Happy Birthday Rachel and Jacob!

Today is Rachel and Jacob's birthday.   A happy day as my sister celebrates another year, and all of us take some time to remember our brother and imagine what he would be like at 28.  Married, I think for sure.  A couple of kids?  Maybe going to grad school at Harvard where Rachel and Jonathan would be joining him in the fall?  I sure miss him.  I always will.
But I know just where my sister Rachel is!  She is... 28? today.  (Let's see, 2012-1984=28.  Yep, 28.) She is the mother of one daughter and one son (who still needs a few months in the womb before he joins his sister).  I know that Rachel will see her twin in her son for all of his life.  She is a couple of months away from graduating from law school.  She's married to a smart, good-looking, all-around great guy named Jonathan.  She's on her way to Boston in the fall, for Jonathan to go to business school at Harvard.  And she is, and always will be my sister.
She is the first sister I had who I didn't fight with.  I never did fight with you, did I Rachel?  I cannot attribute any of my bodily scars to my sister Rachel, nor can she attribute any of hers to me.  The same cannot be said of my 1st two sisters.  :-)  (I also love you, Rosalynde and Naomi, scars notwithstanding!)
Rachel was the most beautiful baby.  (I was glad that Rachel-- the girl twin-- was the pretty baby.  Her twin, Jacob, was a cute but funny looking newborn-- although he turned into the most adorable pudgy toddler there ever was.) She grew into a beautiful, delicate, doll-like child, a drop dead-gorgeous teenager (hello?  Rose Princess!), and she is still beautiful.  She looks 18, not 28.  I'm glad she was so much younger than me, because I would have been deadly jealous of her otherwise.  As it was, I was happily proud of her.  And I still am.
Rachel will always be tied to me in a few different ways.

• First of all, she shared a room with me for at least a couple of years.  I finally was no longer a tolerable roommate for my other two sisters (see comments about bodily scars above), and so I moved into the babies' room.  How I loved those babies (and that room!).  
• Second of all, I'm pretty sure I did give her some lasting scars-- although of the psychological type.  I thought it was so fun, when she was about 3 years old and I was 10, to try to scare the living daylights out of her by looking at her and then slowly twisting my face into a snarling grimace, while raising my hands and curling my fingers into claws, while emitting a low-- and I thought terrifying-- growl.  What was I thinking??  Happily, I think she has forgiven me.  
• Thirdly, she stuttered as a kid, just like I did.  Although she did not stutter nearly as severely as I did, which I was SO thankful for.  
• Fourth, she played the violin.  I always thought she must have chosen that instrument because she wanted to be just like her older sister.  I'm still sticking to that story.  
• Fifth, I take full credit for beginning the cross-country, distance-running craze in our family, but Rachel takes the credit for bringing that obsession into its full flowering.  She ran in at least 2 Junior Olympics, including one in Baton Rouge that I got to see when she and my mom flew out to Houston to pick me up from Rice University and drive together to see her race.  
• Sixth, Rachel is my favorite girl-name, and I believe all of the short stories I wrote as a kid featured a protagonist named Rachel.  I think the real-life girl Rachel had a whole lot to do with the fact that her name was my favorite.  
• Seventh, Rachel is the only other life-science major in our family, besides me.  Naturally, this was also because she wanted to emulate her older sister in every way.  :-)  Of course she graduated with a much higher GPA than I did, had cooler lab research jobs in college, and actually worked *in her field* after she graduated, once again overtaking me on the trail I blazed.  
• Eighth, I take full credit for her marriage.  :-)  Rachel, my amazing, talented, brilliant, Rose-Princess sister, found herself in a romance-novel situation where she was trying to decide between two worthy suitors.  Through my very wise and insightful counsel, I helped her to realize the true feelings of her heart and she ended up marrying the right man-- Jonathan, who will forever be indebted to me.  I'm thinking about demanding their first-born son.  :-)  
• Ninth, Rachel once again followed her sister's footsteps by going to law school.  And once again, she is surpassing me in everything I do by actually graduating from law school.  With 1.75 children by the time she walks. 

 OK, so I guess those are more than "a few."  The point is, Rachel is amazing, and I am so lucky that she is my sister.
I can't finish this tribute without a few pictures, of course.  :-)
Here are some of my favorite baby pictures of Rachel and Jacob:

 This is the very first time I held baby Rachel.  How I loved those babies!  How I wanted twins of my very own some day!  (And I got them!)

 A classic picture of my Grandpa Hansen (in his ubiquitous light blue coveralls) holding Rachel and Jacob in front of our (new at the time) Volkswagon Vanagon.

Oh, I love this one!  My mom bathed all her babies in the kitchen sink, I think, which makes so much more sense than leaning way over into a bathtub.  I love the expressions on the babies' faces here, as well as the fact of Rachel sucking on the kitchen wash cloth.  Which I'm sure was totally clean.  :-)

Our old double stroller!!  I remember taking the babies on walks every day during the summer, recruited by my mother to try and get them to take a nap.  I'd walk down Orchard Lane to the tree in the middle of the road on Rosebank Dr., remember that, siblings?

This one made me laugh, because I spent many hours in this same position, on the couch with my twins right next to me where I could pat their backs if they started to fuss.  I'd usually fall asleep myself.  My mom's reading-- I wonder how long it took her to finish that book?  With 4 kids and 2 newborns and no dishwasher, I'm guessing a long time.  :-)

Is there anything cuter than baby twins holding hands?  I don't think so.

Although pictures of baby twins eating each others' heads ranks up there.  I'm pretty sure I have some pictures of my twins doing this.

And, because I can't resist it:

The gorgeous Rose-Princess with her mom and sisters.  If there is a word for the complete opposite of the ugly duckling in a family, Rachel is it.  :-)

I love you Rachel!  I love you Jacob!