of side pony tails and doughnuts

[billy]

the rythm question that's been hovering round your poem.
i'm fine with long or short,blank or free verse. what i want is for the poem to resonate with me. after that you can tweak the structure. as it is, both long and short work for me. what would i prefer. i'd prefer a longer line mainly because it's a narrative poem

Five years old, and I couldn't
hear my mother's broad accent.
There were three siblings and me
I was the side-pony tailed,
the stubborn queen of antics.

not a rewrite, just a suggestion or way to go. ( the suggestion can be easily improved on) i love the edit you did. and like i said , the short lines don't cause me distress.
though i did notice three 'but's' in the last three stanza. are any of them needed? (i missed them first time round )

revision (thanks to milo and billy)

5 years old
and I couldn't hear
my mother's accent.

There were four of us,
I was the side-pony tailed,
stubborn queen of antics.

Big brother was my idol
oh I envied
his striped dinosaur blanket.

He envied right back
my room to myself.
(Even if it was pink.)

I ignored my little brothers
with a toss of my hair.
Anyway, they were boring.

That day we went grocery shopping;
always a delicious adventure
for big brother and me.

We littered pistachio shells
snuck from bulk food bins;
mom pretended not to see.

She got us glazed doughnuts
we munched them through the aisles,
forgot to beg for brand-name cereal.

She paid by showing the cashier
our sticky faces and two
waxy bakery papers, empty.

Feeling somewhat devious, we schemed
and under the egg cartons, slipped
the new Carmen Sandiego VHS, just out.

I don’t really remember,
but it was probably my idea…
me, the sneaky sister.

Baby brother distracted mom at checkout
but our little lying faces told
of an illicit triumph.

We couldn't hear her accent.
But that day,
the whole parking lot did.