Cast of characters: Our baby

Our family has a baby. Well, it actually has TWO babies, but Nannygoat is the baby of the babies. I'm her great big sister, 13 months older. Nan always hopes for the best and fears the worst. She's our sensitive one. When we were little and she was scared, I reassured her, thrilled to be in my role as problem solver. "We WILL get out of these woods." "Mom and Dad did NOT leave us at this gas station on purpose and will return shortly!"

She was sooo lucky to have the best group of friends during high school and they have stayed close ever since. I mean, these girls/women are just stellar! Sure, I hated her for hogging them in high school but now I'm happy for her that they have stuck with each other through thick and thin. The truth is, she's a better friend than I. She holds a special place in the heart of people who are close to her because they are able to see her special gift of depth and caring.

She thinks she's the lowly wildebeest in life, but she's really the Goddess. She's not only gentle and caring, but a very complex individual. She's also hugely charismatic despite her attempt to conceal it by her plainsclothesman style of dressing, and the way she sometimes puffs herself up like a big people to fool us into thinking she's tough. You won't find anyone else like her so don't even try.

Nan's a Virgo and she likes her world orderly and systematic and has an amazing ability to make it that way even when she thinks she's slopping through. When others would fall on their knees and pull the old Navajo indian trick of begging and pleading for mercy, Nan would produce meals for Mom and Dad to last for a month, see that Zach has food, the dog is walked, the rooms are painted and that George is a happy camper. And at the same time, she'll remind me of how I will fffeel in some situation I'm about to blithely get myself into. I'm not sure she can always say why she knows what she knows, but if she says it, listen up!

I do have to point out, however, her anarchical side that has little respect for authority, including laws of possession. When she was 3 years old, I had to save her from being jailed for theft when she helped herself to candy on the counter of the country store at the Muskingum River while we were there on vacation. Gotta watch her! She could also get herself arrested for picketing for peace and only that would stop her once she's set her mind to it. World peace is a personal interest of hers, and a beauty of the natural world and all that inhabits it the balm of her usually troubled soul.

She's just the best friend I could ever imagine having. I can't remember life without her, and shudder at the thought of how lonely my childhood would've been without my soulmate little sister with whom I gladly shared my baby book! ;)

Oh, and in case you haven't noticed Nancy Lynn Simpkins Falter Whalen is also brainy brilliant! Words are her stock in trade. She likes the word "blovious" so I'll mention she is one blovious woman except when she's in hiding, renourishing her soul.

And let's not forget that all during the past 30+ years, she has been Mother Earth to her 3 young 'uns who had better remember to lavish her generously with thanks and praise or their bottoms will be spanked by me. ;) God didn't make people any better than my Goddess baby sister!!!