she's always picking things up, inspecting it, (and then throwing it on the ground), but nevertheless wanting to discover what everything does. If you're playing with something and put it down, it's almost guaranteed that almost ten seconds later, she will have wobbled over and started inspecting it.

But what kind of sister am I and what kind of love do I give if I only love her when she is a cute little squatting baby, but not when she is the tantrum-throwing, selfish little fireball that spews throw up and poo everywhere? Why is it that I can't love and forgive her for the things that so classically embody my own personality, when my family has obviously put up with it for the last 19 years, and when God has been able to love and forgive me despite my shortcomings? I guess that is why I have always had a hard time accepting that God has unconditional love, because I don't. I don't understand how God could love the monster that lives inside me, when it battles so hard for power over the Holy Spirit that is also supposed to dwell inside me. I don't understand how God, who is perfect and holy and faultless, could look upon my imperfections and find it beautiful or worthy of His love, because I don't. And I look at my baby sister, and see her starting to look and act a lot like me, and it scares me because I see how much I despise the characteristics about her that she has no control over, and that I do, and yet still struggle with on a daily basis. And I can't understand how God could still have patience with me after all this time, when I have declared so proudly my independence from his control for so long, when if I were him, would have already long ago thrown my hands up and given me up to the fate I deserve, and when I can't even fight with Zoey for 10 seconds over control of the spoon before losing my patience. It scares me because there are obvious conditions to my love: I will love you if and only if you are calm, laughing, cuddly and clean. I will not love you if you are pooping, throwing up, screaming or fighting with me. It scares me because I don't understand how my parents could have looked at me with love when I raised hell and ran away from home and disrespected their rules and dishonored the way they tried to raise me, and still do. It scares me because it has become quite clear to me that I don't understand love, not at all.