Baby Brother Uncle

Teaching his nephew to walk.

"Baby Brother Uncle" that is what I have been calling my little brother lately. He's been an uncle to my sister's kids for a while now, but it's different now that he's my kid's uncle. I don't know, it just seems to solidify the truth that I'm aging. *Sigh*
I can still remember 21 or so years ago, my mom telling me she and Dad had exciting news to share with me. I remember immediately running through my list of potential puppy names; Champ, Rocky, Archimedes, Teddy, etc. Much to my chagrin, I was not getting a puppy, but a baby brother. My disappointment must have shown on my face, because my mother promptly began to tell me how wonderful life was going to be as a big sister. A few years later, when my brother launched his Fisher Price binoculars into my face and hit me square in between the eyes, David and Goliath style, I realized that my mother had told me one of the biggest parental fibs of my lifetime. Second only to the tooth fairy fib. (Santa Claus is real people)

Back when my baby brother was a baby!

Several years passed and my brother did an exceptional job of pestering me, and mostly doing annoying little brother things, and often times I thought how much more fun I would have had changing soiled newspapers, and being dragged through the neighborhood attached to the human end of a leash. However, somewhere, somehow, the pestyness (is that a word?) became a little subdued, and beneath all the teenage machismo, was a pretty funny kid. Now in my brother's defense, he had several sweet moments, and a lot of moments that are just down right ridiculous. Like the time he stuck so much Play-doh so far up his nose my sister and I thought we were going to have to take him to the emergency room. (But that is a whole different blog in itself)

I'm not really sure about the fake glasses. (Neither is Owen apparently)

So as I watch my baby brother, who is by legal standards a grown up, play with Owen, I hope that Owen gets as much fun and enjoyment with his uncle as I did. Here's to you baby brother, and you will always be my baby brother even when I'm 97 and you're 90 and trying to dump me out of my wheelchair.