Growing up with sisters (and being the baby)

I have two older sisters, Nikki, on the left, and Erin, on the right (I guess that means I'm the short one in the middle). Nikki is 5 years older than Erin and Erin is only 17 months older than I am, so I grew up as one of the girls in "Nikki and the girls." That wasn't all bad, however. I was a very quiet and shy child (I really was, honest-to-goodness, VERY quiet and shy), so having a built-in friend was good for me, and since Erin never was quiet or shy I got involved in some things just because you can't leave out the little sister every time. I have to say one huge perk of being the baby was birthday time. My sisters' birthdays fall 5 days apart on the calendar, so the family inevitably celebrated both together. Mentality of the adults (or at least the grandparents): Angie is too young to understand why her sisters are getting presents and she is not. Yes, I got presents for my sisters' birthdays. No, they did not get presents for mine. This is, I assure you, one of the rare cases where the baby got "spoiled" growing up. (I make no attempt to deny the fact that I was spoiled when I was the last one living at home, but that's not the point here.) I was too close to my sister's age to be spoiled effectively. Being the baby did make my experience growing up different from my oldest sister's experience, certainly. For instance, my mom made my sister practice the piano for years, fighting tooth and nail the whole way. By the time I took lessons she let me quit when I said I wanted to, about a year or so into the lessons. Her attempt to stop me was, "You'll regret this in the future." (Like a 9-year-old cares about future regret!) Naturally I ignored my mother's advice, and, naturally, I regret quitting piano lessons. I do have some very fond memories of growing up with sisters. Two things I remember particularly well are the burping contests (Erin could out-burp us any day of the week, although I think the ability each of us have for burping on command made my parents think they would never marry us off - 2 out of 3 ain't bad...) and the wild horseplay (we liked to occasionally wrestle each other off of the couch - we got so loud and rowdy once that our neighbor came over to make sure everything was alright). Those were great times! All in all we were not perfect angels as children, but I am glad I grew up with my sisters.