But what's the third kid's name? Merrilee? Marian? Maryanne?

Read Dooce drunk...it's 100 times funnier...which is PRETTY damn funny.

I was the same as you Heather (I had to scroll up to remember, I am drunk) about grades in school. There is no point to this message...just that I love DOOCE!

The oldest of my two girls must have accidentally missed your family and landed into mine. There are moments when I have to walk out of the room when she's doing her homework for fear that I will shake her...and then I do my best to resist the temptation to go back and change all of her answers when she's not looking. Just to build character.

My parents have four girls and for some reason we're staggered twins. The oldest girl is almost 6' tall, brunette, super sensitive, and is married. The second oldest is barely 5'6", blonde, thick skinned, and vows to never marry. Then there is myself who is just like the oldest. I am tall, brunette, I cry at the drop of a hat and I am married. Finally the youngest is short, blonde, borderline insensitive, and also isn't interested in marriage. If you saw the four of us in a room you would think that the brunettes are sisters, the blondes are sisters, but there is NO WAY you would think all four of us are sisters. My facial features are even just like the oldest sister's but nothing like the other two. Aside from appearances, my personality is also more like the oldest where as I can't be in a room too long with the other two or they drive me crazy. Genetics can be a strange phenomenon.

Seriously, I hope Nifle is in another country, because even if you're on the east coast, where it is after 8 p.m., it's too early to be reading Dooce drunk!

Unless you're dying easter eggs...

ohh, my sister and i are those children. sort of. i did the weird thing of being very competitive about grades, but also really lazy about schoolwork. she's just bad at math, and has crazy tattoos.

I have 6-month-old triplets. Cannot wait to see how all that turns out.

I am cracking up. That is my girls. Although they're young, I can already see it. They will be so much like that when they're older.

Oh and I read the half-socked baby post too. To freaking funny. I adore baby feet. I would have been nice enough to tell you, not to whisper behind your back.

oh, wow. the whole world? and every country?

i would fail so very miserably.

I could try to be obnoxious and name them all here, but I fear that my lack of knowledge would just embarrass me.

I'm twice as old as Meredith and if I wrote my list of goals right now, I'd have exactly the same 2 and 3. In fact, the only good thing about being 26 is that I've now at least learned how to do hard stretches.

When I was in high school, I would hyperventilate if I thought I wasn't making an A. I wish I could write a letter to myself back then, advising me to inhale like the other kids and chill out.

Meredith's list of goals is admirable. And much easier achieved than my own. I might have to swap a few on my list for a few on hers.

It's a similar situation in my family.

Me? I'm pretty boring in that I'm the older child who is very organized and pretty responsible. Although I never figured I'd make it to university (lackluster grades in high school), I worked hard and was always relatively confident that something would work out.

My sister? She's sixteen now and figures everything will be handed to her, because everything HAS been handed to her. She's threatening to move out, get a job and still go to school. Everyone knows that she's dreamin', but it won't stop her. I just know she'd do it just to spite everyone.

I wish I learned earlier on that high school isn't the be all and end all...but just a stop along the way to real life...whatever that is!! I would have said, done and been whatever I wanted, and not given a shit what other people thought. Hind sight is so hard sometimes.

I'm a Junior in high school, which means that I've had three years of people telling me that the Mariahs of the world will one day conquer all and that the Merediths will become Bagpersons (Rather than baglady, because, face it, if she was a Mike, would you have any doubt why she was distracted from being anal with schoolwork?)
In 3rd grade I told myself I would be valedictorian. The next day, I forgot to turn in a homework assignment and, so I thought, my dreams were shattered. I still don't do my homework because a part of me quietly reminds me that I will fail in life and that, if my "dreams" follow through and I become a teacher, I probably will fail the kids too.
So, I'm slowly tugged from being Meredith to being Mariah. Every day I'm still constantly reminded that upper middle class snobs, such as myself, will have to fight to get into college and get scholarships - and that my Meredith moments will disgrace my family as though we lived in a Confucian society. But, I wish that for one day I could drop all remorse for my school transcript and my dismal 3.2GPA and live like a hippy and worry about all of the cute girls instead of Mao Zedong and the Pythagorean theorem - but this just isn't the environment for that.

I don't know what to say. Maybe Meredith missed the day the other kids on the playground decided to make Mariah as determined. And while both have noble efforts, ten years down the road, they could be a completely different person. So, I still don't know who is better. However, I do know how hard it is to break this caste of slacker-wanting-to-be-an-overacheiver, and that one day, none of it will matter and we will all order fastfood at the same day.

Praise Buddha that I, uh, still have my wits...

I love that God lets us have moments like that. It's like a glimpse of the past in the present. Sometimes I feel the same way...like I wish I knew then what I know now, but I guess we just have to go through it to get that knowledge and wisdom. And the journey's pretty good, too.