My Not-So-Baby Brother

In three days, my brother turns 29.  Twenty-nine!!

I hate to - COUGH*gleefully*- tell you that Rich was an ugly baby.  Like, if I was his mother, I'd smack my husband upside the head upon seeing my kid for the first time kind of ugly.  In fact, he was so ugly we have pictures of him perched in his high chair smacking his own face. 

Twenty-something years later, miracle of miracles, Rich morphed into a tall, good-looking doctor with manners above reproach and the biggest heart on the planet.  

The two of us were latchkey kids of hard-working immigrant parents who strove to provide for us the best they possibly could.  Being the know-it-all big sister, I gleefully took advantage of having someone to boss around a lot.  Over the years, I taught him to read (he was one of the only two kids in kindergarten who knew how!), I made up songs to teach him the days of the week and the months of the year, I ordered him to finish his veggies, I beat up the mayor's son who bullied him on the basketball court, I let him ride on the handlebars of my bike (until his foot got tangled in the spokes, yikes - sorry, Rich!), I marched him home on the bus after school and got him his snack (and oftentimes dinner)... in short, I lorded it over him.  

I left for college while Rich was still in junior high.  And when it was his turn for college, I was states away in law school.  He moved nearer to me for medical school and his intern year, but I was being worked like a donkey in a big New York City law firm, so our schedules didn't allow us many chances to see each other.  Last year, he married his college sweetheart, and he's now a medical resident based in Boston.  We haven't gotten to spend much time together after we grew up, but strangely, in the past couple of years, we've gotten back closer.  

I'm very proud of what Rich has achieved in his personal life and his career.  I know it's been a tough year for him during his first year of residency - and a new marriage and a new city to boot! - so I wanted to get him something that I know he's been wanting for a while now - a really awesome pair of noise-cancelling earphones.  I feel really lucky that I am close enough with him that I actually know what he has been lusting after.

Come to think of it, if Rich turns 29 in three days, in a bit over another week, I'll be turning...

Gaaaaaaaaah.  Let's not go there.  

Happy birthday, Booger!