BellyMomma's Birthday

Today we wish a happy birthday to this little lady, all grown up.

I have a coworker who insists that a person should thank their mother on their birthdays, so let's all thank Nana and Oupa for raising such a wonderful daughter who is loving, caring and selfless enough to grow me some good looking babies. I know, for a second you thought the wonderful daughter was me, right? I figured that. I'm pretty awesome.

Nana rocks a hat, no? Almost as stylish as Oupa's hairdo. Karen is the glowing happy kid, and I'm the fat cheeked sleeping baby.

Naturally I take credit for some of Karen's patience. We younger children invade the older's lives and send our siblings though a bootcamp of making them share toys and attention, and mostly that makes them more patient. Or it makes them secretly hate us, who knows. I am lucky to have had a big sister who was a protector and let me tag along many a time.  

Wow I had fat cheeks.

As the younger child, I followed Karen's footsteps at school. In Kindergarten, I distinctly remember getting sent on an errand by my teacher to go take a note to an older grade's teacher. This particular teacher was Karen's teacher the year before, and when I arrived, she summoned the other two teachers on the hallway. LOOK! she said, and had me stand there like a specimen on display, it's Karen's little sister. OOOOOH, the other teachers said, Karen! Ooooooh, ...and they gushed and reminisced about how perfect Karen was for at least 5 minutes. And then, this is the funniest part, they inspected my hair. See, Karen had long golden locks that teachers loved and loved to brush. And I had really short dark curly hair, and no one, NO ONE should brush curly hair. I digress. My point is that Karen was obviously a kiss ass and that's why her teachers loved her.

Hahahah. Just kidding. See? Younger siblings, we do this. More than likely it was her mellow and happy ways that endeared, and still endears her to people. She's got dad's soft heart and mom's calm and caring demeanor, and people love her for both. And, now that she's older, she has my curly hair too.

Here her hair is not quite long yet, but you can see it was lighter in color. Don't you think Rhett favors her?

Happy birthday, Karen! We love you and I couldn't ask for a better big sister*

*Except for the time you kicked me off the couch and we both got spanked. That sucked, and it was totally your fault.