Differences

My littlest sister has had way more health problems than the rest of us had. She's not as focused in school, doesn't have the best memory, and she's more like the Standard American Kid (though, still pretty smart), than any of us smartie-pants ever were.

So, what gives?

I figure part of it is that she has more time to be bored, seeing how she doesn't have siblings who interact on her level that often. She does have friends, though, and good ones.

I figure a bigger part of it is diet. Undoubtedly she gets more sugar than we ever did, and I guess that's it. She doesn't like the same foods we liked, but, then again, we didn't eat that great either. Lots of hot dogs in buns with ketchup, fries, chips, soda, cereal, corn dogs, mac and cheese. Mom's idea of a home cooked meal was frozen processed meat loaf with canned green beans and mashed potatoes from flakes, or mac-and-cheese with frozen peas and kielbalsa. How did our brains grow on that?

I have a theory that you might not like. Every night, we would have hot chocolate - Nesquik, with the vitamins and minerals. Yeah, it's commercial dairy and sugar, but you know what? That probably filled in a lot of gaps.

I'm going to see if my sister wants to get into that habit. She's 9, but it's never too late to make an improvement, right? Milk is better than corn chips and mac and cheese.